what did you do to your cbr500 today?

I rode it on a motorway.



Wide angle lenses really do make things seem like they are a long way away.

Went out wearing my vented jacket with an extra layer underneath and my winter gloves. My body felt find, but my hands felt cold leaving London. Though not as bad as they had been. But once through the grey, then the fog, and into in the sun, vented gloves and no extra layers. I just wish I had worn the vented trousers too, although it is less easy to add extra layers to those and would have been freezing in the morning.

Traffic was surprisingly light given it was the end of a holiday weekend, Covid restrictions are lifted, though international travel is difficult. But where I went on the coast the beach was very busy.

Still struggling with the voice commands on the Sena. I turned down the "tap" sensitivity and now cannot activate it that way. And saying "hello Sena" only worked twice. Once without the engine running, and once when stopped with it running. Both times with the microphone against my lips. Maybe it just needs a quieter helmet, mine is a flip type one so does not help.

I will have to check the manual to see if there is a way to activate it with a button, though if it does not hear my greeting it probably would not recognize a command. But it is fine for my needs, although it does not seem as loud as the Cardo. Generally not a problem as it is loud enough, but sometimes it did feel too quiet when there was more wind making noise.

Motorway lane lines are 2 metres long with 7 metre gaps.

Gave it a good clean

It used a motorway services for the first time. I have stopped in the car parks before for various reasons, but never properly used them and bought something. But I needed the toilet, and then felt I needed to eat something as my last glucose test was getting close to the must-eat level.

Fully vented clothing today, and it needed it. The weather is now in the high 70s °F / mid 20s °C. Sunny today, but looks like it will be cloudy but just as warm coming home.

An update on the Sena, in the wind it is quite difficult to hear music. It is just too quiet, and I am not sure why as both the Sena and my phone was on maximum volume. In contrast, the G.P.S. volume is very loud and clear. Maybe I need to try another music device to see if it is my old phone.

But positively, Siri seems to work. I am visiting my dad but the second test will be taking place when I return home so I checked the FM radio feature works with my digital radio (which has an FM transmitter as it is meant for use with older car radios). As part of that I also tested Siri in case I am instead streaming cricket, that is the only way to switch to music when play ends. All worked well in my front room, but I needed to test it on the road. So on a loud motorway I pressed the phone button, shouted an instruction, and Siri recognized it even with all the background noise in my noisy helmet So that was reassuring.

Something I forgot my bike did the other day was to not fall over as I am still not used to the extra size of the panniers. When I was on my dad's gravel driveway and about to turn onto the concrete I was too close to the wall, so the pannier got stuck on it and I just managed to hold the bike up. I beeped a few times, but the time my dad arrived I had already given up and was able to hold it at an angle and blip it forward enough to park.

It was also a slight problem riding home on Friday when traffic was backed off up due to one of the lane's being closed (and everyone was trying to get in lane before the 600 yards to closure sign, even though that just slows everyone down). I am hesitant at filtering at the best of times, but did not want to wait. So with the panniers, and having to pass between lorries, I managed to reach a car that was sat to the outside of the inside lane and too busy looking at their phone. So I went around the nearside, turned in front of it, but did not have the turning space to get between the next car and a lorry. I had to waddle a three (or more) point turn!

Still, would have been difficult carrying all my luggage otherwise.

Anyway, I have been experimenting with the Sena again and I have made two discoveries. At least part of the reasons my attempts to use speech control with "Hello Sena" have failed is it only works in standby mode, not when listening to music. The second is the reason music is quieter than anything else is because I have the HD speakers which have an equalizer option, and that seems to work by reducing the volume.

Will hopefully get to go on a ride tomorrow, and so will get to try those out in practice. The other interesting feature of the Sena is you can pair two phones, or presumably any other extra bluetooth device. I cannot see anything about how you control the second one though, the manual just says if you are listening to one and the other starts playing music it will interrupt it. So I guess pressing play in standby just controls whichever you listened to last. Unfortunately the second phone I use is just to provide an internet connection to my G.P.S. (which a while ago refused to work with my normal phone and even wiping and reseting both devices will not fix it) so does not play anything to test with.

