September 2021 Online Edition New Club night Venue Please see inside
Issue No 254
September/October 2021
W I R R A L A D VA N C E D M O T O R C Y C L I S T S Group Council 2019-2020 IAM Group 5115 Web Site
http://www.w-a-m.co.uk
Chairman
Ken Smith
chairman@w-a-m.co.uk
Vice Chairman
Rob Tutchings
vicechairman@w-a-m.co.uk
Honorary Treasurer & Gift Aid
John Temple
treasurer@w-a-m.co.uk giftaid@w-a-m.co.uk
Membership
Andy Poustie
membership@w-a-m.co.uk
Associate Coordinator
Pat Goodison
associatecoordinator@w-a-m.co.uk
Trainee Observer Coordinator
Steve Hunter
TOC@w-a-m.co.uk
Chief Observer
Derek Jeffries
chiefobserver@w-a-m.co.uk
Honorary Secretary
Rob Cooper
secretary@w-a-m.co.uk
Minute Secretary
vacant
minutes@w-a-m.co.uk
Events Organiser
vacant
events@w-a-m.co.uk
Newsletter Editor
Peter Lovatt
newsletter@w-a-m.co.uk
Data Manager
vacant
DataManager@w-a-m.co.uk
Social Media
Steve Lord
SocialMedia@w-a-m.co.uk
Group Shop
Martin Titley 0151 632 3570
groupshop@w-a-m.co.uk
Rob Tutchings
rideouts@w-a-m.co.uk
Ride Out & Bike Safe Coordinator Other Council members
Dave Spotswood, Steve Molyneux, Nina Jeffries, Pete Montgomery, Mike Hurst, Dave Rees
MAGAZINE Editor:
Peter Lovatt
Duplication: CS Digital Wallasey 2 Distribution: The Post Office!
Welcome to the next instalment of the WAM Newsletter - The September/ October issue. A lot has been going on this year with WAM and some of its members. In July, it was discovered your humble editor had a brain tumour (now removed and on Chemotherapy for six months), Pat Goodison is also not well with cancer, and Long standing member Mike Boston has Motor Neurone disease. Which kind of brings me onto the August BBQ club night were we had a representative of the Motor Neurone Society in attendance. The club managed to raise a whopping £497.56. estract of thank you letter, below
WAM have also moved to a new club Venue, the Wirral Rugby Club, at Clatterbridge, which is handy as it is fairly central to most of the membership. Also before I run out of space on the page, congratulations to those on the ARC Courses in passing your IAM TEST!! Roll call inside this issue 3
IAM RoadSmart Polo Shirts
We can now take orders for polo shirts. These are a charcoal shirt showing the new logo plus two lines of text Wirral Advanced Motorcyclists Your Name Size Guide: S: 36/38" M: 40" L: 42" XL: 44" XXL: 46/48" Female: 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 £20 each - Nina Jeffries will take your payment at the group social evenings (second Tuesday of every month).
You may see some WAM members wearing them at club nights
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Congratulations to the following on passing the IAM Advanced Test:Darren Edwards has passed with a F1RST
Adrian Powell Andrew Wise retook his test and passed with a F1RST Chris Davies
Paul Grundy John Vidamour Eric Gibson has passed with a F1RST
Andy Smith has passed with a F1RST Ged Monaghan And
Congratulations to Adam Brimage who passed his Masters test with a distinction. 5
Scotland 2021 Some pix from the Scotland trip to the Nethy Bridge Hotel, Cairngorms. 30+ riders took part and it was a good long weekend, with several riders taking a few more days to travel further afield. Organised by Derek and Nina, its always a good event to be on.
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Thanks to Peter Montgomery and his drone to get this shot of WAM at the Hotel.
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Cost effective way to ‘track’ your bike Apple AirTag pple have recently released their version of Samsung’s Galaxy SmartTag, the Apple AirTag. Which ever way you sway between the two smartphone giants; both offer a great cost effective way to add another level of security to your beloved bike …on a shoestring budget too!
