I hope you've recovered from the Easter and ANZAC Day hangovers, your liver or pancreas has settled down, the bike is clean, the chocolate stains washed out of your favourite T-shirt and the double demerit fines paid... Ouch.
As you know, I have mixed feelings about travel during public holidays. It is an opportunity to get away but mixing it with the holiday traffic scares the shirt off me. Maybe a Bushmaster might be the ideal holiday travel method?
I'm chuffed to see the Aussie Superbikes, Broadford Bonanza and Glenmaggie Easter Trials back up and running. I guess the next big event that will keep our fingers tightly crossed is the Phil Island MotoGP. If the attendance figures at the recent F1 street procession is anything to go by, it will be huge!
Bonanza Back
What a joy it was to attend the Broadford Bike Bonanza this year. After a couple of years of it being cancelled due to the Spicy Flu it might have shriveled into a non-event. Fortunately, it bounced back, maybe not with the rebound of a superball but the visitor parking areas were mostly full on the Saturday with nearly 100 old Kwaka's lined up to celebrate the mighty Z900.
The event caters for all but classic trials, inviting Mx, Enduro, Short Track, Speedway and Road going bikes 25 years or older. The highlight for me being the Saturday night Speedway Spectacular. Ah, the evocative smell of Castrol R in the evenings....
Now remember riders... NO RACING!
The older the better, no age discrimination here. Limps and baggy arse leathers welcome
Congratulations to Motorcycling Australia for persisting with this event. It's a relaxed and joyous celebration of all things old bike and should be supported by punters and industry alike. If you have a 25-years-old-plus bike (the older the better), that is in good enough nick to pass a relaxed scrutineering once over (no it doesn't have to be registered), block out next Easter.
Riding classes range from Novice to Expert with good manners prevailing out on the tracks. Camping is only $10 a night and the catering and facilities are reasonable.
Mystery Item
For a second month in a row I've either bored or stumped everybody. No one had a crack at March's item.
I guess it's time to give this section a bit of a breather.
It's time we called out (some) thoughtless tradies for Fkn up our tyres. It seems that everyday there are more 'Tek' screws and bent nails laying about our roads that have bounced out of the neglected collection floating about the back of utes.
It's a pain in the RRs fixing tyres, not to mention dangerous. Modern Adventure hoops have a bad habit of releasing knuckle claret, I'm not a fan of fettling tyre and tubes beside the road (or in the shed for that matter). The Kato has Bridgestone Ax41 rim protector on it, hooley dooley, the bead is a bugger to break.
Against my better judgement, I took the approach that I should 'practice' at home so that I would be ready to remove the flat bit at the bottom of a wheel out in the boon-docks. I push, prodded, jumped, squeezed and reverted to Youtoob. Using a modified 'outback' bead breaker, a length of wood used as a lever under the bull bar of the Fourby to force another shorter lump into the sidewall to release the bead. All I managed was to lift the truck off its suspension.
A couple of hours puffing and cursing was enough, I won't be carrying C clamps or bead breaker kits on trips so, bugger that for a game of mechanics! I was at home and not in a must fix it situation, I bottled out (or... chose a smarter course) and loaded the offending wheel into the van for my local shop to sort it for me. Hopefully out the back of nowhere a 4x4 will stop and drive over the bloody thing for me.
I reckon we need our fellow bike riding, tradie mates to remind their non-riding colleagues that loose screws threaten our safety, flatten our rubber and our fun.
Oi mate, you got a screw loose? That would make a T-Shirt caption
A Tek screw in the middle of nowhere, the first of three, yes three in a day for Bandito
Screening
I'm not sure if I'm just the wrong height but I seem to cop the wind off the modern crop of bikes just in all the wrong places. I blame the angular, 'Transformer' shapes that designers are favouring.
The pretty, stumpy things they come with might be great for smashing through the bush or avocado at the coffee shop but out on the road, knocking over a few hundred klicks, I find them quite wearing. The buffeting does nothing for my tinnitus. For me it comes down to fixing the noise and buffeting or selling the bike. The combination of the MRA screen and the spoiler has transformed the Kato.
We have a selection Givi and MRA screens. Initially we've stocked up ('cause we finally got them) for the 390, 790 and 890 KTM and the T700 Yammie. The distributor has the usual patchy stock of all sorts of models available.
Flick us an email if you'd like us to track down something to suit you.
New Stuff
Exped have taken their sleeping mat range, thrown it in a blender and given it ten minutes on high. Add the difficulties of COVID transit and a slow realization that I was banging my head against the keyboard to finally get my head around it all. After the relief of stopping the nodding of the keyboard I find that the importer is Ol' Mother Hubbard in any case... Sheesh!
Essentially they have thrown out the old system of mattress thickness and replaced it with the R Value. Rather than descriptive names, the work experience kid came up with names like Dura, Versa and Ultra.
Most of us are used to the R Value of the batts in our ceiling as being around the 3.5 mark but can't really equate that to what we need in a mattress.
I've trialled the mid-weight, budget unit and reckon it's a pretty good jigger.
New Brain Buckets
XD-4 lobs into Strapz HQ
A trip to and from home didn't really float my boat with Arai's XD-4 but I persisted, taking it away for Easter. I'm mighty glad I did! After a few days and a few hundred klicks I've grown to love wearing it.
It has excellent airflow, top shelf comfort, it's stable in the airflow, the peak works well, is as quiet as any other ADV helmet and better than all but one or two that I've tried, and that's only by a whisker. It works well with specs too.
Graphics are a few steps ahead of what Shoei offer and finish is first rate. My only real criticism is that a visor change requires a 10 cent coin and double D Rings are so yesterday!
Stock is arriving in dribs and drabs... Thanks again to Mr COVID.
