Bassetts Pole 16/8/2016

So, I thought I'd try this again. The weather was lovely, the TRX needed a run and there was no food at home so Birmingham here we come!

It was a quiet start..

But it quickly got going. GSX400F!

An ER-5 with a fancy full fairing. Eminently sensible, the owner must be a true gentleman.

Something with lots of Rs in its name..

Some horrible fully faired Moto Guzzi thing, but it had lovely analogue clocks..

Some proper Triumph (doing well on the classics this time, aren't we?)

The police were out in force, the PCSOs that were walking around were all female which I can only guess is so that they don't get beaten up.

They kept doing loops around the car park and generally making their presence felt, it was actually quite oppressive because no one was doing anything wrong. The police just felt the constant need to make their presence felt.

They got what they wanted though, there wasn't much in the way of wheelies and burnouts like there had been the previous year. Boo.

This ZXR400 sported some seriously authentic road rash, well done that man!

And this VFR400 (or was it an RVF?) is owned by Rossi himself, amazing!

Overall, this one was quite disappointing. The smell of cannabis was stronger, there was much less japery to be amused by and the constant police presence was most unsettling. This comes nowhere close to filling the hole that the death of the Ashby Folville meet has left, but it's the best we have right now. 4/10.

BMW K100 brake pad change gone wrong

In mid-2015 the MOT man warned me that the front pads in the K were getting a bit worn, so in January 2016 I thought I'd better check it out. Sure enough one was worn quite badly while the rest looked okay.. But that still means I have to replace them all. Oh how easy it should have been! Simply knock the pins out, remove clips and pads, assembly is the reverse of disassembly. Pah.. One pin was very happy in its little hole. No amount of hammering would make this move:

Ohhh yes we're off to a good start here. Since I've had to break into the fluid circuit I may as well do the job proper and disconnect everything, then get it in the vice. I've already broken the most usefully sized drift so this thing is going to pay me for that with more service whether it likes it or not! Dremel a slice out of the middle and hammer in a screwdriver, maybe? Nope, snap the inside bits off instead. Then the rest could be hammered out, joy!

 Look, no pin!

Still no pin!!

 Very destructive but this is a special version of this caliper with the attachment bits for the ABS gubbins, so I had to save it. The holes inside are elongated slightly because the pin was made of surprisingly sturdy stuff but hey ho, it'll have to do. Look at those stupid bits of pin.

While I'm here might as well do a full brake clean and rebuild with new seals since one pad has worn so much more heavily than the others.. Wish I hadn't bothered, it all seemed fine inside!

Wrestle with the car-style fittings, it makes dealing with these calipers a real nightmare..

And.. Aha!

Of course I replaced all the pins (coated in copper grease to give them a fighting chance of coming out again!) and I also replaced the bolts that hold the two halves of the calipers together. For a brief, fleeting moment it was all so shiny and new..

Final advice - try to never need to replace the brake pads. What a horrible job that was..

How to change the fork oil seals on a nineties CB250

This is bad, mmmkay.

Remove the stuff that is in the way. Also this is much easier if you have a centre stand, if you find you own a bike that doesn't have a centre stand you may wish to re-evaluate the life choices that led you to these circumstances. Do you find everything difficult? Is life really hard in general? Do other people seem to be having an easier time? Maybe it's all your fault.

Away with you, things in the way!

Undo the pinch bolts in the yokes and slide the stanchion downwards. Then do the bottom bolt back up again, undo the top nut in the stanchion just a crack, and then undo the yoke and remove the fork.

Undo this. Be careful, the spring(s) inside will pop out and launch the nut out of the way. Such suspense, very sproing, wow. With the nut out the way remove the spring(s) and spacers and whatever, then empty the old oil into a container. You can pump the fork to make this a little quicker.

With the oil emptied out, put the springs and stuff back in and put the nut back on. Yes, it's difficult. Yes it makes your hand hurt, I know. With it back together there will hopefully be enough grip to stop the innards turning and you can undo the bolt at the bottom of the fork. A vice is very useful for this.

Here you can see the "damper rod" which is what we wanted to stop spinning. As these forks are cheap/shit there are no real bushes in here, so the inside was allowed to separate from the outside no bother. With better forks you will have to bang the seals out before the fork will separate because the bush is underneath the seal, just keep trying to pull it to bits and eventually they will come out.

