December 29th 2011.
I just though I (GameStone) would post this final update to the Steve's Zone site.
On the 13th November 2011, after a long battle with cancer and various other problems Steve passed away, I will leave the site running as a remembrance to him, he was a great friend and will be sorely missed. |
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July 27th 2011.
My wife has taken a 1 month sabbatical from work to do all sorts of weird and wonderful things just for the fun of doing something different. So I decided to book her up on a CBT course to see if the idea of riding a bike for herself rather than relying on being a pillion passenger was favorable. Follow the picture links for more. |
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May 6th 2011.
Finally got round to completing the page that contains the information and pictures for the adapter plate that I made to house the Navman "Spirit" S100 satellite navigation system to my motorbike. It is a bit on the industrial side and has taken ages to make and to be honest I am not sure if it is going to work to well. Time will tell. |
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April 26th 2011.
I realised there was a page missing which had information and pictures pertaining to the Homemade Universal Handlebar Platform Mount that I made a while ago to house the MD80 Mini DV Camera. This is the mount that I also plan to use to house the Navman S100 bracket with a few of alterations. Use the picture links in the usual way. |
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March 25th 2011.
The other half was looking to spend a bit of money on a new motorcycle jacket, one that was a bit more flattering to the female form. Looking for one that could be used in all sorts of weather conditions she opted for a Rev'it "Siren" ladies textile jacket. More information and pictures found using the picture links opposite in the usual way. |
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March 24th 2011.
I was suffering with sunglasses fogging up even though I use the "Pinlock" system on my crash helmet which is fine for the visor but not glasses as well. I purchased one of those "Foggy" anti-fog breath masks to see if it would solve the problem and it did. More information and pictures found using the picture links opposite as usual. |
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March 6th 2011.
With the ridiculous price of dedicated satnav systems for motorbikes, (more than £500 for a decent one) I decided to try and use the one that I bought for my car, a Navman "Spirit" S100. Unfortunately it has not got Bluetooth as I originally thought so it means I will have to try using it with earphones instead. |
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February 20th 2011.
Just found out that a friend of mine is doing a charity bike ride in April 2011. He is raising for two charities, Cancer Research UK and The Cystic Fibrosis Trust. To help promote his site with the details of the fund raiser I have added a couple of picture links to his web site that gives more details of the fund raiser. Any donation is welcome! Thank you! |
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February 18th 2011.
As the weather was showing signs of improvement with warmer temperatures and less chance of snow I decided to drag the bike out of mothballs. Took me a good couple of hours to de-grease and uncover the parts that I had protected for the Winter. Took it for a 20 mile or so test ride and all seems OK, (and it started first time). |
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December 5th 2010.
Made an edit to the bike index page by adding another picture link to the slide show. This should launch a new page and show all the videos I have loaded on to YouTube so far should anyone be interested. You can also use the picture link found on this page which does the same thing. |
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YouTube Logo
and Web Link
To My Channel. |
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November 26th 2010.
Looks like Winter has finally settled in with temperatures around zero degrees Celsius and forecasts of snow showers so I thought it time to wrap up the bike. I did the same as I did last year which meant oiling up any parts that could go rusty and covering them with grease paper. Plugged in the Optimate charger to keep the battery in tip top condition. |
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October 20th 2010.
Up to design number four for these MD80 Mini DV camera brackets. The latest one is a bit more basic and has tapped holes for mounting purposes rather than "Vee" clamps or dedicated tube diameters. This latest design would also be more suited as a "stand alone" unit. |
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October 16th 2010.
Been playing around with different designs for brackets to house a MD80 Mini DV camera to my bike in different locations. I have now included these designs in the Homemade Bike Bits section. There you can find pictures of the camera in position along with diagrams and video links to Youtube. |
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October 14th 2010.
Purchased yet another pair of motorcycle gloves, (Alpinestars Jet Road GTX Black Goretex Gloves) and included pictures and details on the second men's clothing page under the accessories section. These gloves are more for Winter / colder weather use although they are classed as an "All Seasons" pair of gloves. |
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October 1st 2010.
I have been messing around with different video cameras mounted on the bike so as to capture footage from my ride outs with friends but I found mounting the cameras was a bit of an issue. I experimented with some homemade brackets purpose built for the MD80 Mini DV Camera which can now be found in the Homemade Bike Bits section. |
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August 3rd 2010.
