The new chain cover

I have a six years old Abus security chain on the bike. It is an Abus Granite Extreme Plus. When I bought my bike, the CBF 600 in 2011, I have kind of overspent on security a bit. It was around £300 pounds, but it is a very secure lock. The only problem it had was that the cover was wearing out, so every time I took it off the bike, the chain touched the rim, causing some scratches. So i looked around and decided to buy a new chain cover. I bought one from Rydestore.com, for less than £2! (https://www.rydestore.com/ryde-heavy-duty-fabric-chain-cover-1-8m.html). On a Friday just after work I thought I would dress up the chain in its new cloth, it should not be longer than five minutes. I was so wrong! I needed around one hour for the whole process. I have noticed that the chain has a very thoughtful design, at the end of the last link, there is a plastic piece that closes the whole thing. I was struggling with it as I tried to put it through the new cover. However it turned out it is possible to take the plastic off and back on, as you can see on the following picture:

Eventually it is like I a new chain:

The project bike

I have bought a second bike! The story started a few years earlier when I was working at my previous company. I had a polish colleague who was using a 2004 Yamaha 125 Dragstar for commuting. However he moved closer to the company, so close he could walk to work, so he parked his bike at the back of the office and left it there. For FOUR long years! I felt sorry for the bike from the beginning, I even covered it with my old bike cover, when I bought a new one. Anyway last year (2016) in August I asked him if the bike is for sale. Eventually we agreed in £150! So this is how it looked like when I bought it.

I have shipped it to Hungary (my home country) and fixing it up. I enjoy doing some DIY especially on motorbikes. So what was needed to do:

• Clean the tank
• Clean the carb
• Replace the carburator joint (it was quite worn)
• Charge or replace the battery
• Replace the sprokets and the chain
• Clean off the rust from the chrome

So far at the time of writing (2017 may), I have done everything, except replacing the carburator joint the sprokets and the chain. When the bike will be repaired completely, it will go through a naturalization process to get a hungarian license plate.

This is how it looks now:

Change lane without indicating

I know it has been a long time since my last post. A loads of things happened in my biker world, so will add other posts soon. Last week when I was riding to work there was a incident which was very close to became an accident. A car has started to change lane with indicating exactly at the time I got there. I had the helmet camera, so recorded the event.

I have rewatched the video a few times and also asked my colleague who is an IAM instructor to take a look at it. What I have learned from this experience:

• Treat bus lanes like filtering, slow down especially when the other lane is filled with stationary traffic. In this video I was doing maximum 20-25mph, and still the accident almost happened.
• Check the road layout. Expect that cars to pull at any time without indicating, especially before junctions.
• Check the wheels. On the video the wheel start turning seconds before the car moves. I know it is kind of hard to take a look at the wheels too, but you need to add it to your information gathering phase.
• Have a louder muffler. I am researching this option, but event the slip on mufflers are quite expensive (£2-300).

MOT and service = £177 plus 2 scratches

The August has arrived, for me that means the MOT runs out for the CBF. So I took the bike to Chasbikes in Kennington one day last week. ( I don't know why I took my bike to these guys as previously they forgot to connect the petrol sensor, so I ran out of petrol. The light just did not come up. It turned out the cables were not connected. It was back in March.) Anyway, they rang me the same day, saying that it has failed the MOT as the handlebar is too bent. I know it is bent, as some people in Streatham cannot park (see some of the previous posts.). OK, I said that's fine if it cannot pass the MOT without it, then it needs to be replaced. I was thinking about replacing it myself, but my throttle cables are quite short so I would need to fiddle with the carburetor end, and did not want to take the bike apart on the street. So they ordered the bar and yesterday I left the bike at the workshop in the morning. I have also given them the Oxford adventure heated grips I bought earlier to install it. I wanted to do it myself, but as they will remove the grips anyway, I could not see the point to do the work twice. So I went back at the evening to pick up the bike. All looked good, payed 177 pounds in total, which included the 85 pounds bar and the 50 pounds labor plus some VAT. So I was quite happy until this morning when I found that there are new scratches on the bike I did not see before. Here they are:

They made me a bit angry as I am always trying to preserve the state of the bike and then you take it to a place where you pay and then they mess it up. A few people told me to go back and complain, but unfortunately I cannot prove it as I did not take a picture before I left the bike there. So the lessons learned for the future:

• Take pictures before you leave your bike at a workshop
• Before you leave after you got the bike back check everything on the bike so you can go back immediately if there is a problem

I am not saying that this happens with every bike at Chasbikes, but for me they are finished. They got their two yellow cards, so this was the last time they saw me.  I am looking into training, to do most of these maintenance myself, as after this I just cannot trust anyone enough to leave my bike with him. Oh, and another important rule: If you find a good mechanic, stick to it.

BikeSafe training

One of my colleague has sent me an email a few weeks ago about bikesafe (http://www.bikesafe.co.uk/), which is a government funded scheme to reduce the number of motorcycle accidents. He also told me that the London councils support the scheme ( http://love.lambeth.gov.uk/bikesafe/ ) and they are happy to pay for it (Usually it is 45 pounds). So after a quick email to the council they replied with a code which I used to register on the bikesafe website. I registered for last Sunday, 24th of July. So after collecting my MOT and insurance papers, on this nice cool Sunday morning, I have set off to participate in the training. The trainers are all police bikers, doing it on voluntary bases. I had to go to the MET sports ground in south Croydon, which is only half an hour from me. There was a one and a half an hour theoretical training about how accidents happen in different scenarios like junctions, corners. After that, each officer had got two bikers assigned to and then we set off for the first ride-out. This included riding in the town, busy areas, filtering. Then we were having chat over a nice lunch. After that we had the second ride-out, which was more fun as we were riding on nice twisty kentish roads. One of the bikers, the one who had been assessed, was riding on the front, the other one behind the police rider. First I thought, it would going to be annoying, that you have a police biker constantly behind you, but after a while even forgot he was there! He had to use the horn a few times to let me know that we need to turn left or right. We had to switch a few times, the biker on the front had to change his place with the rider on the back. After the ride-out we went back to the MET sports ground, and the trainers had filled out a feedback form for each riders. I have got grade B for my riding, which mean I am a good, confident rider and have made some minor errors. He told me in which situations I should have done better. I am quite happy with the results and learned a lot, mostly about positioning the bike in the corners to get the best visibility. I have read books like police roadcraft where all is this is written down, but when you see it in action, then it is a different story. I have uploaded a short video, just pay attention where the police rider positions his bike:

The narrower the gap, the higher the speed

Usually when I need to get closer to vehicles, I reduce my speed, just in case something happens I would be able to stop. Not this guy on the Yamaha scooter. You can say he knows his stuff, but if any one of the bus drivers moves out with only a few inches he would have made some damage...

And it happened...again!

I had a posts earlier about how to park your bike on the street. Well as mentioned you can only reduce the risk, but there will always be a chance that someone is going to knock it over. Two weeks ago it had been knocked over again. To be honest it was a bit my fault as well, as I parked at the end of a one car size space. I should have parked at the front of it, although the street is two way, but most of the cars are coming from one direction. As always the break lever got broken, 22 pounds damage, and the handlebar got a bit more bent. I had already replaced the lever. This event made me thinking though. As it is always the break lever that gets broken I have come up with an idea to protect the lever in these incidents. Voila:

It has made out of a very light, but tough material. It had not been tested and hopefully will never be.