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I have unfortunately been forced to open my wallet again for Earl; my hoped-for repair of the forks (which have now been through two sets of seals and a few hours of careful chrome buffing) has clearly not worked, and the left leg started weeping in earnest again. Rather than throw bad money after good I bit the bullet and bought some forks from a local bike breaker; I'm pretty sure I only needed the left side but they only came as a pair, so for USD330 delivered I hit the "buy-now" button. I am pleased with the purchase as the chrome on my new forks is visually faultless. They looked and felt OK so I have just fited them and gone riding. Past experience is that fork seals usually don't like to be unused for months at a time so I am half-expecting to change the seals but so far, so good. My next plan is to fit the spare 1.0kg/mm Racetech springs that were in my ST1300 and refresh the oil; even with max preload, the stock forks are using 47mm of travel with me aboard, and will bottom out occasionally. Working out the correct spring spacer length burned a few brain cells; this is a trivial job on RWU forks, but with the USD design which uses an internal top-out spring, much head scratching was required. The top-out spring gets compressed when the main spring is installed, to the tune of 13mm. I was also thinking about reusing the GoldValves from the ST but so far the KYB cartridge has me beaten, and requires a more assertive disassembly than the previous RWU Showa forks that I have tackled. Hints and tips would be welcomed, these require the base to be unscrewed from the cartridge tube, and then the same for the seal head. Having some spare forks to mess around with means I can do this at my leisure and not worry too much about causing irreparable damage, but I'm still trying to go carefully. I've not done a lot of riding as I have been off shore for 3 weeks in the frozen north and our "summer" weather has been deeply unreliable lately, but I hope to rectify that. This was the new fork test ride this past weekend, looks nice but it was blustery and I got hammered in some decent showers.

Know anybody with a lathe?

Agree with Brad. I help a friend with his bike detailing business and we draw straws with these newer bikes. 30 to 45 job nearly doubles with all the nooks and crannies.

I have for sale a set of Raask rear sets for a vfr750. Very period looking, bolt straight to existing holes. Complete with parts book. Looking for £60 ovno. I will post anywhere for postage cost or collect from Cromer Norfolk. Photos to be added or i can send them pm.

Oi! Yes, free of charge too! (actually, no)

I'll keep an eye out for one.

Been trying to find a Hawk spacer for a while now, just for that purpose. Ebay and such have been dry for a some time now.

-2C on Sunday, MC club meet to start 2026. Promised a pal to bring a rare fuel tank, but hey, can't take the car now can I? (97% did...) Wore my 12V mc gloves -which are too bulky to handle a Sig P226 for sure- that kept my hands nicely ice-free. En-route I spotted a stinky i-4 Yamaha R6 by the side of the road. Stopped and asked the rider if the bike had broken down. "No, I'm just very cold" Which didnot surprise me as he sported jeans, sneakers and what looked like summer gloves. Och aye, the folly of youth,,,,

Duc GP4 fan? Welcome back!

Does the NHS enforce compulsory tests on pensioners now?

But how do you get past the ugly factor? Seriously. I look at VFR, FJ1200, VTR250 and so many other lovely to look at bikes and then I see the new stuff like these 800s, the FZ series, and KTMs, etc. and they're beyond ugly, not to mention a nightmare to clean with all of those creases and angles. I'm not sure that I could do it.

I've had 520 gearing through all of this, so I also think you should take this opportunity to go 520. But I've done 15/45. 15/43. 16/45. 16/43. 17/45. And 17/43. And I went back to and stayed at 16/43. Which is 6th gen stock gearing. So if you're 6th gen. Stay with what you have. If you're a 17t front, go 16t. And Sprocket Center is where I got everything. I had to call in to get singles. But they have full kits.

I have a Trail Tech Voyager gauge.

During my work servicing my CT, these 2 rubber bits fell off from behind the LH middle cowl (the painted bit). I've looked but cannot see where they might have come from and the shop manual doesn't seem to mention them so does anybody know exactly where these came from and can point them out on the picture below? Cheers.

I sat on few Suzuki’s recently at a Suzuki only shop. The 8S and 800 V-Strom were nice to see in person. I’m all for the modern machines, owned plenty of old bikes from the 70’s and 80’s in the past but I’m all in on the new machines style wise and the modern simplicity. Things like air filter access under the seat, torque laden engine with spot on fueling, quick shifter, TC that can be turned off, decent ABS brakes, TFT, nice package for ripping around town and in the canyons.

Hah! No, I'm an Aerospace Quality Inspector and have been to a couple classes and have had them visit a few times at work.

Slightly off topic....but I couldn't help noticing the Hexagon mouse pad. Do you work for them? I worked for Hexagon from 2017 to 2022.

Aha, so basically we don't know what exactly will happen after putting unrestricted headers and leaving German -611 ECM. Well, we'll find out shortly so I may also contribute in this thread 😉 Anyway, we can expect slightly better result after de-cat in general, based on the theory.

Now that you mention it...............

I FINALLY got around to starting to service my CT today. You know how life gets in the way, well this last year has been really busy but now that I am retired, I have the time to spare without it impinging on other important things so I started work on her today. A 2020 1200X, she had <900 genuine miles when I bought her a year ago and had been serviced annually by the dealer she was purchased from, but they were only Annual Services so I am having to complete all the time-based services. That includes replacing the engine oil & oil filter, air filter, bleeding the brakes, changing the final drive oil and coolant. As the tank was raised for the air filter I took the opportunity to run a USB port from the Healtech Thunderbox under the seat to the headstock to power the netbook I'll be using for sat nav. Then I'll be able to start fitting the rest of the farkles before she's ready for full use - crash bars, oil cooler guard, aux lights, louder horn, brackets for the larger panniers (OEM ones will be up for sale once I've decided that I prefer the larger ones). The seat has already gone to Top Sellerie in France for an upgrade. At some point she'll go in to my local suspension guru, Darren, at MCT Susupension near Stowmarket for an upgrade too. He worked on my 1200F and it transformed the bike so this is money well spent IMO.

Gotta love white VFR wheels... Ciao, JZH

Welcome! Looks nice. No problem uploading .stl files that I know of. It would be great to have some central place to store VFR scans. I've got a few I need to do, too. Ciao, JZH

Looks really nice 🙂 We need more pics.

Franklin I don't know, but as long I don't have to pay the hair dresser I don't care 😅

Upset? No, just baffled. Your bike, you can do whatever you want.