fbpx

A Bit of a Shopping Splurge Before Donington

Alpinestars Supertech R

K&N Oil FilterI have been a little bad and done a little shopping for some odds and bods before Donington. I am running out of time to do an oil change before the race weekend so got  a couple of oil filters, K&N from eBay (£19.99 for the 2). A little more than the HighFlow ones, but the K&N do come with a nifty 17mm nut on them, if the bugger refuses to move, but more importantly a lockwire hole. No more jubilee clip around the oil filter for me to get through scrutineering. Along with that comes a bit more oil, Silkolene Comp 4 10w-40 XP Synthetic being the particular flavour I chose, and  courteously supplied by Questmead (Check out their website here  and Steve Brown Rally Team for log dodging on 4 wheels 😉 )

Wheel CarriersNext up on the splurge was totally unnecessary, but nice to have category. It is a couple of wheel bags. These are a nice to have and means I don’t have to be as paranoid about damaging the discs on the front wet wheel when not on the bike. Though I naturally am paranoid about anything damaging any part of my bike, but especially the brakes. There was a group buy on www.trackdayriders.co.uk and at the price I though that would be a good idea.

While browsing at work I saw that Halfords were finally doing a worthwhile bundle on their tool chests. I have been thinking about these for a while as my plastic stacker boxes don’t really survive the “Oh crap I need this bit in 20 secs or I miss the race” or even more destructive “last orders at the bar in 2 mins” panics unpacking and packing. Lack of room, that is easily accessible, and knowing they do deals has stopped me buying them before. This time round a “sod it, it’s only money” mood hit me when I saw a 7 draw top box and 5 draw wheelier box for £199. So a bit of a hit there. I have still yet to pick these up as being Halfrauds after selecting to collect them from the website, they haven’t got them in stock at where I can pick them up from. After 5 calls they were promised for Friday…. then Sunday…. now next Sunday. So when I get these is anyone’s guess.

And finally. The biggest purchase. Yep Boots. I made my mind up. I decided that new ankles where probably more expensive than good top of the line boots. Unfortuantly I could quiet stretch to the Daytonas, so I opted for some Alpinestar Supertech R‘s to avoid the annoyance of the outer armour hooking up with the heel guard on the Gixxer. A bit of internet searching got me them for £279.99, which isn’t to be sniffed at, £80 under RRP, from Biker Wear (an eBay shop based in Birmingham). Nice, comfy and hopefully I won’t test their protective prowess.

That’s it… I’m broke now. Nothing can now go wrong with the bike, nothing else is allowed to drop off (least of all me).

Small techie note about the site: I am using a new plug in for videos, as it’s responsive to screen size and seems to be a fair bit faster at loading up. So if you have had problems in the past, as I know some have, hopefully this will fix it.

Do you have anything you'd like to add?