A frenzy of farkles.....

The last couple of days have been pretty good in terms of farkles, albeit quite diverse in function.  The first item arrived in the post yesterday....

A fellow Street Triple owner in Perth, Australia (cheers Allan!) alerted me to some very nice swing arm crash bobbins on EBay.  I don't plan on crashing anytime soon (fingers and everything else crossed) but their design has another nice feature.  As the Triple only has a side stand, lubricating the chain and doing laser wheel alignment requires the use of a paddock stand.  With the previous home made locators for the stand arms, there was always a risk of scratching the paint. The new crash bobbins double as locators for my paddock stand and the shape of them keeps the arms clear of the swing arm too.  Relatively unobtrusive as well.  A great result all round!

The new swing arm bobbins/paddock stand locator

The next farkles arrived by courier today......

With the exception of the Damascus Steel carving knife we commissioned  a few years back (story and photos HERE ), our kitchen knives purchased over the past 4 decades have been cheap and utter crap (a technical term) and simply won't hold an edge.  In fact, a carpentry saw might give a better result. I suppose I'm the last of the moto-bloggers to cotton on to the value of really good kitchen knives!!!

Finally losing patience, we recently investigated what might be described as high end kitchen knives.  The first reaction was "Bloody heck" (another technical term), mainly as a result of the eye-watering price.  I reckon that NZ kitchen accessory shops could teach the Mafia a lesson or two in terms of extortion.  Fortunately, the Internet is a wondrous thing and we found a supplier in the US who specialises in internet sales to keep overheads to a minimum.  Not only would they ship to NZ at a saner price but he gave some excellent impartial advice to help us navigate through the bewildering minefield of specifications.  Their advice was that you didn't need many knives at all, but quality was everything.  We ended up with these 4 knives:

Tojiro ITK 270mm blade bread knife (also great for melons and the like)

It has a thin, hard core to keep a lethal edge, sheathed with a surgical grade stainless steel and like all the knives we bought, the general "feel" and balance is light years ahead of our other knives.

These are the rest:

Wusthof Ikon 4 1/2" utility knife, Wusthof Classic 6" serrated utility knife, Tojiro 15cm utility knife

Haven't had time to use them properly yet but have seen an impressive demo of the bread knife on YouTube and at lunchtime, I cut a soft tomato with the serrated utility knife - it's like it's cutting through air!!!  Incidentally, the Wusthof Ikon 4 1/2" utility knife was the most expensive of the lot at just under US$100 - go figure that one! At least Jennie can't grizzle about the outrageous price of bike accessories any more!

As a final comment, I'm inclined to think that internet shopping has made suppliers world-wide really lift their game in terms of quality of service.  Whether it be motorcycle parts or anything else, I'm  struggling to think of an example of having been on the receiving end of poor service in the last couple of years. If only the same could be said of our local councils and some notorious banks where poor service is the norm, rather than the exception!

Addendum:
A nice sharpening jig arrived today.  You can set the sharpening angle and it comes with 4 stones between 400 and 1800 grit.  Tried it on one of our crappy old knives and it works perfectly.  I'm useless with a steel and this delivers a professional finish even when operated by a complete idiot like me!

 Idiot-proof sharpening jig

Street Triple paddock stand and wheel alignment

Spent a few useful hours adapting "stuff" to suit the Street Triple last weekend.  Up until now, I've thought that paddock stands in NZ have been overpriced, so have washed the rims and lubricated the chain by wheeling the bike along a bit at a time because there's no centrestand on the Triple.

A recent chance remark by a friend about custom bike parts revealed a local company that makes aftermarket components for a range of bikes, including paddock stands.  A perusal of their website House of Custom revealed paddock stands which were about half the price of others I'd seen, meaning I could slip a purchase through without an inquisition; or being made to stand in the naughty corner by the Chief Financial Officer *snigger*. They didn't make a stand specifically for the Triple, but it looked as if the Ducati/Aprilia one might do the trick.  It was duly ordered and arrived 3 days later.  Beautifully-made with cadmium-plated brightwork and rubber bump stops on the underside to stop trapped fingers or paint scuffing.  Given the price and quality of these, others on the market are a plain rip-off.

The only thing I had to do was get a couple of 6mm metric H.T bolts and cut up some thick wall stainless tube I had laying about to make a pair of bobbins to screw into the swing arm for the paddock stand to hook onto.  Result - beautifully stable and ready for business.

Beautifully-made stand at a sharp price

End view

With the absence of a centre stand or a paddock stand, it's also quite difficult  to check the wheel alignment.  This has been niggling me because I have yet to find a tyre fitting outlet that consistently gets it right and I'm now on the second set of tyres from new. I religiously checked alignment on the Blackbird whilst tensioning the chain or after a tyre change as misalignment can adversely affect handling and tyre wear. This post from March 2010: Wheel Alignment details the simple laser alignment rig I built for the Blackbird.  Unfortunately, the new paddock stand height meant that the old rig wasn't suitable.  A quick hunt through the shed revealed some materials which would do the job and the key bits of the old one were transferred.  (And our better halves have the cheek to complain about guys hoarding stuff, sigh.... we're only trying to save money!)

Laser alignment rig in situ

Voilà! A few hours work in the shed and the result was lots of convenience and time saved for maintaining the bike in the future.  Oh... and yes, the wheel alignment WAS out by a fair bit.  Not only can tyre fitters be a bit slack, but there's sufficient play in most chain adjusters to mean that without a proper means of checking; you could have a problem and not be aware of it.

One final thing....  the Blackbird had a Scottoiler chain oiler which worked superbly although there was a bit of lubricant fling which made the rear end of the bike just a little messy in places. For various reasons, I haven't bothered with one on the Striple and so far; have tried Spectro chain wax and Motul spray-on lubricant.  Both "seemed" ok although the Motul product is tacky and attracts a bit of dirt.  I'd been reading glowing reports of the DuPont Multi-Use dry wax lubricant with Teflon and molybdenum on several bike websites so have picked up some to try.  Apparently, the chain stays completely clean and there's no fling from the clear film.  I'll be keeping an eye on how it performs in the coming months.

Addendum:  The DuPont lubricant is brilliant stuff.  Haven't needed to adjust the chain between tyre changes, the chain stays clean and it doesn't fling.  Normally apply it when the chain is warm, every 400-500 km or thereabouts.  I think it would last longer than this interval with no problem.

Du Pont Multi-Use lubricant