MoT 2023 and the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride

Posted by RHM on 25 May 2023
Posted in: Accessories, Diary, Kawasaki, Multimedia, Photos. Tagged: , , , . Leave a Comment

We’re approaching MoT anniversary, so I thought I’d get in there early and book the ZRX in for an MoT at a local bike shop, A Force Motorcycles in Aldershot.

I trotted up there yesterday and a thorough MoT test was carried out … with Blue Rex’s first ever failure!

The Clear Alternatives LED rear light illuminates red (and amber with the integrated turn signals) but does not shine white light down onto the numberplate, so it’s a fail. There is what appears to be a small pilot type LED which might perform that function, but the general consensus appears to be that there isn’t one. I may be able to bodge something together, but in the meantime, I rode home and then took off the rear seat cowl – revealing a missing bolt to hold the rear mudguard and under seat plastic in place, so that was replaced. I then disconnected the LED light and refitted the OEM red one (having popped to the local Jet petrol station to get a couple of 21/5W tail/stop lamps) which I keep with all the other OEM parts I’d taken off*.

I also fitted the marginally larger numberplate – I think it’s the same sized font, but just more space around it – which was the other fail item – and then this morning popped back for a free retest and pass certificate.

Mileage this year is 19,621 miles, up 159 miles from last year.

*Now we’ve moved out of London, I’m expecting to do more miles on Blue Rex, such as last weekend’s Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride in Guildford & Surrey Hills, so I’ve removed the “spools” and refitted the grab rails for Alison.  Next job is removing the rear sets and refitting the standard footrests.

Here are some photos from the DGR:

Alison guarding Blue Rex
Nimbus
Midway Point
Kettles
Hog’s Back Brewery
MV Agusta
Midway Point
Guildford High Street
Guildford
Journey’s End
Alison checking her iPhone
Laverda Jota
Hog’s Back Brewery
Alison guarding Blue Rex
Guildford High Street
Guildford High Street
Joe Wicks, Alison and me
Alison checking her iPhone

PCH Day 1 – London to San Francisco

Posted by Blue on 20 January 2023
Posted in: Diary. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

After a comfy limo dash in the morning we were soon enjoying champagne and plant-based curries before our flight in the British Airways B gate lounge at Heathrow Terminal 5.

T5 B Gate Lounge

Cheers!

A short while later, we were on the plane and just as I’d got everything in its place (and a place for everything), Alison demanded we swop seats.  Citizen’s Divorce already enacted.  And I wondered where all my demons should go…

Demons!

Demons!

Cheers!

Cheers (again)!

Once we landed at San Francisco it was off to collect our pre-booked car from Hertz.  An absolute nightmare it was too with Hertz, who didn’t have our car when we arrived. After an hour’s arguing with them, they palmed a Florida-registered 5.0L V8 Mustang convertible off on us instead of the Camaro SS Convertible we’d ordered and indeed emailed about earlier that week.

Once we eventually got to the Riu Plaza Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, it was time for a gin and kebab as it was 5am UK time.

Gin and Kebab

Gin and Kebab

PCH Flights – London to San Francisco and San Diego to London

Posted by Blue on 20 January 2023
Posted in: Diary, Planning. Tagged: , , , , , , .

British Airways were being a nightmare before we were due to fly: despite booking our Business Class flights many months earlier, a month before flying, BA emailed us to tell us they’d cancelled our flights from London Heathrow to San Francisco.

When we’d been trying to fly out to Corralejo to move into our place out there in 2020 and 2021, the UK and Spanish governments had been opening up and locking down and easyJet were cancelling flights, so I’d become adept at moving flights and amending travel arrangements, so I was straight back online to look at alternatives, finding that BA had flights later the same day. Not ideal, but beggars can’t be choosers.  I changed the car reservation with Hertz, the limousine booking with Addison Lee and sat back to make sure our COVID-19 PCR test bookings would also still work.

