17. Luggage and other things

So it looks like older bikes are going to be squeezed out of central London soon unless they conform to Euro3 minimum and of course the Divvies don't, I wont let that put me off I did read an article recently that some of the older machines are producing far less pollution than some much newer machines but of course the politicians don't want to see that do they?

OK so what have I been up to then? well I have been very lucky in that I have managed to find someone selling a luggage set well panniers anyway. Kappa to be exact these were not on a bike but in plastic bags in the back of his car as usual the hard cases are marked as they have been used, which I am not too bothered about as I will explain later.

So I go the bits home and then set about trying to find out how it all went together, first job strip the bike down, saddle off, side panels off, grab rails off, and then after a couple of hours of experimenting I got one pannier on....

As you can see the bag does not sit straight and on top of that when I tried to refit the side panel I couldn't I had to disassemble most of the rack to get it on then found the rack touched the side panel so...brute force and some bar bending later I got it all back on and wired up the replacement rear indicator, that's where I left it till the next day. Later the following afternoon I worked up enough courage to try and finish the job which took me another couple of hours of sweating and swearing and bending, but the result was worth it I had to put my old Givi top box plate on so I could use my top box but I like the result.

So I now have two 40 litres side boxes and one 50 litre top box much better than just attaching a huge case to the rear seat, the only problem was the nice shiny parts at the top of the boxes were rather scratched so I bought replacement parts and will get round to fitting them soon a lot cheaper than buying a new set of cases which I saw at around £360 for the pair.

I still have a few things to do on the bike like fit adjustable foot pegs, rim tape on the wheels tank bag and I would like some hand guards as well, I also have a wee bit of rust to clean up under the petrol cap, thankfully it's not too bad at the moment. But all this is for another day.

A couple of days ago I took my old Harley out for a run to the London Motorcycle museum but never made it there as I found oil leaking out of the engine..

So it looks like I will be a wee bit busy over the next few weeks stripping that motor down so Doris will just have to sit there until I am finished which will mean putting her up for winter I reckon.

16. Wow! this year has flown past...

I can't believe its October already, for me it will soon be time to put the bikes to bed for the winter, and before I get any "Fair weather biker" jibes remember I have ridden bikes all my life in all weathers but these days I don't need to, I am lucky in that I have other forms of transport to use in inclement weather conditions and we all know what road salt does to our beloved motorcycles don't we? So Doris will be saved the worry of getting a rusty frame this year at least, I know some of you use your machine all year round and that's good I will say be careful though as even at this time of the year falling leaves can be as slippery as snow.

I did say "nearly time to put the bikes away" so what is (are) my other machine(s)? at this moment in time Doris shares the garage with just on other bike and that is my faithful old Harley Heritage Springer funnily enough she is also a '99 model, I have had Harriet for about ten years now, other bikes have come and gone but Harriet remains, If her throttle cable hadn't of snapped it would have been Harriet I'd have ridden to Valencia but then I would never have bought Doris...fate as they say.

Harriet and I have been to France a couple of times and we did a tour of France and Spain pulling a trailer a couple of years back, she has never broken down on me, been dam reliable and even though I spent some money on her for cam shafts, hypercharger, twin choke mikuni straight through pipes etc etc I still wouldn't part with her if I could avoid it,

Two old girls together

Over the last week I have been to work on the front brakes on Doris, I could pull the lever all the way in so it touches the handlebars, so first thing check pads, hmm they look brand new still, so take master cylinder apart replace seals fill up with new fluid and bleed and what do you know? I have a brake lever again, feel a little more confident now.

My handlebars are looking a bit crowded now as I have the sat nav, 12v axillary power outlet and a phone holder on them but all of this is necessary if you want to do some serious touring. 

I am still hunting luggage for her though,I realise that having proper hard side panniers is far more desirable then just chucking a big bag on the back seat but! as a lot of you are finding this luggage is as rare as hens teeth as the stopped making it for the Divvie years ago, but i wont give up just yet as I have a lead at the moment more in that later, for the time being it's clean and polish time for the bikes.