It really was too hot for me yesterday, though I have ridden in worse.



That was when I got back to my bike after eating a vegan battered sausage and chips on the beach! I think the problem with heat in the U.K. is not that it gets too hot compared to other places, but that it is always so humid when it does. After a sunny morning the sky is very grey now, yet it feels so much worse.

A few more Sena discoveries. Music is much better with the equalizer turned off, no complaints with the volume now. Which also seems to have been the problem with ambient mode, which I through was useless but may just have been that I never thought to turn the volume up! I accidentally brushed it when riding on an awkward road and the external 'noise' became clearer. Still need to try it when passing people talking, but it may be a nice feature after all. And while riding at 60 mph with the sun visor down but the main one up I shouted "Hello Sena" and despite the noise it responded. Though shouting "Music" and "FM radio" did not do anything so it cancelled me! Maybe I need to pronounce them better?

The awkward road was because after a period of behaving, my TomTom decided to play silly buggers again. I wonder if it struggles with the heat, as I think it only happens in summer. I was following a route I had put together when it tell me to turn off at a junction onto a narrow lane. I stopped and looked at the map, as sometimes it sends you down roads just to do a u-turn back. I think because a co-ordinate that Google's API sees as the main road the TomTom one sees as a side street. But the map showed it as a through road, no doubling back.

So I just assumed I had let it pick a cut through between two proper roads. So I carefully head along a single lane covered in gravel. Then stop at a junction at what is a steep hairpin bend, continue ahead until I reach a farmer on a wide mower type vehicle, who pulls over to wave me through, only to later be told I need to u-turn and go all the way back! I probably would have, but I did not want to face the farmer again so just let my sense of direction take over. I was heading east and felt I have had travelled north, south at the hairpin, then east, so I just took options to continue heading that way in hope of finding my route again. And the road continues to widen until I did reach the one I was supposed to be on. There are some places an F should not go, and that initial road was definitely one of them. Though with the hand guards and luggage I suppose it does look like a wannabe X.

And I have not installed it yet, but I bought another Chinese gadget for the bike. I was looking on Amazon to replace the thermometer, as the chrome-effect bar mount is looking pretty bad from being kept out in all weather. They had an LED display that normally costs £12 for just under £4 so I thought it would be worth the risk of buying but with no expectation of using it.

It has three rows of LEDs, one for a clock, another for the battery voltage, and the third for the ambient temperature. It mounts on the mirror bolt so sits out of the way but in all honesty is too big. But its usefulness is too much to turn down.

In our climate a thermometer on the bike is useful at certain times of the year for deciding what to wear. And after recent problems the battery meter has proved very helpful. And my USB sockets which contain a built in meter have died, so being able to buy one without a meter gives more choice. But the clock is the most important of all. Obviously out bikes have them built in, and my G.P.S. has one too. So not something I need. Besides, the display has to be permanently wired to the battery for it to work as it does not have a backup one built in.

However the clock can be used as a stopwatch, and I have badly wanted something like that for a while. In the U.K. if you are on insulin you are required to do a glucose test every two hours at most while driving (or riding) as a condition of a medical driving licence. And that means having to constantly remember the time of the last test and to check the clock to see if one is due.

So having something to count it out that I can see in a glance is very helpful. The only other options I have found have been to use a kitchen timer of some sort. Though they tend to be not waterproof, inconveniently shaped to mount, and many can only count to or from 99 minutes and 59 seconds. So this one feature alone, which was not advertised in the listing, would be amazing to me.

I am a little concerned that is till be as waterproof as claimed, though. There is a rubber seal where the cable goes into the display, but on the edge there is an open gap where you can see a bare cable inside! So I will need to find a way to improve that before mounting.


Because of Covid I only got to ride 4,143 miles last year. Last week alone I managed 1,069 miles! Although my rheumatologist has referred me for surgery on my fingers, which came as a surprise, so if that happens I assume it would mean another short break from riding.

I remembered I had my old bike battery to hand, so could test out the new display.



Sat on the front of a 13" MacBook for scale. It really is big. It is also very bright.

