Busa is fixed

I collected the bike from WMC this afternoon. It has a new regulator/rectifier unit.

My concern is, will this fail again? There are some comments on Hayabusa forums about the location of the rectifier and they have been reported to fail after being damaged by stones from the rear wheel. There was no noticeable damage on my bike's rectifier but it is hard to know what internal damage could occur from a high speed stone. There are stones stuck by tar to the top of the rectifier mounting bracket and in the fairing below the rectifier. These would have got there on the Wednesday night ride from the resealing at Te Marua. Time will tell but I am considering a modification to protect the unit.

Odo 3369kms at WMC

Gone to the workshop

WMC picked up the Busa this morning. Yesterday I got the bike running, just enough juice in battery to start, and checked the battery volts. There was no charge voltage reading.

Hayabusa stopped

Today was to be a ride to Ngawi with Ulysses and first an early coffee over the hill. Never got that far as the busa stopped running.
I went for a ride over the Rimutakas with Alan early morning and near the top the F1 light came on. I stopped and there was not enough charge in the battery to crank it. So I turned the bike around went down hill and crash started the bike. It ran for a couple of Kilometers and then the engine stopped and so did the instruments. It was then a coast down to the bottom.
The bike got a ride home on the back of a truck courtesy of AA Rescue and hopefully will be in the workshop tomorrow. The battery is flat (10 volts) so I guess it is either a faulty battery or the charging system failed. It is a pity Suzuki didn't fit a low volt / battery charge warning light. I had just started the bike at the Caltex station around 8kilometers or 8 minutes before it failed.

Tomorrow I will make a call to Wellington Motorcycles.

31 Motorcycles on Wednesday ride

One week to go until daylight saving ends and so do the Wednesday night rides. Next week will be the last but as today was excellent weather I did this ride just in case next week is rained out.

This time I got to the start early - just on 6.00pm. We went to the White Swan in Greytown. I didn't stay long, the nights are closing in now. The ride home was by myself and there was little traffic on the hill - a nice ride.

Got home just after 9.00pm.

Wairarapa

Ulysses had a ride to Castlepoint today and I considered it. However, I couldn't spend all day on the bike so opted for a shorter option. I left home a 8.55am and headed for Featherston. Just inside the boundary there was a police road stop. They were stopping bikes so ACC staff could hand out a safety pack for motorcyclists.

That stop was uneventful and they didn't see my cunning new radar detector setup in the tankbag. From Featherston I did a loop down the Martinborough Road and then up to Carterton with a return back to Featherston to meet up with the Ulysses group. During this ride I tested the acceleration in 2nd and 3rd. It took a few runs until I was able to cope with the mental and physical overload of the blistering acceleration. This bike is unbelievably fast.

From Featherston we headed to Martinborough and around the back road to Masterton/Castlepoint. I stopped at the Hill Climb out the back of Gladstone and watched the action there for a while.

At 12.45pm I headed home arriving at 2.15pm. The fuel light came on as I went up the Ngaranga Gorge so I stopped and filled it up. This is an economical bike, even with a number of squirts to 10,000rpm in 2nd and 3rd. 278kms Jville to Jville and 15.72 litres to fill it - 5.65L/100kms or 50MPG. The Hayabusa odo now reads 3159.

End of summer Wednesday ride

Summer is officially over but what a beautiful day. I got out to the duck pond around 6.20pm and there was a large crowd. I meet some new people before the ride started. As the road over the Rimutakas had some work done on it the decision was made to go over the Paikakariki Hill road and meet at Gordies bar in Paraparaumu.

As I tend to do I went near the back of the pack. The first stop was at the lookout and here I counted 43 motorcycles. A couple had pillions so there were over 45 on the ride.

Once the sun had set I headed home, getting in at 8.45pm. This was a 103km ride and the bike has now done over 2800kms. I filled it with 15.5litres before leaving which calculates at 5.3L/100ks for last Sunday's ride to Ashhurst.

Palmerston North to visit Temanawa

This was the Ulysses ride. We left Plimmerton Weigh Station at 10.00m. There were only 6 riders and I can only assume the threat of rain was the reason so many wimped out on the ride.

The show at Temanawa was "Motorcycles Unleashed" http://www.temanawa.co.nz/motorcycles-unleashed.html.

After the visit we went to the Herb Garden Cafe in Ashhurst for lunch. I came straight home via SH1 getting home at 4.30pm. Some took the longer ride home via the track.

Fuel useage: I noted the low fuel light came on at 290kms - have yet to fill up.

Comments are now turned on in this blog.

Friday night - trademe deliveries

Alan had a couple of deliveries to make from sales on Trademe so I joined him. Any excuse to take the bike instead of a cage will do. The deliveries were in Mana and Whitby so the route took in Grays Road and Paramata Road.