Rode Surrey to Cheshire on Wednesday to see a mate and ride the (used to live close) Cat and Fiddle road from Macclesfield. Now marred by huge, ugly cameras and speed restrictions, but still a goodun. New knee being installed tomorrow, so don't expect to be on the bike again for many weeks..
Noticed a wet fork seal whilst on the M6. Nothing serious, so made my destination, where my mate is a very useful engineer. Changed the seals and poured the 30000 mile fork oil/coffee into a bucket. New oil and a smidge more preload, so the seals don't hit the rust at the top of the legs again and test rode it 'up the cat' last night..I had no problems with the handling before, but with new oil, an even better handling bike emerged... Back down the M40 etc this morning and chuffed to bits with £15 for seals and oil, although with much swearing and drilling, and lots of helicoil for the seized mudguard bolts, it took my mate a good 3 hours for a reasonably simple job. Probably saved myself £300 on labour from a decent bike shop.
Moral of the story is change your fork oil if anywhere near 30k miles and probably sooner (recommendations welcome) as its likely to have the consistency, colour and damping ability of weak coffee..
PS - Mate just bought a used Triumph T100. He has an original Bonnie, so fancied a newer one. I had a good ride on it and reminded me (for its lack of size compared to my 06 strom) of my RD200 from 1980 something. Firm twin shock rear, thin seat. Proper flies in your teeth riding. Bit disappointed if I'm honest. Mate was therefore on my strom and was blown away by the package on offer. Wishes he had bought a strom...