Later the same day, British Airways then cancelled our return flights from San Diego to London.  This was more of an issue, because it meant I had to extend the car hire and the hotel.  The first would not work, and the hotel? Not so much as it was fully booked, so we decided to leave the car hire as it was and book ourselves into a hotel near the airport for the extra night to suit our flights home a day later. Thankfully BA ended up paying for the hotel as compensation for the flight delay.

MoT 2022

Posted by RHM on 29 June 2022
Posted in: Accessories, Diary, Kawasaki. Tagged: , , . Leave a Comment

Whilst I was in the USA doing the Pacific Coast Highway in a 5.0L V8 Mustang Convertible, I thought it was long overdue for Blue Rex to have some care and attention, so it was off to Larry at PDQ to give it a good fettle and its MoT.

And it really was a good fettle: the old Datatool alarm was finally consigned to the bin, as was the battery. The carbs were basically overhauled and a couple of pipes and o-rings were replaced. There was a new chain and sprocket set. There was a new set of tyres to replace those that were on there that were many years old and had all the grip of Donald Trump.

It was then MoT’d and it passed with a mileage of 19,462 which was 40 miles up from last year’s and was basically the mileage out of London to PDQ.

Whilst at PDQ, Larry whacked it on the dyno to see how it measured up, some 11 years after the team at PDQ had breathed on it. 154.89bhp at 10,100rpm (158.37bhp) and 90.5lb/ft of torque at 7,830rpm (91.5lb/ft), 2011 figures in brackets.

2022 Dyno Results

It’s a new dyno – so not necessarily a true like-for-like comparison – but it’s still close to what it was putting out before, which is pleasing.

Larry was also kind enough to grab a socket and a screwdriver to swap out my Pazzo Racing clutch lever for a shorty one when I collected it.  A previous problem with trapping the gloves over my non-existent fingers when pulling in the clutch…

I used my disabled person’s Freedom Pass to get there, so it cost me nothing and the ride back was lovely: back in a little over an hour (with a fuel stop) thanks to filtering and people working from home.

What’s New?

Posted by Blue on 9 February 2022
Posted in: Planning. Tagged: .

Well 10 years after doing my Route 66 trip on a Harley in August 2012 to celebrate being 50, I’m back with another plan for my 60th birthday (and to celebrate still being alive after my little incident in 2019): Pacific Coast Highway, North to South during summer 2022.

We fly out business class to San Francisco, collect a Chevrolet Camaro SS Convertible and then drive off to the Fisherman’s Wharf area of San Fran for a couple of nights (and a trip to Alcatraz), before we head off down California SR 1 with stays along the way in some of the coolest hotels we could find.

We stop off en route for a few days in Downtown LA during which time we’ll be popping in to the Members’ area in the Bike Shed Motorcycle Club’s LA clubhouse for drinks and food.

We end up with a couple of nights in San Diego before we fly back in Club World again back to the UK.

It’s all booked, so watch this space!

Updates

Posted by RHM on 9 June 2021
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It’s been a while since I updated this blog.

I had mainly been using my Triumph Sprint GT1050 for my foreign jaunts – aka “Eurothrashes’ – but that all came to a crashing stop back in July 2019 when I got broken up a tad by a SMIDSY.

Since then, I’ve not been back on two wheels whilst various bits of me mended or were taken off because they got in the way: I’m think of the second amputation here just before Christmas 2020.

While Blue Rex was off the road, I decided that I should do something with the personalised registrations I have: 8000 RM which was on the Sprint and which is now on retention; 2000 RM which was on my Abarth 124 Spider; and 3RHM which was on the ZRX1200R which wasn’t seeing much daylight.  So I swapped the Abarth’s registration with the ZRX and bought a load of new plates to suit.

Now my latest amputation is healing well and the physiotherapy reduced, I decided to service, tax and MoT Blue Rex and it sailed through yesterday.

The mileage? 19,422 miles which means since September 2018 it’s only done 36 miles!