The "M" is the button. Press it once the clock icon flashes (so you can enter the mode to set it), again the temperature flashes (so you can switch between °F and °C), again the voltage flashes (as you can set a lot volt alarm level), and finally once more to enter stop watch mode, where the clock is replaced by a flashing "00 00".

At that point a long press returns to the clock, a normal one starts the stop watch. And that is odd, because it counts in tenths of seconds, all the way up to 9,999 tenths of seconds. After 16 minutes and 40.9 seconds it stops and flashes on "99 99".

In the context it would be used I am not sure how useful tenths of seconds is, you are not going to be able to time yourself that accurately when you cannot stop and start it that quickly when riding. Maybe it is useful for someone, but not for me as my testing requirement is 72,000 tenths of a second and the display is not wide enough for that. At least at when it runs out of room it could drop the tenths and just count in seconds, but no. After flashing for a while it just clears itself and goes back to the clock.

To set the clock, press the button so the clock mode flashes, then do a long press until the hours flash. Each press adds an hour. Another long press for the seconds to flash, and again one press to advance by a second. Finally a long press when done, or just wait for it to stop flashing.

I though that I could just use the clock as a timer and reset it when I test my blood, but that process is bad. And it is a 24 hour clock, so reseting it to zero once it reaches 2:01 would mean pressing the button 22 times to clear the hour and 59 times to clear the minute.

To wire the device there are three cables, black is earth / ground / neutral, blue is the switched live (so the display will not drain your battery and not blind passers-by), and red is for permanently live (so the clock continues when the bike is off). The display only works when both red and blue are live.

And for that reason I should easily be able to make it work for me. As I have no need for the clock, simply putting a switch on the black cable will work as a reset button, as disconnecting the power will turn it off and clear the clock!

That is probably even better, because there are times I may briefly leave the bike but not need to test yet. I do not want to leave the key in the bike, but would want the timer to keep running, which it would not otherwise. It probably does not use much power, but a toggle switch would also allow it to be turned off completely when parked.

So now I need to buy a suitable switch, but just sitting in my front room for 999.9 seconds has been quite a journey from thinking it works okay, to disappointment that it would not be useful, to realizing it could actually work better.

Mind, it still could do with being at least half the size, and half as bright. Though as I am more likely to ride in sun that at night, even in the U.K., maybe the illumination is something I will end up also preferring.

Was planning to ride it tomorrow, but the forecast has changed back to rain again. After a hot and sunny spell, it has become grey and damp the past few weeks. At least by staying home I can watch the speedway tomorrow, if there is a good stream as Eurosport seem intent on their pay-twice watch-once policy.

But I finally bought the Puig 3657F screen. Not installed it yet though as that will require messing around with the mirrors. But they need removing anyway so I can replace the broken USB, and install my thermometer/timer. So everything can wait until I sort out the cabling, which will hopefully be next week.

The new screen looked tiny when I took it out of the box, but it is about the same height as the current one. Just narrower and with no deflector, so in practice it will probably not make much difference. The main reason for the swap is it is a custom fit to the bike, so I can get rid of the universal handlebar mounts which just get in the way, And hopefully never again have to readjust the screen angle as mount bars twist slightly.

put new chain and sprockets (2nd time for this bike) @ ~37,000 miles now. used new OEM 15 tooth drive sprocket, new OEM 41 tooth rear sprocket, new OEM chain slider, D.I.D 520vx3 112 gold chain, D.I.D 520vx3 gold rivet type master link. special tools used were D.I.D kmr500r chain breaker rivet tool, MOTION PRO chain slack setter, MOTION PRO rear sprocket alignment tool, GRUNGE BRUSH, TIROX 360 brush, GREASE NINJA chain lube tool, BIKEMASTER digital torque wrench adapter 1/2".

cleaned and reused drive sprocket/chain guard:


parts:

cleaned my bike

40,000 mile oil change...

also pictured are rear brakepads... didn't need to replace just yet but i bought them to get free shipping on entire order.

41,000 miles. and the original battery is no longer holding a charge even after charging overnight with an OPTIMA digital charger... time for a new battery. the OE FURUKAWA FTZ10S is not available quickly so i went with the recommended YUASA YTZ10S : pefect.

replaced rear brake pads.