30-Sep-2007
It was a nice day today so I had a nice steady ride out today with Nig - it was cold though - you can tell winter is on it's way. The main news though is Mark got a new family member - Yoshi.
13-Sep-2007
I've just got back from a holiday in Kos, Greece. While I was there I managed to get a ride in a Ferrari 360 Modena - here are some pictures and here is a movie!
09-Sep-2007
Nig got a pair of Beowulf pipes for his Z1000 today - here are some pictures.
12-Aug-2007
This weekend we did our yearly camp in the woods. It was a spectacular night - and this time I went the full 'bush-craft' with a hammock and tarp instead of a tent. Here are some pictures.
30-Jul-2007
Well we finally got a bit of summer this weekend. I spent all Saturday riding around Bradford visiting various mates - did around 150 miles.
Then on Sunday I met with FazerKev from GBBikers and went to Scunthorpe to watch the speedway with my brother. The Scunthorpe Scorpions defeated the Weymouth Wildcats 54-37 -
here are some pictures.
22-Jul-2007
We have just got back from a GB Bikers BBQ in Preston - it was an excellent, if somewhat soggy, weekend! Here are some pictures.
15-Jul-2007
This weekend I had one of the worst rides of my life.
It all started on Friday, I was going to the Fox n Dale bike rally in Scarborough.
I loaded up my GPZ900R with the luggage and set off. It was without doubt the worse bike I have ever ridden with luggage. It was sagging on the rear (think the rear shock's gone), unstable at the front (think I have a warped disk), had next to no braking in the wet (very heavy bike, single pot cailpers, warped disk), and no grip (teflon tyres).
When I met my brother, we agreed to call camping off, I'd just spend the weekend at his and we'd have a ride out on the Saturday instead.
Saturday had fantastic weather, so I wipped the luggage off and we had a ride to the coast. On the way back, on a left hand bend I lost the front-end, and only stayed on by pushing the bike back up with my foot. We inspected my tyre and found it had been run underinflated at some point and now had a raised section in the middle of the tyre - at a certain lean angle you were on the corner of this section and had absolutely no grip. This meant I couldn't lean the bike more than about 5 degrees! You wouldn't believe how hard it is to ride a bike without being able to lean!
On the Sunday (the day of the hellish ride) I was loading the bike with the luggage when I discovered I had a screw lodged in the back tyre. I decided to leave it in so I could ride home.
This meant I was riding home in torrential rain, on a bike with very little braking, which was highly unstable, couldn't lean, and might have a rear blow out at any time. It was one of the hardest rides I've ever had!
11-Jul-2007
Me and my brother went to Barton Bike Night tonight. It was very very busy!! Here are some pictures.
08-Jul-2007
As a kid, I followed the Halifax Dukes - a speedway team. It's more than 20 years since I last saw a speedway race and this afternoon me, my brother Nig and Steve went to watch Scunthorpe Scorpions. It was fantastic - as good as I remember it. We all really enjoyed ourselves and the Scorpions did themselves proud beating Stoke 67-23.
Here are some pictures and here is one of the races.
07-Jul-2007
I spent this morning fitting my Givi Wingrack to my GPZ900R using a universal fitting kit. This was like a big mechano set with no instructions - so quite challenging! But me and Mark battled through and got it fitted in the end.
03-Jul-2007
The Fair Weather Bikers is actually the name of a bike club that took me under their wing a long time ago. We have had a LOT of laughs over the years. Here are some pictures of the more prominent members!
14-Jun-2007
Everything to do with the Scotland trip is now uploaded.
11-Jun-2007
The diary and some images are now up for the Scotland trip - more images are coming soon from Nigs camera.
05-Jun-2007
I have just returned from a very enjoyable 5 day tour around Scotland with my brother. The site will be updated soon with the diary and pictures.
26-May-2007
Since I got my VFR I've been thinking it was quite slow turning. Well today I checked the tyre pressures - they had 20psi in both when they should have had 36 in the front and 42 in the rear! I corrected the pressures and the bike has been transformed into one that handles supremely well!
I went out for a ride with my mate Mark on his fantastic GSXR1000 to celebrate and we had a wonderful time :)
24-May-2007
It's now 2:30am - I've just returned from a midnight ride to see my brother riding his Z1000 for the first time. I had a brief go on it and it's incredible - well done our kid. Here are some pictures.
06-May-2007
Today we attended the 2nd annual GBBikers charity meet. This year it was to raise money for the RNLI and was held at the Cat and Fiddle near Derby. Here are some pictures.
01-May-2007
Just got back from Nig's house. Today he took delivery of his NEW Z1000! Here are some pictures. He got a very good deal with this - part of which was trading in his £300 GSXR600 for £1200! Well done fella!
28-Apr-2007
I got a new bike today! It's a Honda VFR800, 2002 model with only 1700 miles on the clock. It's really nice!! Here are some pictures. On a separate note - Nig has started making progress with his LC - check out the frame on the LC page.
22-Apr-2007
Last weekend I had yet more problems with the GPZ - couldn't get it on 4 cylinders. I've lost count of the number of times we've cleaned the plugs, I swapped the coils over to see if the problem was there and we've knocked the carbs loads of times incase the floats were sticking.
