Diary

Midweek Blast

| Richard

Well what an evening that was!

On my way in to work this morning, I got a text from Purge asking if I was up for a rideout down to Hampshire. After much contemplation – I finish work late and I’m flying out to Athens later today – I decided that yes I was.

And so it came to pass that I headed off from the apartment down to meet up with Purge, Matt, Pal, Agent64, Pathfinder Rob, Mr Bosch and MP at Alton Station Café, which I found out was a bike meet! From there we blasted off down to bike night at Loomies where I happily scoffed down some chips with sliced mushrooms and chopped bacon, topped with melted cheese. Fantastic!  Just as I was leaving, Young Burchy showed up on his 7R so it was good to meet him too.

Not so good was Agent64 getting a puncture in the rear tyre of his ‘Blade thanks to stone chips all over the A31. Bugger!

Despite the evening getting much colder now, we then headed off at a spirited pace to the Pub With No Name at Prior’s Dean where we grabbed a pint and sat outside watching the darkness settle in. I left around 10pm to head home but decided shortly after setting off that I was getting quite cold and should stop off en route at GT’s place for a coffee to warm up, so I used the SatNav’s Bluetooth link to my iPhone and Scala headset to ring her up and invite myself over. Good call (literally)!

Then home at midnight and 135 miles later, only to be greeted by the bad news that YB had dropped the 7R after an incident with a deer on his way home. Bugger!

 

Welcome Home Blue Rex!

| Richard

Well today I went to collect the ZRX from PDQ post-fettling. And yes, I think it looks great!

Larry mentioned that Nick had test-ridden it just to be on the safe side after they’d achieved their best-ever dyno results for a ZRX1200R on standard carbs/bores. I’d asked for a 44T rear sprocket as before and Larry suggested it would be sensible to go back to a 42T at some point as Nick had come back wide-eyed and declared it a tad berserk… We’ll see tomorrow!

IMG_1492 IMG_1512 IMG_1515 IMG_1498 IMG_1507

PDQ Dyno Results

| Richard

Well the results of the engine work and fettling at PDQ are in: up to 158bhp at the rear wheel! Well done to Larry and the team.

Dyno Chart

Dyno Chart

Also interesting is that that was up from 130bhp before their engine work and after I’d fitted a full Akrapovic system and rejetted it myself a while before.

And to put all that into context, it was dyno’d standard but with an Akrapovic end can in July 2005 and put out 114bhp (up from c. 108bhp as standard at the rear wheel).

Fuerteventura Easter 2011

| Richard

I thought it was about time I took the kids – if you can call them that: 19 and nearly 15 – away with me on holiday, so over Easter I took the two of them to the luxury villa I’d stayed at before in Corralejo on Fuerteventura.

The villa had its own heated pool as well as a heated jacuzzi which meant we could relax around the pool, have a night-time  jacuzzi or swim to cool down.

We used it as a base before driving out to other parts of the island or to the long, long sandy beach and dunes.

Then our evening would consist of heading into Corralejo itself for a really nice meal in one of the nicer restaurants before heading to the Rock Island Bar to chill out, have a few drinks and listen to some live acoustic rock music. And my girlfriend and friends could keep tabs on us with the audience webcam!

Anyway, here are a few photos including one of the baby mouse that I rescued from our pool one morning!

Corralejo Beach
Dunes
Villa’s Pool By Night
Pool By Night
Bombing Jack
Relaxed in the Evening
Dropped My Ice-Cream
Tapas: Before…
Tapas: 19 Minutes After…
Cheers!
Jack in Silhouette
Rock Island Bar
Little Richard
Heading Out for Dinner
Paella
Tapas and Pizza
Starters at the Fish Restaurant
Mains at the Fish Restaurant
Rescued Mouse

TLC at PDQ Update

| Richard

A quick update on Blue Rex’s progress: it turns out that reprofiling my standard cams would have been experimental and Larry wasn’t prepared to experiment on a customer’s bike, so we agreed to buy a new set of ZZR1200 cams after all along with stronger valve springs.

As the clutch had been slipping on track for a while, I also asked Larry to upgrade the clutch plates and springs whilst it was apart.

In the intervening period, its MoT has expired so it’s been MoT’d and passed.