The clothing section was starting to get a bit out of hand so I have decided to split it once again this time having a specified ladies wear section. This is to accommodate all the clothing and protective wear we have accumulated lately to enable my wife to ride pillion with proper protective clothing. |
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July 11th 2010.
Started to update the second clothing section to accommodate all the new and used bike gear I have purchased over the last year. I have also started to add some of the clothing that I have had to get for my wife so she can ride pillion just in case anyone wondered why women's clothing had suddenly appeared on the page. |
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June 20th 2010.
Borrowed some bike gear from a friend so I could take my wife for a spin on the bike as a pillion passenger as she has kept on at me about it For someone who has never been on a bike before she did not do to bad apart from the odd head butt. Trouble is she liked it and now I have got to get her some proper gear of her own. Expensive ride out! |
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June 19th 2010.
Expanded the section for cleaning products under bike accessories to a second page due to the ever growing amount of cleaning products I have purchased. It is a similar story with the clothing section as well as I have also had to expand this to a second page. |
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June 12th 2010.
Annual bike service time! Opted to take it to Alpha Motorcycles in Leigh-On-Sea Essex rather than Laguna in Kent for two reasons. Firstly I am not overjoyed with the after sales service from Laguna. Secondly, Alpha Motorcycles is a damn site closer to home. Nothing untoward found wrong with the bike. Service cost £154.00. |
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Alpha Motorcycles Logo
and Web Link. |
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May 22nd 2010.
My friend who owns a Kawasaki Versys purchased a Drift X170 Action Camera for when he tours Europe later this year and has tried various mounting positions to test out different filming angles! We found a position on the front forks that could be a potential winner but a custom bracket was required. This is the manufacture of said bracket. |
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April 25th 2010.
Utilising the web space provided by the Windows Live Photo Gallery feature I decided to upload some bike pictures and link to them to see how it performed. This is the result of said links. The first one is to the main album folder content the second one is to the slide show feature. |
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April 21st 2010.
Having gone to the trouble of making the replacement loom wire for the dual headlight modification it seemed silly not to go ahead with the project. Follow the link pictures for a more detailed look at what I did to complete the conversion. If all goes well the job should take no longer than about 2 hours. |
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April 16th 2010.
Contemplating doing the dual headlight modification so that both headlights are on at the same time rather than the single left hand light and right hand high beam current setup, (Sitting on the bike perspective). In preparation for the modification I have made the replacement loom wire and terminals. |
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April 12th 2010.
I was curious as to what sort of fuel consumption I was getting on my bike and how it compared to my car, (which was more economical bike or car) so I devised a simple method to check what was best. The fuel calculator that I devised is simple to use and works for all vehicles and all fuel types using the known data as instructed. |
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April 10th 2010.
My friend and I found a potential fault with the way the throttle cables were routed through the slotted bracket at the steering end which were showing considerable signs of wear in the plastic outer sleeving revealing the inner steel braid due to the steering movement. This was the preventative measure that we took to protect the throttle cables. |
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April 2nd 2010.
I joined the official FZ6 forum last year but never got around to actually uploading any posts or comments. I finally decided to do something on the forum but I had forgotten all my log in details. I tried to recover my password which failed to happen so in the end I opened up another account using new details. |
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March 2nd 2010.
Found some old Kodak 110 pictures of some of my older bikes so I scanned them at the maximum my old scanner could manage, (300 ppi). I then replaced some of the "Borrowed" pictures on the bike History section with these scanned images. Picture quality is not brilliant but you get the general idea of what is what! |
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February 20th 2010.
I thought that as I now had two effective main page subjects, (Camera and Bike) a visits counter on each page would be a nice touch to get a rough idea on how the site was being navigated. After a few failed attempts at adding some free counters GameStone kindly allowed me to use another one of his five allocated ones. Thanks GameStone! |
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Blue Visits Counter
used on the Bike
section index page. |
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January 14th 2010.
Been working on a proposed history style page to show how the evolution of the Yamaha FZ6 Fazer S2 had come about since the introduction of the first Yamaha FZ6 Fazer to Great Britain in 1998. Not so sure as I will incorporate it into the main index page as yet so for now the picture links here are the only ones to show the page progress. |
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November 1st 2009.