Fortunately it does seem to be running fine now - I think it was a combination of being stood a long time so things needed bedding in and crap petrol. I've been for a couple of ride outs and it hasn't missed a beat. I really enjoyed it - it's very nice to ride :)
15-Apr-2007
Unfortunately we will not be touring USA this year. Daz has had three separate accidents over the last three years which have all damaged his shoulder. The most recent one has really caused him a lot of pain and one side of his body goes numb whenever he strains it. This isn't good. The physio says he's damaged a nerve, and the recovery is 20 to 40 weeks. Even if he does recover in time, it wouldn't be safe for him to ride 3000 miles in 3 weeks. Therefore we have decided to postpone it for a year.
05-Apr-2007
Well yesterday I took the tank off my GPZ to investigate what the problem was. I checked the plug on the cylinder that wasn't firing and it was totally flooded. I cleaned it up and checked the spark - it had a nice strong blue spark - so I ran the bike without the tank on the clear the petrol from the system.
I looked at the tank the saw it had leaked petrol all over - luckily I'd put it on a sheet. I checked the tap - and it wasn't leaking anymore. Put it onto prime and petrol came out, back onto 'on' and it stopped - so the tap was working. Left it a while and it didn't leak any further.
I put the tank back on the bike and fired it up and it fired on four straight away. I took it for a ride and it was super. I've been out on it tonight and it's still fine.
I think the problem must be with the petrol tap - which isn't so bad - and I'm going to keep my eye on it. The tank is nearly empty now so I'm going to refill it and check it again.
30-May-2007
Took my GPZ for it's MOT today. It passed with flying colours but isn't running right - it's only on 3 cylinders and quite horrible to ride. Not very happy with it - hope it's nothing major.
27-May-2007
I spent this weekend at my brothers house helping him put his GSXR600 back together. He bought this bike for £300 with a few problems. He's sorted it's problems and tidied it up a bit and now it looks like this!
22-Mar-2007
My new camera arrived today, here it is:
This picture was taken with my old camera and it's probably the last picture it will take - it took ages before I could get it to take this one!
21-Mar-2007
The battery recently went on the key fob for my Jaguar X-Type. Because it was longer than 2 minutes between the battery going flat and me replacing it, it lost it's programming to my car.
To reprogram your key fob, garages charge in excess of £40 - THIS IS A RIP OFF - DON'T PAY IT.
I found out how to do it on the Internet - here are instructions. These are really only of use for X-Types, but during my search I found instructions for loads of cars - so if you're in this situation, google is your friend!
19-Mar-2007
My camera has finally given up the ghost. It's been playing up for a while. It wrongly always thinks the battery is empty and the memory card is full when on the taking pictures mode. On viewing pictures mode it's fine. So I've ordered a new one - it should arrive by early next week :)
13-Mar-2007
Got the fairing on the GPZ this weekend and took it for a short test ride. All was well - so it will get MOTed sometime next week :)
04-Mar-2007
My mate Mark picked up his new bike yesterday, he was very lucky with the weather and managed to do over 100 miles on it. He's VERY pleased with it - well done fella. Here are some piccies of it.
28-Feb-2007
For the past couple of weeks I have been working on a website for a mate. It's to cater for the Custom Bike Builders. The content is pretty scarce at the moment, but that will change quite soon and there will be a forum on there in the near future as well. Click here to have a look and please feel free to let me know what you think.
25-Feb-2007
Well this weekend has just been a busy one. Yesterday I went to the Suzuki GSXR1000 K7 launch. They had the new bike next to the new ZX10R and this years GSXR750. For me the 750 was by far the nicest of the three and the GSXR1000 was definately the ugliest - not for me, but my mate signed up for one - so well done Mark..
Today I spent a few hours just giving the Hornet a bit of TLC, which it needed after the last two weeks of winter commuting. I did the following:
- Gave it a wash
- Stripped and cleaned the brakes
- Degreased the chain and sprockets and re-lubed the chain
- Gave it another clean
- Changed the oil and filter (this involved removing the belly pan, which wasn't too bad, but putting it back on was a bit of a nightmare - needed another hand!)
- Cleaned it again - by the third wash it was finally starting to look clean!
21-Feb-2007
Sorry for the lack of updates - lots of other things happening at the mo. Still no progress with the USA trip - I can see that turning into a last minute job again.
The cam-chain has gone in my car, and it's spent the last two weeks at the garage getting fixed - so I'm now commuting on the Hornet. I'm going to have to rename this site at this rate!
Thats about it - more updates soon - promise!
03-Jan-2007
Well I wasn't sure whether to announce this yet as things are far from definate - but this year will hopefully be the biggest year yet for our touring experiences.
We are planning to ride coast to coast across the USA from New York to San Francisco. Nothing is really firm yet, not even how many of us are going other than me and Daz, but we are determined to ensure we do it this year. Watch this space!
01-Jan-2007
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Note: I am in the process of moving my web site to a new host so if you are still using www.deekimber.dsl.pipex.com please change your favourites / shortcuts to point to www.fairweatherbikers.co.uk instead.