The tags cost around £29 each between Apple and Samsung, with no additional subscription charges - that’s all! How do they work? Essentially, these tags utilise an efficient Bluetooth system and in the case of the Apple AirTag, a NFC directional chip (so when you’re within a couple of metres, you can pinpoint the device, even if hidden). Both devices contain a small replaceable watch battery, that lasts circa 365 days. Bluetooth range is very limited, so how can these devices be tracked worldwide? Thankfully, both Apple and Samsung have built into their phone’s operating sys10
tem, a clever Bluetooth receiver, that is just ‘listening’ for these devices in the background. Once one is detected (i.e. when someone is passing by a lost air/smart tag), their phone automatically transmits the GPS coordinates to the central server and this location is in turn, sent to the person that has registered that tag. The passerby, will never know that their smartphone has just helped locate the lost device. It doesn’t just do this once, but every time someone passes within the range of the device. If you think about how many people now have smartphones around the globe, the possibilities of these are enormous. I’ve fitted an AirTag inside our car and I can see where it’s parked - this location is constantly updated, each time someone walks or drives past.
Placement and Limitations If you’re interested in utilising this inexpensive technology (to help protect your bike), you’ll need to consider where best, to place or mount these to your bike. Fundamentally, you’ll need to change the battery each year, but the first place a ‘would-be thief’ would look, is under the seat - so avoid! So think creatively and disguise them under electrical insulation tape, perhaps behind fairing??? These are water resistant, so don’t worry about the tag getting wet. Each of the two systems use smart algorithms, to protect against tracking people. If a tag is placed on somebody or hidden in their belongings, after several hours, they will be informed via their smartphone, that a tag (that doesn’t belong to them), is following them. This feature, clearly puts a finite timeline on the usefulness of a tag fitted to a stolen motorcycle, as the thief will eventually be notified. However, it is considered ‘the normal’ these days, for stolen bikes to be parked overnight somewhere away from the thief’s property, for the bike to ‘cool down’, in the event that the bike might have a tracker fitted. 11
This should be ample time to find your bike and ride it home, before it’s stripped for parts the next day, when the thief returns.
If this system helps recover a stolen bike, the victim might only be looking at the costs to replace the steering lock on the machine and a new lock/chain. Rather than the increased insurance premiums the year after you’ve been paid out for your total loss (obviously less the compulsory and voluntary excess)! Can AirTags or Smart Tags, bring us a profound sense of security… unlikely, but they might just help …”and on that basis, I’m in”! Rob Burns 12
How to put your bike on a diet Unsprung advantage
The lower the overall weight of your motorcycle, the more acceleration you’ll get out of each horsepower your engine produces. But it doesn’t stop there. Weight removed from the areas not supported by a bike’s suspension – the ‘unsprung weight’ – has other advantages in terms of handling and suspension reaction. The lower the unsprung weight (the combined weight of the wheels, tyres, brake calipers and other ancillaries), the less mass the suspension has to control, enabling it to react more readily to road conditions. Lighter wheels reduce the gyroscopic effect produced by the wheels, making the bike easier to turn. But be careful – sharpening up the steering in this way can cause an already quick-steering motorcycle to become unstable over rough surfaces, something that can’t be eliminated with a road bike’s (limited) standard suspension adjustment. So, if you’re thinking about shelling out on a massively expensive set of superlight carbon wheels, also put some serious thought into investing some cash in revalved/uprated suspension to provide a wider range of adjustment. Extra benefits When selecting the parts you’re going to use to achieve a weight reduction on your bike, get extra value by choosing components which will provide additional overall benefits. For example, if going for lighter aluminium sprockets, adjust the gearing of the bike to be suitable for your needs while you’re at it. Almost every area of performance can be enhanced while on a weight reduction program. Be selective Things such as fancy anodised tax disc holders and carbon look-a-like bar-end weights will obviously do nothing towards achieving a weight reduction on your machine if they are merely additions rather than replacements. If you’re really serious about wanting to trim your bike’s weight, begin with the parts that will have the biggest effect for the least expense – an exhaust is a good place to start – and then take things from there. 