Shake Down ...... with Mixed Results

It's been a too long since my last blog entry so I will start with an apology.

Right what has happened since my last blog?

Well, "the Shed", has been on a series of shake down runs in order to sort out any weaknesses or to see if any bits actually fall off. Well one or two bits have actually fallen off (one very minor the other major).

First the major one. On the way home from work a few weeks back the bike started to behave rather oddly weaving badly in roundabouts, on inspection I was horrified to find the rear wheel was loose, now I know I torqued every thing up properly and cant for the life of me understand how this has happened. I also found play in the rear swing arm so that needed adjustment too, whether these two things are related is unknown. Anyway It resulted in a through and detailed examination of the drive train and everything seems fine and I have tripled checked everything and every nut and bolt has witness marks to see if anything else is falling off.

The minor thing was I lost a bolt from the windscreen

All the above was tested on a big ride out over the Easter brake. Just me this time as I was heading for a stag weekend in Scotland and Sandra had some family to see and collect parts for sorting the house out.

My Niece (who also rides bikes by the way) is getting married and it's the tradition to take the groom (bike rider also) out for a bit bash along with some beers etc. Now since most of the immediate family ride bikes, it made sense to have a biking weekend.

I rode up from Southampton to the Dumfries and Gallowayarea in Scotland (via a stop over in Preston), We rode around some fantastic roads over the weekend, I can really recommend this area for some great biking roads Now "The Shed" was not the fastest bike there but it (and I) did well against some exotic machines from Ducati Honda and Aprila, I think we kept up OK.

The ride back was just fantastic setting off early on a cold and very misty morning, I intended to get back to Southampton In one go, and as the early morning moved on the temperature went up and the roads remained quiet of holiday traffic.

I managed the 400 miles in about 5.5 hours (I did stop for lunch) and it felt good knowing I can still do reasonably high miles should the need arise.

The Shed behaved herself and now returns good MPG after CW Motorcycles in Dorchester solved the miserable fuel consumption I had previously experienced.

Oh one other thing I had bought new discs for the shed and after only 1500 Miles both front discs have warped. I tried to save money by going for a cheaper option but basically there discs are rubbish and will be sent back to the manufacture with a strongly worded letter,

So we have reached our target of 2000 miles on the shed and (after a bit of messing about) will be declared, "ready"

You may have seen that we have added a connection to the SOS Children?s Village charity on our home page. This charity does some amazing work and we will be visiting some of the villages on our trip. Please give there website a viewing and if you feel you can donate a small amount then we have added a donate button to allow this.

Time now runs short. We have only 54 days to go or I have only 28 working days left, which means only 15 trips to work in the car (I stay away from home some nights). Not that I am counting you understand. I think we are both feeling the strain a little now, We have had some busy weekends and both maintaining full time jobs with so much to get done its beginning to tell.

Still we have our leave date and if its all done or not we will be gone.