wordsmith

No more Spyders - I developed arachniphobia after a short outing on one! The MP3 500 is not available here. But thanks for the thoughts...

If there is one other thing to add to the 'death and taxes' list of things that unavoidably occur, it is Growing Older. Actually, I nowadays never say 'I'm growing old' or 'I'm getting old' - I AM old. Had my 83rd birthday on October 2nd, and reluctantly parted company with my last bike, a 2019 MT-09 Tracer GT, just a few weeks earlier. It had been beyond any doubt time to quit before something bad happened to me and/ or other road users. In recent months, and more gradually over the past cuppla years, I had felt increasingly less confident and less comfortable on the bike and on the road, my concentration was beginning to lag, and reaction-times were down. Touch wood, I never had an accident on the road, and only one zero-kph 'drop' due to my foot slipping on a gravelly parking spot in a motel - no damage to bike or self. I was a longtime rusted-on BMW rider until those bikes became too bulky and heavy for me: the move to Yamaha - Tracers: SPs: GT - was a good one as these bikes were appreciably easier to handle, while giving every bit as much satisfaction. I heartily second the 'riding alone' comments - after some years of group riding with a Club I found the freedom of solo riding refreshing and vastly to be preferred. Long-distance touring was always my thing, but latterly that became too much to attempt thanks to the usual age-related physical wellbeing issues - but I miss it greatly. The age-related wellbeing issues were not of the kind that would kill me - at least not directly! - but the most serious was the sudden out-of-the-blue onset of a form of vertigo a couple of years ago. Medication resolved this, but two more episodes a few months apart compelled me to accept that I couldn't safely continue riding, so that was it, after very many years. The best part of my lengthy riding career was the few years from 1997, when my wife decided she'd like to learn to ride - so she did, and we had many memorable multi-week trips together up and down the east coast of Australia . Happy, happy days!

The answer to the ‘hump’ was to remove it, not by taking a chain-saw to the hump itself but by replacing the entire pillion-seat with a flat cover locked on top of the underside of the seat – the tool tray, etc. Nothing new in this: I had a BMW OE pillion seat replacement cover – BMW called it a ‘Luggage Grid’ – on a late GS of mine many years ago (see pic below). This was obviously much more professional – and at an eye-watering cost – and it gave additional carrying space on the GS, which I used on a 14,700km solo circuit of Oz too many years ago. For the DIY solution on the GT I cut a flat plate to size out of thin aluminium sheet; made a bracket which was pop-rivetted on the underside to secure it at the front to the original key-operate seat-lock; and secured it at the back with the two plastic push-pin rivets that luckily just happened to be there in the right spot (arrowed in pic below). I covered the new piece with an offcut of more-or-less matching vinyl, free from the local car and boat upholstery shop. I used a spray-on contact glue to get an even coverage, and made lots of short cuts about a quarter of an inch apart around the cover so that I could fold short tabs of vinyl underneath the edges for a neat finish. I've had enough for today, so all that remains now is to fit a matching strip to the rear of the new seat cover to hide the gap there, and lo! – job done. It’s not at all like me to say “near enough is good enough”, but in this case that about summed it up, and the finished ‘look’ – which in truth is not too bad - was far less important that the outcome. I often say here that any particular job I do has been tricky/ fiddly rather than difficult – this job was all three! “Does it work?” – with that significant 3" height reduction it certainly does, and with an in-garage trial I found much less difficulty, and with more graceful gyrations, when getting on and off. If Shakespeare had owned an MT-09 – which I doubt – he may have written: To hump or not to hump? – that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous mounting or by de-humping – end it. Happy days!

What a bunch of crocks we are - well, some of us! 😬

I made a rod for my own back when adopting the Wordsmith monniker way back, and lie awake at nights lest I have in any recent post here let myself down. Maybe I should change to "Only Human"... 😪 BTW Dazz - not good news that La Nina is set to bring its heavy rainfall and possible flooding to eastern Australia this coming spring and summer, for the third consecutive year. I may trade the GT for a JetSki...

If you mean 'begun', yes I have, and it's well underway! Whether it works or not is another matter. Stay tuned for words on the subject in due course...

The Matchless G50 and AJS 7R road-racers are extremely rare - haven't seen either in over fifty years.

Thanks, 2&3 - nothing new in your own method of getting onto the bike, and I have of course tried it, but the sad fact is that I don't have enough strength in my leg(s) to lift myself up as suggested, thanks to a shortage of spinach caused by either covid or the Ukraine war or global warming! Well, every other ill in the world at present is being blamed on these factors, but I'm hopeful that the intended humpectomy will help. I have always been a seven-stone weakling - in fact I yearn to be a seven-stone weakling...

Nice-lookin' house, and nice old Matchless bike. Many years ago in my spotted youth days I lived in South East London not far from the AJS and Matchless factory. It was quite common to see bikes of either brand being ridden around the streets there, presumably being tested by the factory.

With so much red there, Dazz, you must hit warp speed every time you go out! Bike looks good. Looking at the side-on view of your bike and the prominent 'hump' or rise of the front of the pillion seat behind the rider seat reminds me that I must look into some kind of 'humpectomy' on my GT to allow me to get on and off more easily. The only not-so-good thing about my newish-to-me 2019 Tracer 900 GT is the difficulty that my aged and stiff hip, knee, and ankle joints give me when mounting - and more so dismounting – without ungainly movements that cause crowds to gather and laugh at my antics as I half-fall, half-roll off, and altogether make a fool of myself! A word of advice to all - do NOT get old!.

For those suffering the windscreen blues I highly recommend this type of deflector that is fitted to the top of the OE windscreen. Many versions can be found on E Bay at a very low cost of around $30. Look for 'universal clip-on windscreen deflector' or similar, in either clear or light smoke tint. The adjustability of rake forward and backward from vertical is substantial, ranging from about 10 degrees forward rake (my preference) to near-horizontal rearward rake, which allows for a very large degree of fine-tuning to suit any bike and rider preferences.

Outstanding - thanks for sharing!

A bit late with this reply, but yes - I can confirm that the outer edges of the belly-pan on both sides are a whisker higher off the ground than both the triple-header exhausts and the bottom of the cat-converter (or what I take it to be - and which incidentally I now note that it is painted matte black rather than rusting unpainted steel, as I recall on earlier GTs and Tracers).

I adjusted the gear-lever today to bring it closer to my preferred position, in which I like to be able to just swivel my foot on the footpeg when in neutral to place my boot on top of the lever, rather than having to raise or lower the foot. I like the GT's method of adjusting the gear-lever with the simple rotating rod with locknuts at each end, which allows millimetre adjustment. On my previous BMWs the adjustment was via a splined connection between the lever and the outer end of the gearbox selector, which was quick and easy, but didn't give a lot of room for fine adjustment. I'll try it out during the week...