Now we have to use a seal remover (or a screwdriver if you're a moron) to pluck the seals out. No magic here, just lever them out (after you've removed the clip!). With that done, clean it out, lube it up (I used a bit of the old fork oil), remember to put the washer back in (!) and press the new seal in. I put the socket on the ground and heaved away on the fork leg, do whatever works. Then put the clip back in, press the dust seal back in, put the stanchion back in, do the bolt up, take the nut off, fill with oil, put nut back on, put forks back, put stuff back that was in the way and you're done!

Matlock Bath Parking Charge Protest Ride 6/3/2016

The council for Matlock Bath decided it would be a jolly wheeze to get people to pay for parking, despite this having been tried before and subsequently removed because it was impacting on the place's popularity and the shop's profits. Someone decided a protest ride was in order, what more of an excuse does one need to go for some fish and chips at Matlock??

It soon became apparent that this was going to be big. Much bigger than it was supposed to be..

Of course I suspected there would be some waiting in traffic so the ever trusty CB250 was employed. Check out those Konis!

As it was, there was so much traffic that even the CB was feeling the heat and we passed quite a few bikes that had boiled over, their owners looking most forlorn. If only they'd had the imagination to buy themselves a proper, sensible air cooled bike. Eventually we were near Matlock Bath but the traffic was grinding to a halt.. I thanked my own presence of mind once again and hauled the light, easy to handle CB up on the pavement and promptly abandoned it. I was messing about with this!

I walked into Matlock to see what was going on. I was soon glad I'd given up on the idea of riding all the way in..

Not pictured: World record attempt for most hoodies with "IF YOU CAN READ THIS THE BITCH FELL OFF" printed on them worn in one area. So much for the good name of bikers and what a loss it would be if they stopped turning up. I believe the idea was to ride through 'Bath to the Sainsbury's on the other side, and then ride back through the other way. But since I'm a maverick (and I was already on foot) I decided to treat it like a bike meet and went on the hunt for interesting things instead. Take that, anti-establishment establishment!

lol, foam filters on CV carbs. Never mind.

Not pictured: Man wearing a hoodie with "I GOT 99 PROBLEMS BUT RIDING HARD AINT ONE" and not even looking embarrassed.

I still don't know what this is? Answers on a postcard, please. And a nice unmolested XBR500 to round things off, I do like my eighties Hondas if you hadn't noticed.

So that was that. Absolute chaos was caused, many people's Mothers Day plans were ruined because they were stuck in traffic, and I didn't even manage to get any fish and chips because the queues were far too long. I eventually went to the cafe in the Sainsbury's and had a surprisingly delicious steak pie with mash. Also I didn't see anyone from the council or with any kind of actual authority during the whole thing, which seemed a bit of a wasted opportunity.

So, was anything gained from this? Of course not. Despite the protest, the fact that the shopkeepers were against it and the many threats of bikers on facebook stating they ain't never gonna go there again if they 'ave to pay, the local council decided it would still be a jolly wheeze to charge bikes for parking and it was promptly implemented in May 2016. Weirdly I haven't been back since this rideout..

Bassetts Pole 18/8/2015

I thought I'd go see what the craic is at the Bassetts Pole meet that happens on the north east side of Birmingham every Tuesday. Some say it's just a meet in a McDonalds car park, and by gum they'd be right. They're also right about the chavvy quads and smell of cannabis round the back..

 

A mad looking Husaberg that had to be leant against a table as it didn't have a stand

One of those new Yamaha R3s

It could have been so much narrower without the acres of plastic..

These really look like fun

Honda CBR400RR

 Yamaha XS650 Special

Honda H100

Quite fancy an MT-07..

No idea what is happening here in the clutch area?? Some sort of centrifugal gubbins perhaps?

A ratted BMW K75

What I hadn't heard about is the antics that go on outside the McDonalds. Bassetts Pole is the name of the enormous and very busy roundabout that this is located next to, and people seemed to relish in making a nuisance of themselves. Wheelies:

Burnouts:

Lots of burnouts.. There are massive lorries using this road. No wonder the police want to stop this meet!

One of those BMW things

Honda CBX1000, of course

Suzuki GSX1100EF

Yamaha MT-03, quite fancy one of these too if they ever drop in price properly

A stunt merchant dropped his Triumph, this was a covert shot

I was chuffed this lovely BSA parked right in front of my CB250..

As I was getting ready to leave, with my earplugs already in, an old bloke asked me if I'd had a good time and would I come again. Yeah sure I replied, but I wouldn't rush here every Tuesday. Maybe manage it once a year..