Rutland TT Route

[Millietant]

With the sun shining and my new electric vest on under my textile suit, I headed out with a few pals for a ride around some of my favourite roads here in the Midlands (part of whats known as the "Rutland TT Route").

4 of us set out, including a new rider to our group on his KTM EXC 525, with its supermoto wheels - but only 3 of us rode home. The newest of the bikes today (the blue/white BMW GS 1250) suffered a failure of the fly-by-wire throttle system, which basically means the bike would only tick over, no matter what Dave did with the throttle - and with everything being electronic (and despite the other 3 being vehicle engineers from Jaguar/Land Rover) we had no idea where to start to think about trying to fix it. The bike is still under warranty, so the BMW dealership organised a pick up van to collect the bike and bring Dave home. Oh how I love my simple, analogue FJ  

Luckily, it played up at our lunchtime coffee stop at the A1 Stadium Diner, so we waved goodbye to Dave as he wandered back inside for more food and coffee while he waited.

Given that Simon was with us on the KTM, we chose the tightest and twistiest parts of the TT route and I threw in some other local single track roads for fun. Simon was well impressed with how well a FJ can negotiate the bumpy, twisty single track lanes  

A nice little run of just under 140 miles, with the fastest speed of the day on my GPS unit being 71.7 mph - but what a hoot the ride was !!!!

A few photo's from the Diner, and a map of the route.

This will likely be my final ride for quite some time now as I have been given a re-schedule date for my surgery of 14th March. They're estimating 2-3 months on crutches and 6 months to being able to ride again without causing potential dislocation issues.

[ribbert]

With the sun shining and my new electric vest on under my textile suit

Dean, is this your first heated vest?

Very little changed in my first 40 years of riding, particularly with gear and accessories, but the last decade has seen all sorts of wonderful things enter my motorcycling world, a hard wired heated vest is very close to top of the list. Google maps and GPS mean I never have to ride a main road again and my favourite, the GPS HUD speedo that projects my speed onto the fairing screen about half way up, even in full sun. I find snatching a glance at an analogue speedo takes a second or so whereas the HUD is just below my line of vision and being digital, it's instant, I love it. Unfortunately there is a need to monitor speed closely where I live, so I guess I find this a little more useful than most.



Even something as simple as polar fleece neck socks are game changers, I've probably got a dozen of them spread around. Never want to get caught without one.

Noel

[Millietant]

Hey Noel, yes it's my first.

I got it for walking the dog. It runs off a rechargeable battery (they type used to charge mobile phones) which lasts about 12 hours of use, on medium setting and 6 hours on hot setting (65F). Most of the time I use it on low when out with Daxter and I can get a weeks worth of walking out of a full charge.

Yesterday I had it on low and it was was plenty warm enough under my riding gear. The battery power system means I don't have to disconnect myself before I get off the bike and it still keeps me warm when I'm hanging around chatting to other riders outside by the bikes.

The big plus for me also was that it only cost £36.99   and I've already had my moneys worth out of it in only 6 weeks.

Love the HUD speed display