Took the bike in for a service today and rolled out with bad news. The water pump and the fork seals need replacing and they didn't have the part to complete that today. So I've ridden home, with one eye on the temperature, to put the VFR in the garage and walked away for a while. So for a couple of weeks I'm going to be driving to work. The part is in stock locally, but the shop is having some staff issues as well as I have a busy calendar making it hard to drop off.

I'm thinking about what I might have noticed that could have indicated these to me. I haven't noticed anything on the floor of the garage to indicate leaks where I park the bike. I don't remember noticing anything whilst washing the bike either.

Did it ride different? Not that I noticed, but with my benign riding style, I'm not really surprised, especially with the simple commute up the freeway. And the daily temperatures have been cold, helping the water temp stay in normal limits.

And I'm positive that the temperature has never spiked or overheated, so no worries about further damage. I've previously ridden a bike without coolant and the speed at which a bike will heat up is extreme and very noticeable.

I do think I have been hearing the pump, perhaps, but the sound I occasionally hear, I put down to the CCTs needing replacing soon and I've been waiting for the occasional little sound to get constant and louder as they deteriorate. My original CCT were replaced around the 55,000km mark and I've not had a problem since. However as the current ones have over 70,000km I've been expecting to replace them sometime. Maybe the sound was the pump, not the CCT, but my lack of experience, and lack of other indications meant I assumed it was the CCT.

Still I think 130,000 out of those is nothing to be too worried about. If it was 13,000 I'd be worried, instead I'm just sad :(