What did you do to your bike today?

Swapped out the headlight bulbs. Turns out one of them as already a 55w osram... seems a bit brighter but will have to take it out at night to see if its made any difference.

Failing that ill clean the inside of the casing. If no change ill get some 100w bulbs, which for some reason are cheaper than the 55w ones i bought

Be careful you don't end up melting your wiring, that's a big increase in power draw.
 
I meant it will look mint/perfect/pro rather than how Suzuki do it. Wrong term used by me, My Bad.
 
Go for it Bud it's an easy way of building yourself a unique bike & there's nowt technical or difficult about doing it especially if you use the kits from BlueCollarBobbers, They even send a vid out with each item. All of the kits are bike specific so should fit on nice. I'm going to do as much as I can from Car/Bike jumble bits keeping the cost down & making it far less likely to see owt like mine when finished.

Got rid of those Gay xmas tree lights on the front which has cleaned the front end up nice. Also fished out all the wires that have been added & generally tidied the wiring up. gdf
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Can't wait till I've got some spare cash to rip that ugly rear end off & change those 1980's indicators :p

That bluecollar bobbers is damn expensive!
 
Go for it Bud

I'd never get it past the mrs at the moment. I've got the Rocket taking up most of the garage too.
Next year I'll look at maybe moving the Rocket on, getting a Tiger 1050 for the commute, and bagging a VN800 to chop for weekend fun.
 
Technically last two days, but put all the the touring gear to the test. After a rather dull autoroute long way down into and through Lyon I've got to the interesting bits!
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Awesome. That's not a lot of luggage for what I'm presuming is the alps?

I went and sat on/look at/fondled a 33k mile Multistrada S touring, 2012 model - considering the miles (I'd want half that many miles max if I bought one) it was in damn good condition. A very small amount of bubbling paint on the clutch cover, and a small area of cracked plastics (eggshell cracking, just surface damage) and some general wear and tear, but no pitted lower fork legs, nice and clean brake calipers, dead clean engine and header pipes and overall quite surprisingly good nick for a 10k miles a year Ducati. Oh and the centre stand would have to go, with the balls of my feet on the pegs, my left heel sat right on the centre stand part that sticks up. That would get annoying after a while.

Looked big, especially with the panniers and top box, but when sat on it it didn't feel big. You do seem to sit quite far forward, but I liked that. Dead easy to flat foot for me too, didn;t feel heavy either. I then sat on a hyperstrada, which felt tiny! :p Don't think I'd want to go down to the alps on one of them, the screen would basically direct air right at my neck, if I leant forward enough I was right over the front wheel :D
 
Finally soldered the R&G tail tidy's number plate light up. Soldering stuff up is so much nicer than using those plug things... Bit disappointing that R&G don't use copper but cheap ally wiring, stock blinkers use nice thick copper...

solder doesn't like vibration though, especially the new lead free stuff.
 
Looks great! The bike and the views :D

Are you riding solo and do you have a helmet camera?

Yes and yes!

As for the luggage comment, I packed effectively! The panniers expand but I didn't need to.

6 x pair socks, pants, wicking sports tops
Full first aid kit
Full puncture repair kit +12volt mini compressor
Toolkit
GPS
Smart trousers / shoes / top
Small toiletries

Also riding with a kriega 3 litre hydration pack, awesome bit of kit.

Tank bag holds all the electrics, docs, cash etc. My first time at a toll road ever.... Was baffled, I thought you paid to get on... Rode off with a ticket thinking I'd done something wrong!
 
I'm in the French part of the alps right now as it happens.

Le route des grandes Alpes was amazing, it will all be on my YouTube channel eventually.
 
Yes and yes!

As for the luggage comment, I packed effectively! The panniers expand but I didn't need to.

6 x pair socks, pants, wicking sports tops
Full first aid kit
Full puncture repair kit +12volt mini compressor
Toolkit
GPS
Smart trousers / shoes / top
Small toiletries

Also riding with a kriega 3 litre hydration pack, awesome bit of kit.

Tank bag holds all the electrics, docs, cash etc. My first time at a toll road ever.... Was baffled, I thought you paid to get on... Rode off with a ticket thinking I'd done something wrong!

Ahh, you went for the packing very light option! :D Thing is, if you're not planning on doing much else apart from riding, you don't really need that much kit. if you're planning on doing some touristy stuff then you'd need more normal clothes etc.

On my 2 day 800 mile trip to wales, I used my kriega R30 (those panniers are 28 litres in total unexpanded aren't they?) but that included a pair of trainers, pair of jeans, a thicky hoody, plus 2x pair of socks/underwear, 2x t-shirts, a small packup with some food, spare visor (no way I'd rely on just one visor) plus toiletries.

Then a small tank bag for electronics/bottle of water/fleece (to pack it out a little!).

I'll be looking at getting the hydration pack for my kreiga at some point. I think an extra kreiga US30 (or maybe a US20 and a US10) for the bike to hold a tent/sleeping bag/self inflating mat plus camping stuff will do me just about right for a week long trip.

How is the tomtom 400 holding up? That's on my "need to buy" list as google maps just doesn't cut it for long trips.
 
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I'm in the French part of the alps right now as it happens.

Le route des grandes Alpes was amazing, it will all be on my YouTube channel eventually.

I'm finding it difficult to budget daily miles on the passes through the mountain, today I did my daily target but could have done more.

Tomorrow's run I MIGHT have bitten off more than I can chew to get to hotel before check in closes but we shall see.... Trial and error!

I'd rather ride and stop when I want to, but accommodation with space and/or reasonable pricing seems hard to find ad-hoc. Booking hotel at given destination on Expedia currently.
 
Surely neither do connector clips? I've always soldered every cable on bike/car and never had to do it twice, stupid cheap automotive connectors however - don't get me started! We'll see how long it lasts :)

Today as long as it stays suny it's time to wash & wax the bike :)

A proper crimped connection is best for vibration resistance.


Cheap crimp connectors and blocks no but a good crimp joint I'd a good choice

You can get crimp butt connectors with an extended adhesive sleeve for excellent weather proofing too.

If you're really ocd some adhesive heat shrink over the top of that should make it near fully waterproof.

All our stuff for aircraft is crimped
 
At around 23:30 when we were going in a group of 125's and 650cc's I tested the top speed, 84mph and ecu cut off fuel which means there must be some kind of restriction... It was scary at first as I thought it was dead, but it started up fine and temperature was around middle of the bar... No oil leaks, no power loss. 600-650cc's didn't even sweat during our trip, the duke is a fun bike but it doesn't have enough power. :/

On my list of things to change are:
- New Tyres, my current ones are quite slippery...

Edit:

The bike has actually been serviced 5 months ago, I forgot that I've FSH including all bills (even for after market parts.)
 
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At around 23:30 when we were going in a group of 125's and 650cc's I tested the top speed, 84mph and ecu cut off fuel which means there must be some kind of restriction... It was scary at first as I thought it was dead, but it started up fine and temperature was around middle of the bar.

Are you saying the engine just cut out when you hit 84mph and then you had to restart it? Speed restrictors don't do this, they just reduce engine power at the limiter so the bike simply stops accelerating.
 
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