Yay
 

Got my CCC in the post and now on the bike :-) sounds Good.

about bleeding time!!

Pics or no cans! It's the new :660: rule, someone says I got this and that, we won't believe it, until we see it.

:devil[1]:

Ok ok it is about time I put up a post..... oh and I will take Photo and put it up.

600mile service and New Handguards
 

I took my bike to the dealer for its 600 mile service (only had it 9 days) and to get some hand-guards fitted to keep off the wind as I commute on the motorway and I'd rather not rely on the oxford heated grips entirely.

The grips are universal Venom ones the dealer got from bikeit.com's catalog, cheap at only 20 quid and the dealer fitted them free as I ordered them with the new bike (but they had not been in stock when I picked the bike up

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So far they seem to be effective with the wind deflection and the aliminium bars should give some strength to them. They are a close fit however only only just miss scraping the fuel tank or the screen at full lock.

My only misgivings are that they took the bar ends off to fitt them so the vibrations between 65-75 mph are significantly more than before. I'll have to see how it goes this week but I may be forced to bodge the guards to get the ends back on to reduce the vibration or remove them until I can get some touratech ones (though they are siginificantly more expensive). I'm rather loathe to do that with the rest of winter coming up however.

I'm hoping I can move the front metal strut more towards the centre and remove the space at the end of the bars and then screw the bar ends in to hold the side of the guard in. I was hoping to have a go at that today but as you can see from the pics its raining :)

Edit: After riding the bike to work this morning in 1 degree Celcius temps I can say they do help a bit in stopping my hands getting cold and the vibrations did not seem half as bad as my first impression. Certainly different but otherwise quite acceptable for my 1 hour trip down the motorway each way.

taller screen
 

Just fited the smaller of the Yamaha taller screens. Was not as fiddly as I thought it was going to be and only took about 1/2 hour. Keeps the wind of your chest but can feel my shoulders and head still getting a bit of buffeting at 70+.

When the weather (and the exchange rate) improves I will give it a proper test in France.

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Went from this....

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To this....

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Thanks to Dazzer for sending it over!!!

Roll on Summer..........

DNA stage 2 filter fitted yesterday ... came from Greece after oredering it over internet ... filter maintenance kit came too ... first impression - great improvement of engine behavior ... don't know what I was waiting all this time :computer: - 24K kms

Fitted my freshly rebuilt and powder coated wheels and other chassis parts. Now just needs a legal front tyre, oil change and MOT.

Disc bolts were scarily tight all the way in but seem fine. Hope to give it the first shakedown run to the Ace for Yamaha day next weekend.

Picture from above added. Would recommend Central Wheel if anyone needs their wheels rebuilt - not quick but excellent work. My original spokes were very badly corroded to the point of looking dangerous.

I am not a great fan of fixed luggage on a bike like the XT but there are occasions when I need a carrying capacity for awkwardy shaped loads that do not fit comfortably in my Oxford Lifetime Sports Tail/Tank/Rucksack and may be unbalanced in my OL Panniers.

Being a miser my solution is to adapt an old Renntec Sports rack from the Divvi 900 which fitted my Fazer 1000 without problem but was not suitable for the XTR .......... or so I thought. The solution came to me when I had the panels off for fitting the feeds to a tachometer. I took the rear panel off as well to see what it will look like when I break all the panels and cannot afford to replace them. By swapping the pillion grab handles over and mounting them upside down on the opposite side - I do not carry pillions as I am close to max carrying capacity solo! but I do like them for swinging the bike round on the sidestand. With two simple brackets fixed by the front bolts of the handles and the weight of any luggage pivotted on the rear handle bolt it produces a simple de-mountable rack which is mounted/demounted by the two front grab handle bolts.

One other benefit I discovered is that by using the rack to mount the panniers they are held further away from the bike at the top and hang almost vertically being held off the exhausts - although carbon CCC do not heat up much anyway - by the grab handles. All in all I am very pleased with this solution.


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