Since the last post on here, I've made my annual pilgrimage to the TT.....32 years and no plans to stop, it's an experience like no other. It's also a couple of weeks away with mates I've had for 50 years. This year the weather was not kind. The race programme was thrown into disarray, which also meant there was a lot less mileage done on the Island than there usually is. I took both of my T500s this time, the Alpina was in running in mode, after a catastrophic fail last year....I'll come back to that, and the Kamikaze needed the new flat slide Okoes dialling in. Foolishly I thought there would be ample time to make progress with that, but in reality, the weather was so poor, I rarely wanted to be working outside, so very little fettling was done. I did make some adjustments, and got to ride it the short distance to the pits and back, but there's still lots to do.
Anyway...that fail....it was July last year, and I was on my way to a bike night at a local cafe with a good mate. The Alpina felt a little flat, but I wasn't sure if it was in my imagination as it was so slight. As we pulled out from a filling station, it dropped onto one pot....it never does that...and my pal Colin, sped off unaware I had stopped. There was nothing obvious to see, so I restarted the motor still running on one. Realising I was not now going to the cafe, I turned to ride the three miles back home. It started to make some tinkling sounds as I approached home, but nothing too bad....
I stripped the left side as soon as I got home, to find the piston had broken up, both skirts had broken completely off. That's a lot of metal going down into the crank case, and needless to say, the big end was toast, even though the bore looked miraculously undamaged. Arse ! I was off to the Classic Festival in Chimay Belgium in just a few days time.....that'll be without the Alpina then ! We do a lot of miles in Belgium, and the Kamikaze and the Kettle cafe are just too uncomfortable, and the R1 is just not appropriate. Luckily my pal Tim was able to lend me an XBR500 Honda..
The bike sat for a long time waiting for me to build the enthusiasm to do the rebuild, but eventually it happened, and as stated earlier..I was still running it in at this years TT. Firefox racing rebuilt the crank for a super keen price, and I used all Mitaka components for the new top end. Had a couple of minor issues...cracked a couple of heads where I hadn't torqued a stud down sufficiently, but all good now. In fact, we did Chimay again this year in July, did loads of miles, some quite hard, and the bike ran great.
Next trip of any distance, will be to Blue Haze day at the Ace cafe next month....100 miles each way from where I live, and a nice ride right through the middle of London. Maybe see some of you there?