Ahhhh, warm. That is what you will say when you try the Keis heated bodywarmer. They can be operated by connecting yourself directly to the bikes battery or by using one of the accessory batteries. The Keis heated bodywarmer will keep your body nice and warm which also helps keep your arms and legs warm too. They are washable and durable.
With an amazing record of wins even eclipsing the likes of Fogarty, Ben Spies has wraped up the World Superbike championship this weekend with a dominant first race and a sensible championship winning second.
Noriyuki Haga crashed in race one giving away his slender lead in the chamionship leaving the door open for Spies to take the spoils.
Johny Rae had a good weekend with a second and third place whilst Shakey Byrne had a couple of very creditable fourths on a clearly slower machine.
Max Biaggi looked fast but due to a crash earlier in the weekend he couldnt manage more than a third in race one and a sixth in race two.
Leon Camier continued to impress with a sixth and seventh place finish. Leon Haslam ended a weekend to forget with two DNF’s.
A bit of news today is that Sylvain Guintoli is going to partner Leon Haslam in the Alstare works Suzuki WSB squad next year. This makes way for Yukio Kagayama to come back to old blighty to entertain us once again.
Max Neukirchner has signed for the Ten Kate Honda team for 2010. And of course James Toseland is back in WSB having swapped bikes with Ben Spies.
Frame protectors
Still a relatively new concept but quickly becoming an essential item for almost any motorcycle. Imagine you have just purchased a new Fireblade and whilst riding it home you accidentally fall off on some diesel, your bike slides down the road in front of you, as you pick yourself up and stagger to your bike you notice the clutch lever and footrest have snapped off and there is a dent in your frame where the handlebar hit it. Many of us have a similar story to this one. If your bike has a set of frame protectors (aka crash protectors, crash bobins or crash mushrooms) it would have landed first on those, keeping the bike higher, possibly even stopping the handlebar from touching the floor, maybe the frame protector took the full weight of the bike and the footrest only has a scratch on it. You pick the bike up to see the scratches on the bellypan but you are able to ride the bike home. Wow, that just saved you a lot of money and hassle.
Brake pads
Many different materials have been used over the years to improve motorcycle brake pad performance. And whilst the organic brake pad materials are kinder to the metal of the disc it is the metal sintered brake pads that tend to give better stopping power. Metal sintered brake pads can and usually do wear out the disc rotors slightly quicker than the softer materials but the difference is not great and most people would rather have the extra stopping power. Racing motorcycles tend to benefit from using different compounds of brake pads to allow for the extra and consistently higher temperatures that occur on the race track. It is also very important when fitting brake pads that the brake calliper pistons are free moving and the seals are leak free and in good order, another consideration is that the pins the brake pads slide on are smooth and lightly lubricated with a copper grease. Brake squeal can occur when dust produced by the pad builds up in the brake calliper and disc, this can be cleaned using solvent brake cleaner.