I went for a ride in London yesterday....

The sun was out, the skies were blue, the temperature was warm. What a perfect day for a ride!

I wanted to test my GoPro camera in a city, so I chose London - My City. I was born here and have lived here all my life. So I fixed the camera to the bike, checked I had a full battery and I headed south into Central London.

I love My City. It is so lively, so full of things to do and see. So full of culture and the arts. So full of magnificent buildings. So full of life.

Yesterday, so full of traffic!!! So full of tourists!!! The latter were nice to see. The former wasn’t.

I have cut down 2 hours of film into the highlights of the ride. Squeezing London into 10 minutes isn’t easy, but I enjoyed the ride and making the video. I hope you enjoy watching it.

You will see a few things worthy of a small note....

The Amphibious Tour Bus is called The Duck. It is unlike any other bus tour in London as after driving on the streets for a while, it plunges into the River Thames!

You will see Horseguards Parade, which is a large square often used for Royal and State occasions. This is going to be the location for the Beach Volleyball in the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The London Eye is 135 metres (442 ft 11 in) in diameter and is the largest observation wheel in the world. It has become the most popular tourist attraction in the United Kingdom, visited by over three million people in one year. The construction management company I used to be a director of built the London Eye. It was quite a challenge!

At the end of the video is Tower Bridge, which I rode across. The wide angle lens of the GoPro makes it look squat. It is actually taller than it appears.

Lane splitting is legal in the UK. Just in case you were wondering.

I know there doesn’t seem like there is much traffic in the video. Believe me, there was – I simply didn’t include it in the final video!

I think the camera performed well. The only problem was I wrapped a strip of cloth around the handlebars to protect it when I fixed the camera. This has caused a “bounce” effect when I rode over bumps. A lesson learned.

For the best effect, turn your volume up!

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The best item I have ever bought for a bike....

.... and there is even a video!

The other day, I had a conversation with a friend about what was the best motorcycle related item each of us had ever bought. For me it was easy to answer.

It is an blower called Air Force Blaster, that I use to dry my bikes after I have washed them.

To dry a motorbike properly after it has been washed takes a lot of time and effort, but with an Air Force Blaster, the job is done very quickly and much better than can be done by hand. The Air Force Blaster works really well on my Road King, but on my red custom bike, with all of its nooks and crannies, it is even better. At about £200 (or $300) it isn’t cheap, but in the long run it is worth every penny. It has an air flow of 29,250 ft./min or 828,000 litres per minute and it comes with a 10 foot flexible hose and different shaped attachments, but I have always just used the standard rubber nozzle and that works perfectly well for all situation I have encountered.

It blasts warm air which is great for when your hands are freezing cold from washing your bike. I can dry my bike in about 7 or 8 minutes with one of these. The real benefit is when drying my Road King which has laced wheels – a complete pain to dry properly by hand, but really easy with the Blaster. The rally good thing is it gets rid of water that you wouldn’t even be able to see normally – its blast is so strong that it will find ANY water on your bike and shift it.

Here is the video....





I can highly recommend them. My test for gear and or gadgets would be – if it broke, would I buy another? The simple answer is yes, straight away.

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Two Little Beauties!

When you go travelling on your bike, you want to minimise what you carry, right?

OK, maybe not the two little beauties you were thinking of!







There is never enough space in your saddlebags / bike luggage / tank-bag or rucksack. So, anything that means we can carry less stuff has got to be good. Maybe I am slow on the up-take, but I have just realised the benefits of mini USB cables. When in the USA I carry two phones with me – my UK mobile and my US cell phone. I need both, but I used to have to carry two different battery chargers with me, because the connectors are different.

I then realised that when on my 4 month bike tour I would be taking an external hard-drive which connects to my netbooks by a mini USB cable (you can see the red hard-drive and its cable in the photo below). I can connect my GoPro camera to the netbook with the same cable. It occurred to me that if I could find an adapter to connect my phones to the same USB cable, then I wouldn’t need to take my two phone chargers as well. I looked on the web and hey-presto, there are such connectors and they are tiny. I will therefore be taking these two little beauties with me. All that means I can connect my two phone, the external hard drive and the GoPro camera all with the same cable, or more likely in case I need to connect two at the same time, I will take two mini USB cables. Neat.

My big Nikon camera also connects to the netbook using the same mini USB cable to move pictures from the camera to the netbook, but I still need to take battery chargers for that Nikon and my point-and-shoot Sony camera. What I really need are cameras that ONLY need a USB cable for connecting AND charging and then I will be in minimum packing heaven!

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Cool Bike Model

Some time ago I found a company on the Internet that makes models of motorbikes. Not just any motorbikes, but your motorbike!

I sent off some photos of my custom bike and a few weeks later I received in the post the model they had made. This is metal and took around 60 hours to sculpt and it is 9 inches (230mm) long. The model is a very accurate model of my bike and I was impressed with the results. I am pleased to recommend what they do.
















The model was made by Tom "Hawkeye" Sarko who is the designer/sculptor/builder of the bikes. Tom has ridden Harleys for over 40 years and now owns a beautiful 1959 Panhead. Tom is retired and used to work as a Weld Technician at General Motors. He has been making these models for about 10 years and has been sculpting overall for around 30-35 years. Tom makes around 30 to 40 models a year from his home workshop and each bike can take anywhere from 36-60 hours (sometimes longer) to individually sculpt/build depending on the intricate nature of each bike.































Hawkeye Metal Works are based in Michigan and like mine was, the models can be shipped internationally.

You can find their website by clicking on this link Hawkeye Metal Works David Tyler handles the customer service and website and he will be pleased to assist with any questions.












Tom Sarko with his Panhead

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If you have to ask, you won't understand....

Canadian Stig (aka Bobscoot)

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15,000 miles in 23 States

It is now just 3 months to go to the start of my tour. Preparations are on track, with only minor things to do now. I need to arrange temporary insurance and buy some summer bike boots that are good for both riding and walking in.

In preparation for the tour, my wife heard my hints and for Christmas bought a Garmin SatNav system for me. The really good thing about this system is that you can enter your proposed route into some computer software called MapSource and then transfer it to your Garmin unit.

This provides a tremendous advantage over the TomTom systems which require that you enter the route directly into the TomTom unit, which is fine if you have one or two destinations to go to, but pretty useless if you have a long trip to do that you want to enter.

Since Christmas, I have diligently been sitting at the laptop, putting my intended route into MapSource and yesterday, I finished this. I am now able to give a better prediction of the distance I am likely to travel which now stands at just over 15,000 miles.









Here are the 23 States that I will get to.....
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Massachusetts
Maine
Minnesota
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Mexico
Nevada
New York
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Utah
Vermont
Wisconsin
Wyoming

Plus, I will be very briefly riding into Canada.

In case you were wondering, the image is 15,000 in sign language.

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Adjustable GoPro Mounts?

In an earlier post I discussed the difficulties of mounting a GoPro camera to the handlebars of a motorbike using the standard GoPro mounts. The difficulty is caused because the GoPro mounts are not adjustable – they only work at 90 degrees to the handlebars. This is fine if your bars are straight and not swept back at all.



What is needed is something like this – a mount that is fully adjustable. In my earlier post I said I would raise this with GoPro and keep you updated. It’s now time for an update.

I have been corresponding with GoPro about this issue and the current need to buy 3rd party vendors mounts to overcome the problem. After some difficulty in getting them to understand the problem, they then said their developers are considering a balljoint type accessory for their products. If they do this and create such a mount, this will be good news for future buyers of the cameras. I imagine this might take some time to design, test, manufacture and bring to market, so in the meantime it looks like RAM mounts are the answer.

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