The accessories page was getting a bit to large to contain the layout on one page due to the amount of extra bits and pieces that I have bought now so I decided to split it into sub categories these being, clothing, security, cleaning and for now because I can't think of a more appropriate name, extras. I have left the original files for the accessories page intact and it can still be viewed as a page up to this date but any further purchases are featured on the new layout. |
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Use this picture link for the original bike accessories page up to the date 1st November 2009. |
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October 25th 2009.
Remembering back to the old days and more of a reminder to myself than anything else I decided to put together a Bike History page. Unfortunately a lot of the bike pictures I had got destroyed some years ago so I have had to rely a bit on pictures I found on the Internet so acknowledgement to other peoples images should be made here. |
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October 12th 2009.
I have been having another general tidy up of pages throughout the site, (mainly the new bike section) and I have replaced the "borrowed" pictures with photographs of my own now. I also ran a few command tools using dreamweaver CS3 to clean up some XHTML code and spelling errors. All pages are now markup validated to be error free with regards to XHTML 1.0 transitional. |
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XHTML 1.0 Transitional Validater Web Page. |
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September 14th 2009.
Updated the new bike section by adding some pictures, descriptive text and features tables to the "Bike Modifications" section. I decided to include repairs in the modification section as some of the items are to replace damaged parts and are not necessarily genuine Yamaha parts. The "Bike Modifications" section is not yet complete so some text and pictures are missing from some of the links. |
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August 31st 2009.
Updated the new bike section by adding some pictures, descriptive text and features tables to the "Bike Accessories" section. Some of the pictures are "borrowed" for now just to act as place holders and will be replaced with my own at a later date. Other pictures are my own work so therefore do not need replacing. The "Bike Accessories" section is not yet complete so some text and pictures are missing from some of the links. |
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August 29th 2009.
Took my bike for it's 600 mile / 6 week service to Laguna as the first service is free of labour costs if you go back to the place where the bike was purchased, still cost over £60 for oil and filter change though. What was promised to be a one hour wait also turned out to be a two hour wait and to be honest I am not surprised as this seems to be a regular occurrence when dealing with Laguna Motor Cycles. I was booked in for 10:45am and I did not get away until gone 1:00 o'clock. I will not be using them again I will rely on more local dealerships. |
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August 23rd 2009.
Found a place that did supposed paint colour matching into an aerosol for you so I decided to give them a go to see if I could repair the damage to the "Mole". It all looked pretty good until I put it back on the bike then the colour difference became blatantly obvious. I have since found out that these "Mole" units can be bought separately from Yamaha dealers after all so that is the course I am now taking, (£55 for a single side), I should have done this in the first place as the paint & lacquer cost £35. |
Picture of the damaged "Mole Unit" before the attempted repair.
The scratches are quite deep so filler was needed to get the shape back!
Mole Before Repair. |
Picture of the "Mole Unit" after the repair attempt.
Cost me £35 to get the colour matched paint and lacquer and as this picture shows the colour match is somewhat off disappointingly!
Mole After Repair. |
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August 11th 2009.
Finally took delivery of the bike bits I have been waiting for and everything that I ordered, (stay, sub cowling, bolts, screws etc.) seems to be included in the parcel. Another plus note is that the sub cowling is now the right colour for my bike. Hurrah!
I can now get on with the bike repairs next Friday weather permitting!
Incidentally the cost for these few items is not far short of £300 and there are still more items to purchase to complete repairs. |
Picture of the new "Stay".
Cost me close to £100 to replace the old one so not advisable to keep bending them! |
Replacement Stay and Sub Cowling,
Optional Extra. |
Picture of the new Sub Cowling or "Belly Pan" as it is also known.
This optional extra Cost me close to £200. I wanted it because I think it makes the bike look more streamlined breaking up all that silver! |
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August 9th 2009.
After my little "off" I had a guy check out the kerb scrape on the front wheel rim and in his opinion it was not worth bothering about with but should I want to go ahead with the repair it would be £35. Checking the wheel for run-out with a DTI, (Dial Test Indicator) the wheel was found to be well within the Yamaha specified run-out tolerances so I am pretty confident that the wheel is not bent and is safe all be it a bit scuffed. I have decided to use a silver touch-up paint pen for now so as to fill in the scuff to some degree, this should also prevent corrosion of the bare metal. |
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The scrape on the wheel rim has been touched up with a silver paint pen for now just to stop the alloy corroding!
The minor damage on the front wheel rim can be touched in with a silver paint pen for now until I can afford the proper job. |
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August 1st 2009.
