After 22 days away on the Capo I returned with a little more than I bargained for, not least a crick in the neck and a stinking cold! On the way up I met Gianluigi at the Italian/Swiss border and talked some serious Capo bling for an hour. Then rode through sunshine, drizzle, rain and freezing fog before reaching Oxford. On the way back we were treated to high winds a stunning moon-rise and some amazing early morning scenes with low-lying mist. All in all, a real slice of what Europe/UK has to offer bikers this late in the season!
The original fuel cap was replaced with the Oberon keyless unit a few days after reaching Oxford …. it took about 10 minutes in all. It looks good, works fine and I’m no longer worrying about getting into the tank! That’s the only work done on the Capo for the whole trip – 3,000 miles – key-in, ride off. No drama, no breakdowns. In fact the last two original Sagem coils are still sparking just fine after 110,503 miles!
With the panniers emptied, it was a great opportunity to restock on spares for the workshop – front wheel bearings and seals (used the last set 9 years ago!) a clutch pushrod bearing (16004), clutch diaphragm and a couple of sets of clutch master cylinder seal kits from FPE Seals Ltd. Service parts stock is now replenished with extra oil/air filters, a spare pack of DPR9EIX-9 Iridium spark plugs, red rubber grease and more Scottoil as I seem to be going through a couple of litres a year! A HUGE bag of stainless screws, nuts and washers from Jason helped balance out the panniers (cheers matey!) and last but not least, the remaining electronic parts to finish off the BMW Brake Light System (clone!) that was started in spring.
But undoubtedly the highlight of the pannier contents is the Innovv K1 dual channel Full HD camera kit. This has been loaned for review by Jim smith at AMI (Abbey Motorcycle Instructors) who should be fitting a second kit to one of his Instructor bikes over winter. I’m really looking forward to fitting this kit and putting it through its paces. In fact I’ve already been running the system on the workbench and making a comparison of video quality compared to the GoPro Hero 3+ and power draw etc ……. full review coming soon, watch this space!
Twitter, Facebook, emails, texts … it’s a fact that the modern driver is ever more distracted and as a consequence, the one thing I hate most – rear end collisions, are on the increase. It’s the one direction I have little or no influence over what the driver is doing. The last incident I was unfortunate to be involved in dates back to July 2005. Sat minding my own business at a roundabout waiting for a gap, when in a heartbeat the day turned to s**t. White-van-man ran into the back of me …… Ripping off the panniers and exhaust of my lovely Triumph Trophy 1200, while at the same time bending the subframe and ruining the body work as it slid along the road. The drivers opening words were: “I didn’t think you were there”.
Thankfully he never contested that he was to blame and the insurance paid out pretty quickly. But it could so easily have gone the other way. None of the vehicles in the immediate vicinity stopped – they had a good gawp, then trotted on. If he’d argued that I’d cut him up or some other sob story, I’d have been hard pressed to prove otherwise and the case would have dragged on for ages. This is of course one reason why cameras make mighty useful tools for our defence!
No siree Bob, none of this information overload for me thank you very much. I’m going to fire up the Capo, fiddle with the GPS for a minute, turn on the GoPro from the wireless remote, plug into the Autocom, kickstart the music and make sure the phone has Bluetoothed itself to the GPS/Autocom just in case someone phones, then I’m all set to ride around the corner for a nice loaf of bread ……….
I pop the hazards on and roll to a halt on the hard-shoulder. The traffic is light and I’m only stopping long enough for a quick photo, I know I shouldn’t, but this one’s a biggie!
14 days later, as I rolled back up the ramp onto the same boat, it was all quite different – a warm, bright morning with the promise of a nice day ahead and the Capo running sweetly with a new 
Many years back I started to carry one of these disposable cameras on the bike. Usually ratting around in the top-box with all manner of junk, it was their just in case of …… Well I’m sure you get the idea. Instead it ended up being used to take a picture of the speedo whenever it passed through an ‘interesting’ odometer reading – 12345, 22222, 33333. Sad I know, but it became a habit.
The Capo and I just returned from the last UK-Italy round trip for this year … as seems the norm, the trip was uneventful and the Capo ran fantastic as always. Just before I left the UK, she had a new MOT – no advisories and good for another 12 months. 48hrs later, she rolled into the barn with the odometer reading 80,892 miles and 37c on the air temp gauge – hot, hot, hot!
About 70Km North West lies