IMG_20210417_163824 by Chris Barron, on Flickr
IMG_20210417_163845 by Chris Barron, on Flickr
IMG_20210417_183730 by Chris Barron, on Flickr
As my wife's favourite marmalade comes from the Green Welly stop in the Trossachs I thought it was time she got another gift, so, that's where I headed.
Sadly the gift/marmalade shop was shut (covid or something ?) , so to give my tears time to dry in the privacy of my own helmet I just kept on going further to the cooler fresh air of Glencoe, 
The Angel GT on the back now feels really good and it seems to work well with the Pilot Power on the front, which always feels 'bitey'.
The big lads on the big adventure bikes were out in force. They always got to 60mph before I did on the straight thanks to their larger engines, but come the twisty bits their 21" front wheels were more of a hindrance than a help and (maybe because they had the wrong tyres) they moved from being in front of me to behind me one by one, when the time was right. There were a few lads on their sports 600's who insisted on taking the racing line, but eventually it just resulted in them running out wide on the exit of left handers, sometimes, running out over the centre line into oncoming traffic...and that ate away at their own confidence pretty quickly 
Eventually they lower their speed to 45mph, and I proceed gracefully past, giving them a thumbs up, Salt and wound ?
The most surprising thing was the fuel consumption. This round trip included 40 miles of motorway and the rest was fast A roads and some long steep inclines. The low fuel warning started to flash after 175 miles. I've gone further than that before but, not in this configuration. It's fitted with Scorpion cans, open airbox, Samios remap including the disabling of the deceleration fuel cutoff action, and a -1T front sprocket (which brought the bike alive), an wind catching extended screen and 17.5 stone of me, (each one of which could definitely be improved to make a more fuel efficient bike)
It took 17L to fill, and it wasn't completely brimmed previously so that's at the very least 46.6mpg, (16.5 km/l ) which I don't think is all that bad for this performance level
Over the past 5 years or so I invested £900 to buy the bike. Fixing the stator was another £80, a recent swingarm with almost new pivot bearings and brass adjusters was £50 recently, which I thought was a 'no brainer' because it would have cost me more to replace merely the bearings and shaft in my own swingarm.
It does leave me with a swingarm in need of refurbishment though so should anyone need it feel free to shout up, being a Yorkshireman I'll see that you get a fantastic deal dunt tha know.
I previously bought a complete rear shock linkage with replaced bearings for 50 Euro from a French breakers who sell TDM stuff for almost pennies and the only other 'big expenses' were £80 to have the shock rebuilt, and a pair of wheels , the front (£40) because I wanted to go down to 17" tyres, and the rear because it was much cheaper to buy the wheel than to get a good powdercoat job on my existing wheel (£20 IIRC)
Added together, it all works out at precisely bugger all per week, over this 5 year period.
But to be exact, about £4.60 per week (excluding tyres, oil, filters , etc which I would have to shell out for with any bike)
Cheaper to run than most mobile phones I reckon, and definitely, cheaper than a big adventure bike or a sports 600.
I could be tempted by a KTM950, but, I'll be waiting for many years to come before finding one of them I can use, for £900 ! Not to mention the six points I've already got from DVLA in their driver excellence ratings program. .....
I'll have to go back again for the marmalade when it reopens
Edited by fixitsan, 17 April 2021 - 11:02 pm.
