2nd May

Our organic alarm clock chirps up at 6:45am (about 15 mins early) with, "Mummy. Daddy. Milk. Yello! Mummy up.". Within 1/2 an hour I'm up and out onto the road. I've a date with Mark Dent at Dent Engineering where he's confirmed there's a Nova transmission waiting with my name on it :o)

2 hours later and I'm there. Mark's been in since 7am and so we have time to catch up on news, drink some coffee, shoot the breeze about the new dyno he's been developing (watch this space - Mark's about to release a very trick looking dyno with functionality that puts Dynojet and Fuchs to shame for a 1/4 of the price of either Fuchs or Dynojet) - anyhow before we know it, it's time to pick up Scott Rehl who is stopping by while he's over from the States.

Mission accomplished with Scott picked up, we set to on the bike, and a quick baseline run on Mark's Dyno shows she's still making 120hp. The trannie is installed with no fuss whatsoever, although one slight teething problem with the set up is that the new kick start gear just fouls against the shift fork shaft. A little bit of grinding and all is well.

Back into the bike and a quick run on the dyno shows that the gear change is very slick, and a hugely improved 1st to 2nd change compared to the original box. Power is unchanged, and the bike sounds very smooth for some reason (whether it's the oil change or the new box is you guess?). We all took a quick run up and down the estate, and without fail all come back in impressed with the ease of change and perfect ratio for 1st gear. Scott wins the prize for picking up the front in 1st gear award (I lose as my automatic failsafe wrist action works overtime) ... she comes up rather quickly doesn't she Scott ;o)

The old box, by the way, is showing significant wear on 2nd and 6th, and also on 1st after only one thousand miles! So it looks like the Nova transmission was a prudent choice - definitely the right way to go.

18th May

I've waited a long while to put the finishing touches to the bike. In my mind it's the finishing touches that make a bike look good. In keeping with the concept of a "sleeper", I had a chat with the nice blokes at Ambient Graphics about reproducing the RS250 logo on the bike, but obviously with a more appropriate RS500 graphic. True to their word they cut some vinyl overnight and I had 3 graphics to add to the bike. Not only that but without asking they produced a duplicate set for the spare set of race plastics. The red is colour matched to Aprilia red, and I'm very pleased with the results.

A bit of hairdryer action, some petrol to remove the gunk, a quick de-grease, and bingo, an RS500 graphic is in place. It's probably the easiest aesthetic modification you can do to a bike, and it really does bring the bike to life - well I like it :o)

23rd May

It's Sunday, and fresh from an evening in the garage helping my brother service his Ducati 996 (just don't OK) I'd remembered I'd arranged to head up to Peter-bog-horror and join thousands of other motorcyclists in their annual pilgrimage to the BMF rally. I remembered years gone by, and my own need to visit the East of England show ground each May. In my formative years I'd appreciated the BMF rally for the cheesy stereotype it had become, and I have fond memories of the annual thrash up there untainted by the event itself.

Imagine my disappointment to find that I'd been looking back in time through rose tinted specs. Nowadays it seems like the cheesy stereotype is beyond appreciation and I found the BMF slightly less enjoyable than watching earthworms asexually reproducing. It appears its only good for buying *cheap* leathers cheap or end of line helmets, and unless eating expensive greasy food is your forte, the BMF holds little more than a sanitised version of biking for the sad muppets who want carbon yolk protectors - at least I didn't need to worry about how I was gonna carry the stuff I'd bought back on the bike.The BMF was even worse than I remembered - maybe it's my age ... but £13 entry on a late Sunday afternoon with nothing to see except t-shirt and cheap leather stalls was a bit steep. Mark Dent was there racing his methanol drinking moped ... that race was about the only thing that made the visit interesting, although wandering around the breakers enclosure looking at parts of shite old bikes made life bearable. Sure there was the occasional nice bike, but fer christsakes you can see more exotica at the Ace Cafe, or Chelsea Bridge, and you don't have to pay £13 quid. A huge disappointment - and I won't be going again - well unless Mark invites me to ride his moped in the moped mayhem event one year.

Just as well my bike made up for it wasn't it. The ride up and back was fantastic. I called into to meet up at Russell Brown's gaff (an Ixion mailing list bod who I'd arrange to head to the show with) and about 5 mins into the conversation I realised I was shouting still ... buzzing from the adrenalin of the ride up. It's fair to say I enjoyed the ride - not least because a full on R1/RS500 drag race had ensued on the A1. Several ride by's and obvious goading's by the R1 rider forced me to change down a few, tuck behind the bubble and nail her through the gears - it didn't matter that I got the drop on the R1, the RS was just plain quicker from 70 to some number higher but not strictly the sort of number you put on a web page.

The ZX10 was as much fun on the way home - a *non* green version had pulled up behind me - what is it about the RS that first intrigues riders into wondering, then goads them into inciting and trying. Being tired however I was less willing to play. I was in fact enjoying the fact that the bike was completely happy cruising at 80-90mph, the weather was well hot but the bike was not over-heating, still, just one wind on wouldn't hurt .. empirical efforts suggest that the roll on was not that dissimilar, BUT the ZX10 went on to far surpass my bike's terminal velocity - or least ways far surpass my willingness to risk seizure flat out on the motorway. Either way I figure she held her own and *I* was impressed - just a shame I can't say the same about the BMF rally!

ps ... the 38 miles between one fill up and the next yielded a 7.7 litre fuel consumption ... I don't think we can call her fuel efficient can we? Errr that's about 12mpg innit? Shit! With a 19.5 ltr tank that would suggest that a 90 mile motorway blast would be theoretically possible, but practicality suggests that a self imposed 70 mile limit is more realistic.