You no doubt recall that my outing with the Gold Wing club a couple of weeks ago saw a significant problem rear its ugly head, a blown shock absorber. To be honest it didn’t even occur to me that the shocks weren’t stock until I looked closely and then saw that they were, in fact, Mulhollands. How old they were and how long they had been on the bike I had absolutely no idea.
Anyway, today a nice parcel arrived from JapBike Spares in Brisbane, a brand new set of pattern shockies and all delivered in just three days, most impressive. Top feedback coming their way on ebay, for sure. I fitted them this afternoon and took Goldie for a quick bimble just to check them out. The good news is that, despite being unridden for at least three weeks, she started first touch of the button so my electrical system is in good shape (I haven’t had the battery tender connected at all).
But the real good news is how much better the bike feels to ride with the new shocks. I took Goldie out along some backroads behind Dapto that I know are pretty poorly surfaced and known to be less than ideal and the bike handled them really well. The bumps are still there, of course, but the new shocks certainly smooth the ride out, exactly as they are supposed to do. Definitely money well spent.
On the VFR front my attempt to save some money by having my broken mirror stem welded has been less than successful. The stem is certainly intact but the mirror will not align properly regardless of what I try to do so I am looking at buying a new set, dammit.
MotoGp has finally started but it was hardly a stellar weekend in terms of injuries. The Moto3 race was the usual craziness and so enjoyable; the Moto2 race failed to excite which seems to be par for the course these days and the MotoGp race was outrageous. To start with, Alex Rins didn’t even get to start after injuring his wrist in early sessions, Cal Crutchlow also missed the cut after fracturing his scaphoid in Qualifying and Marc Marquez performed the save of the century while running in 3rd, rejoined the race in 16th the made a mockery of the world’s best riders, passing them at will on his way to 3rd place. He was just starting to line up 2nd when he made a big mess, being high-sided over the top and fracturing the humerus bone in his right arm. By all reports he was on the plane out of Jerez before the presentation ceremony even started, on his way to a meeting with the amazing Dr Mir who operated, plated the arm on Monday morning and pronounced no nerve damage. Crutchlow’s operation has also been pronounced a succes.
What follows reads like the story of Jorge Lorenzo a few years ago who fractured his collarbone in practice, flew out to hospital and had it plated, qualified the next day and finished 4th in the race on Sunday. It has been reported that Marquez was doing 40 push-ups in his hospital room on Monday afternoon and has continued doing so each day since. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that he might attempt to race tomorrow. Truly these guys are super men.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to tomorrow night, I hope you are too.