Unexpected Service!

I went out on the F800 GS today as the forecast didn’t seem bad. The sky was threatening the entire time I was out but it didn't rain! I was glad of me heated clothing as the temperature stayed below 8 degrees for quite a while before struggling up to 10 degrees around 2pm. I hadn't been sure of where I was heading for but settled in the end on Bahnstormer as a destination. I had a mooch around and bought an Airhawk for the bike. I don't find the saddle too uncomfortable at all but thinking ahead to my planned trip to Slovenia in June with the ADV rider crowd, I figured it might be a good idea to cushion my bum on the 1000 mile slogs there and back.

Whilst chatting to the sales folk, they asked if I had had the top radiator hose recall done. I knew there was one in progress but I hadn't had it done as I had had no word from South London Motorrad. Bahnstormer offered to do it there and then and having time on my hands I said "Great, please go ahead". When they entered the registration in the BMW database, it seemed that there was a bunch of other recall type work to do. This puzzled me as SLM were supposed to have done it already (re-routing the ABS lines for instance) but they also did that for me so apart from some monster firmware update (this would apparently have taken 2 hours and it's seemingly to address a stalling issue which fortunately, I don't appear to have) I am OK as far as BMW mandated fixes are concerned. I was pleased that Bahnstormer had shown such initiative and am only sorry that it's really too far away for regular servicing.

On the ride home, I was very conscious of the AirHawk under my backside. I think there is probably a little too much air in it as I seem to wobble from side to side on it quite a lot. It also seemed to tip me forwards somewhat so at present, I am not a huge fan of it. No doubt I shall get used to it in time but will need a much longer run to determine its worth as an aid to stopping numb bum syndrome.

Bike, snow, ACF 50, Ace Cafe

I had planned to meet up with a few folk tomorrow to ride to the Ace Cafe where they are holding an “Adventure Day” with speakers like Austin Vince of “Mondo Enduro” fame. The freezing weather and snow are putting this in some doubt. My road hasn’t been salted and after a fresh fall of snow last night (not too much thankfully) and temperature below zero, it has been looking unlikely that I will be able to get my bike safely out of my road to the roads where salt has been spread. I had a trial ride through the snow and slush that has started to form this afternoon as some sunshine raised temperature above freezing and it wasn’t too bad but temperatures tonight are forecast to go as low as -10 degrees in places which could render my trial meaningless.

Just in case I sprayed exposed bits of the bike with ACF - 50 to ward off the salt I will encounter tomorrow if I do go out on the bike. It would have been better had the bike been really clean before I started but I sprayed over the dirty bits! I had to shake the cold tin a lot before it would spray properly and even then, it wouldn’t spray through its little tube. Still, I think I kept it off the brakes at least. The last time I used it, I got some on the brakes and hard a hard time getting rid of it and it made the brakes practically useless!

I shall see how things look in the morning and make up my mind then.