Worse was yet to come: PDQ have been awarded the sole concession for Dymag wheels worldwide and was offering an introductory deal … so a set of 7 spoke magnesium alloy wheels in satin black are going on with a new, slightly larger section Bridgestone BT016 tyre (which should be fine for our planned Ardeche Valley trip in June) rather than a full-on trackday tyre. Oh and as my secondhand Akrapovic full system would be looking out of place now, I’ve upgraded to a new hexagonal system with carbon fibre end can to set it all off – the removed parts will be for sale on the OC when I collect it. As that won’t be for a week or two, PDQ will run the engine in on the dyno and do a pre and post run-in dyno run for a reading as to what the engine is putting out.

Another Lost Weekend (or Two)

| Richard

The last weekend of March saw an unexpected visit to see GT on the Friday night then going home to shower and change before heading off to photograph Marlyn: her outfits were mainly rubber dresses – photos to follow!

Then change and back to meet GT at Waterloo as we were going to the Blueprint Café for a romantic meal for two. They were taking part in lastminute.com’s London Restaurant Week so I thought we’d give them a try and we were impressed: great food for both of us (a meat-eater and a pescatarian).

A nice drive back to Epsom where GT and I went to the pub for lunch … before heading off to another pub for the rest of the afternoon in the sun.

This weekend started with me going straight from work to collect GT from Waterloo: yes, we were going to another participating restaurant, Le Pont de la Tour overlooking Tower Bridge; a restaurant I’d been to before with colleagues. Obviously, when you buy a decent bottle of wine and a few liqueurs, it adds up to a few quid, but the food and service were excellent and our romantic meal was made all the more special by us sitting outside in the warm summer evening on the Thames.

Instead of heading back to Waterloo, GT decided to stay over at mine, so we grabbed a taxi and headed back and spent the next few hours getting to grips, shall we say, with a Lush Fever massage bar – it’s really a plus to go out with a qualified masseuse and sports therapist! After grabbing just a couple of hours’ sleep, I drove GT home, we grabbed breakfast and then I headed off to Norfolk to see my ‘kids’.

Pre-match lunch at Nando’s as usual then on to watch Norwich completely overwhelm a bunch of under-performing men from North Lincolnshire (hmm, who does that remind me of?) by way of their 6-0 victory over Scunthorpe. And yes, there I was standing loud and proud at the front of the Barclay on the telly later: pity my Sky box didn’t record it!

Sunday saw Jack score an excellent goal with a header before we headed off into Norwich for lunch at John Lewis before buying some more luggage for our forthcoming holiday in the sun.

Then back to the apartment to watch MotoGP and a decent film with a big dinner and wine.

Life is good!

Le Weekend

| Richard

Well that was a great weekend! Friday evening saw me over at GT’s for a lovely meal out and a few drinks afterwards.

An early start on Saturday heading back to mine before going down to Hastings to meet up with “the Kreiga Krew”: a bunch of mates all heading off for a biking holiday in the Ardeche Valley in June.

Lots of drinks and a Nepalese meal before an atrociously poor couple of games of pool in the pub and back to Yox’s for more drinking and a very late night!

Sunday morning and Yox did us a huge breakfast with eggs to rival even mine. Diverted on my way back to go to GT’s.

She had just completed a 15 mile race in a new Personal Best! I’m so proud of her!

Cuddles in front of the telly watching “Being Human” on BBC iPlayer before heading out for a meal: walking into town! Where does she find the energy?

Great weekend!

Stolen

| Richard

A week to the the day that I brought it down to London, it’s been stolen from Rotherhithe: locked and chained up in the garage at my flat.

It’s a red and black 2006 Honda CBR1000RR-6 Fireblade, registration number RV06MVL, VIN: JH2SC57A46M204191 Engine Number SC57E2204623

Thieving scum. I hope they get killed on it.

TLC at PDQ

| Richard

Well after Robspeed Motorcycles at Grimsby serviced Blue Rex and left it misfiring within 3 miles of their workshops, I decided the time had come for Blue Rex to get some fettling and proper setting up.

I’d been keeping a set of cams I’d been sold a few years ago which I was told were ZZR1200 cams. So I rang Larry Webb at PDQ in Berkshire to ask him what he suggested. He recommended fitting those cams, gas-flowing the cylinder head, fitting high compression pistons (in the existing bore sizes) and then fettling it all together properly, so I dropped it off and have left them to it.

Bad news came recently: the cams I’d been sold were actually standard ZRX1200R cams so I now have the existing ones plus a set of new ones. Larry is going to send them to the States to get them re-profiled instead as that’s what they used to do back in the day. This will add a few hundred pounds more to the existing quote, but is cheaper than buying new ZZR1200 cams which are silly expensive.

We’ll see what results we get.