Took a trip to Laguna Motorcycles in Maidstone to collect the Alpinestars T-Dyno Jacket and bike sub cowling that I had ordered. While I was there I looked into ordering a replacement bracket for the one I managed to bend in the accident the day before, plus I needed some replacement screws. It was while I was being served that I noticed the sub cowling was the wrong colour meaning they had ordered the wrong part. Having to re-ordering it along with the new bracket meant having to wait even longer for it now!
By way of compensation for the "cock up" the shop guy said he would post the items to me free of charge when they came in. Dah!! |
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Alpinestars Blue/White T-Dyno Jacket XXl, £115.57 + Vat.
Laguna
Total Price = £132.91. |
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July 30th 2009.
Mistake Number 2:
Everything had been going smoothly and I was slowly easing myself back into biking when I had a bit of a wobble on a bend. Inexperience led me to grab a handful of front brake which made matters worse. I managed to regain some control of the bike by dabbing the back brake but by this time I had run out of road and was on a verge. The consequence was that I put it in a ditch with me trapped underneath it! |
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For the full story, pictures of damage to the bike and of the accident scene from this little off road excursion use the picture link! |
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July 21st 2009.
Mistake Number 1:
Discovered that if you put the steering lock on and turn the key to far, when you come to use your bike three days later after it being covered up you will have a flat battery due to the fact you have unwittingly left your parking lights on for three days! |
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July 18th 2009.
Motorbike arrived at 11:00 am all be it somewhat shop dusty! a quick wipe over before delivery would have been a nice touch but I guess due to the cock up the day before things were a bit hurried. At least all the extras that had been ordered were on the van as well all except for the Alpinestars T-Dyno jacket which was on order as I required an XXl size & the Sub Cowling which I knew was still on back order from Yamaha!
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July 17th 2009.
Sat indoors all day patiently waiting for my new motorbike to show up only to be met with disappointment. Phoned Laguna Motorcycles at 6:00 pm to find out where my bike was only to be told the van that does deliveries had been in use all day elsewhere and that they had run out of time to deliver to me, (a phone call would have been nice). Anyhow after many apologies they promised delivery for first thing Saturday morning. |
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July 14th 2009.
After having a bit of conflict with my bank with regards to getting at my money I finally managed to successfully do a bank transfer to Laguna Motorcycles to pay the due amount for the Yamaha FZ6 Fazer S2 motorbike and accessories that I had purchased. The accessories being a Spike Blue Aria Chaser crash helmet, Alpinestars T-Dyno Blue/White jacket & Vega Drystar gloves, an Oxford Stormex Bike Cover & a Disc Lock. I also opted for the official Yamaha "Sub Cowling" or Belly Pan as it is also known as I felt it would break up the amount of silver on show. |
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July 10th 2009.
Took a ride down to Laguna Motorcycles in Kent and after getting a bit lost and caught up in a traffic jam I managed to find the place. Turns out the bike in question had zero miles on the clock and the shop was not prepared to let me loose on it as it had not had it's 5 mile road test yet however they did let me ride a 2005 "naked" version of the bike to see if I still had my old bike riding skills. It was like I had not been off of a bike at all, it was really strange and good fun so obviously I had to buy the bike now. So I did the deal so to speak, purchased a few necessary extra items and arranged to have the bike delivered Friday July 17th! |
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July 7th 2009.
Having made my mind up that I could afford a new motorbike and all the other bits and pieces that went with it I decided to call the shop that had the Yamaha FZ6 Fazer S2 to see if it was still available, it was. I secured a sale with a £200 deposit that was fully refundable if I did not like the bike so I could not loose. Arranged for a test ride some time at the weekend either Friday, Saturday or Sunday whichever day looked like it was going to be the best weather. Incidentally the shop in question, (Laguna Motorcycles) was located in Maidstone, Kent some 40 miles from where I live so not to far to travel. |
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Thought I would link to the place where I got the Yamaha FZ6 Fazer S2 motorbike from as they have their own web site. |
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June 30th 2009.
After a break from biking for some 25 years I decided to look around and see what second hand motorbikes were on the market and what sort of deals were available what with the so called credit crunch etc.
It was my friend that found a reasonably good deal on a shop pre-registered Yamaha FZ6 Fazer S2 which coincidentally was the bike I had been looking to get, so I decided to look into things a bit deeper with regards to funds and money availability etc. |
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