Ride dahn Sarf.

[garynortheast]

I'm too used to the ease with which I can get about on the roads here in Wales. English roads are almost all just horrendeously congested by comparison.

i did the run from birmingham to lincoln yesterday lovely greasy slippery roads all the way. greatttttt fun

[garynortheast]

A few reflections on the trip.

I fitted the Fenda Extenda thing - no, dammit, I won't give in to Americanisms, it's a mudguard extension - a few days before going. I didn't bother with any grease on the plug cap although I gave the whole area a good spray with GT85 after cleaning the bike. The weather on the motorway coming back from Ashford to Maidstone was horrendeous - absolutely torrential rain and huge amounts of spray from the numerous lorries. The engine sailed through the lot, never missing a single beat.

The Scottoiler seems to be doing the job ok. I only had gear oil to put in there to start with (a bottle of Scottoil arrived for me in the post while I was away) but it appears to have kept the chain lubricated. It doesn't stay on the chain for long though, hopefully the Scottoil with it's anti-fling properties will.

Balancing the carbs has made one hell of a difference to the performance of the bike. It has loads more grunt in top gear now. It pulls like a train through most of the rev range but it's particularly noticeable from about 6000rpm. Very useful point and squirt abilities on the motorway and for snappy overtaking. It's made a difference to the overall fuel consumption too. I'm regularly getting 175 miles before the reserve light starts flashing and on two occasions I went to just short of 190 miles and the light had still not gone solid.

I went down to Kent, as I said, via the Tilbury ferry. That involves a trip across the top of the West Midlands along the A5 all the way to Hinckley and then A14/M11 down to Essex where I headed off towards Chelmsford and then Tilbury. The A14/M11 is not the most inspiring of rides so I thought I'd come back a different way, partly also because it was going to be dark before I got home and I wanted a slightly shorter route. I got to Chelmsford and then cut across to the M1 via Harlow, Hertford, Stevenage, up the A1(M) to Hitchin, across to and around Luton before getting onto the M1. Aside from having to go through one or two towns, if the weather had been better it would have been a pretty reasonable ride. Made a change from the slog up the M11 anyway. The M1 however was mostly dug up and speed restricted for about 25 miles when I got on it, and then there was the usual M6 congestion around Birmingham too.

The new rear Maxxis tyre (this is the second set I've had for the SV now) performed faultlessly. Good grip, no feeling of insecurity or movement in the wet and it worked just fine with the 5000 mile front Maxxis I still have on the bike. Nice tyres, very impressed.