Counting Down

Less than 3 weeks to go now, till I head off to Europe, in search of memorials and motorcycle racing. I've managed a few trips to Spitfire Club on Ginny this last month and am really looking forward to putting another couple of thousand miles on her clock. Here's an interesting fact; I put fuel in Ginny on Monday 3rd June. The last time I fuelled her up, was 4th September! It's even longer since she last had a bath, so I'm hoping to get that done before we set off.

As mentioned in the previous post, Ginny's warranty expires whilst I'm away, least it was to have done. I've renewed again, taking Mark the mechanic's advice. That done, I'm currently working on getting all the necessary paperwork together, and starting to think about what I'm going to pack. How few pairs of pants can I get away with for the fortnight, leaving enough room for some beers on the return journey? 🤔

Apart from the odd day, we're still waiting for summer to arrive, so I'm hoping things perk up soon. I don't fancy spending 2 weeks in my waterproofs! In prep for this trip, I've washed my mesh jacket. Not sure it had ever been done since I bought it in 2018, and it's been through some sweltering temperatures in the interim period, so definitely needed it. Having done that, I decided to upgrade the armour in it. That it came with, was thick rubber. Probably effective but quite uncomfortable. One of the shoulder pads had come loose (velcro shagged) on tour last year, so I needed to do something. So, on the way back from Bognor, a few weeks back, I stopped off at Motolegends in Guildford, the place where I bought the jacket, and purchased some more modern, thinner and more comfortable armour. It took some fiddling, to get it in the right position but now it is in, it is so much more comfortable and flexible. I bought some extra for my jeans but have yet to fit that, as I need to get some heavy duty sticky backed velcro to fix it in place.

The Old Armour

The New Armour

Some other prep I've been up to, is washing all the padding from my crash helmet (again, not been done since 2018), installing the latest Tomtom maps (and the route maps), and updating the firmware of my Sena headset, so, I'm not far off being ready to go.

Think that is all for now.

Testing times

So, Ginny had her MOT and failed!!! Apparently, her headlight was out of alignment. How that occurs, I have no idea. However, the fault was rectified and the re-test passed. Good for another year. That was completed a few days before Catherine and I went on holiday, so there was no chance of actually getting out on her, and since we got back, the weather has been pretty shite too.

Besides the MOT, I also had to renew the insurance. Plenty of searching for quotes turned up nothing better than the company I was already with, so I renewed with them.

Ginny's service was also due, not due to mileage but to time. As she is out of service contract now, I decided to go to an independent garage, rather than the official dealers I have been using. The guy, Mark, is an ex Motorrad mechanic, who went solo. He services police bikes and  bikes owned by police motorcyclists, so that sounds like a decent enough recommendation in itself. He was originally recommended to me about 5 years back. I used him for fitting some tyres but this is the first time under his spanners proper. It's Ginny's 36k service, a big one, which, even at an independent, comes at a big cost. I booked her in for 30th of April, and he'd told me he'd need 2 days. Beside the service, I asked him to carry out the recall work on the footrest circlips, to check a possible water pump leak, and investigate the overheating problem I've had since the last big service. Grizzly's mate Fox (I think they must all be named after animals in Ireland! 😂) said he thought it had not been re-filled properly, so there was possibly an airlock. Mark reckoned that was highly likely, as he's come across this before. He says there are 3 drain plugs but one is difficult to get to, so some of the main dealers only use 2, which leads to air getting trapped. When he undid that plug, rather than coolant escaping, it was air. Well sussed Fox. He replaced some o-rings on the water pump but has asked me to keep an eye on it. It might even be a problem with the pump itself. If so, that's a warranty job. I have the BMW extended warranty, and Mark recommends keeping that, so I'll be renewing that before I head off  in June. I picked Ginny up this morning and am now looking forward to some decent weather. Fingers crossed. 🤞🏻

That's about all the news for now, except, I have been investigating/planning a trip to Italy and Spain, for World Superbikes, in September. I have routes mapped out and hotels booked but as yet, I/we are undecided if we will do it. Watch this space for that one.

Bye for now.