1. Most fasteners can be replaced with lighter aluminium or titanium items, available as kits for specific models, or individually. Some come in anodised colours, including chain adjuster bolts, wheel spindle nuts, caliper bolts, etc. A sweep through the bike should save around 1.5kg, but titanium isn’t cheap – an axle nut alone costs £20. 2. Standard brake systems are now so good that only the most serious race bikes and specials justify the cost of aftermarket/race set-ups, which shave only a few grams off the standard weight. But using six-piston calipers, for instance, allows the discs to have a narrower swept braking area and therefore be lighter… 3. A full disc and caliper job, using high quality parts, costs around a grand and 13
loses about 250g – a whopping £4000 per kilo. But all the weight is unsprung so has a double benefit, plus any loss from the discs is vital as it is spinning mass that must be accelerated with the wheel, thus creating gyroscopic force that must be overcome to steer. 4. High-quality carbon front mudguards only shave about 250g which, when you’re looking at around £100 a throw, works out at some £400 per kilo saved. But they do look good and those grams come off the steering mass. Remember that if you’re bolting a carbon rear hugger to a bike, you’re actually adding a little weight.
5. A quality titanium exhaust system is likely to set you back a grand, but that’s pretty good value when you’re losing up to 10kg and gaining about 10bhp. The best end-cans in titanium or carbon-fibre represent around half that weight saving and should add around 5bhp. With twins, you’ll double the weight saving. 6. If you don’t carry passengers, then a lot of weight can be lost for not a lot of cash. Going over to a single seat unit will knock a couple of kilos off straight away, and you can lose more by taking off the pillion footrests (you’ll need an exhaust bracket) and any pillion handles. Keep all the bits so you can get the bike back to standard when you sell it. 7. Wheels represent the largest proportion of a bike’s unsprung weight – lighter wheels mean better suspension reaction plus faster steering due to less gyroscopic effect at the front. A typical pair of sports bike wheels tip the scales at 12kg. Carbon-fibre wheels are 7kg, magnesium composite wheels are 9kg. 8. Save a third of the weight of your steel sprockets with hardened aluminium alloy replacements and get your gearing sorted at the same time (eg for better acceleration). There’s also a choice of a smaller-pitch chain, with even thinner and lighter sprockets. OK, you’ll only save a few hundred grams, but racing sprockets look cool for £35-45. 9. Redesign your braking system, firm up its feel with braided hoses and lose weight at the same time – most of which will be unsprung. Run two lines from the master cylinder (one per caliper) to junk the stock unions/ splitters and banjo bolts. With less (and flex resistant) 14
line, you’ll have better braking feel and less fluid in the system, too. 10. If you’re not bothered about getting the maximum range from your fuel tank, you can save around 5kg by under-filling your bike by a gallon each time you visit the petrol station! This is sprung weight, so won’t give a major handling improvement – but if it’s that extra 1mph you’re looking for, it’s worth considering. 11. If your bike already has lightweight clipons, there’s only a small advantage in fitting aluminium GP-style bars (about £120). Steel tubular items can easily be replaced with weight-saving aluminium tubes for £15. Don’t be tempted to go for ultra-light bar-end weights unless your bike is for track use only, as you’ll suffer from heavy vibrations. 12. Save money and lose weight at the same time by knocking the meat pies and burgers on the head. Lose half a stone (3kg) and you’re looking at the reduction value of a £450 end-can; another pound and you’ve got a carbon front mudguard. Your weight, of course, will come from the sprung total, so you’ll have to adjust your suspension to suit.
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DISCLAIMER:-
The articles published herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Institute of Advanced Motorists Ltd, or the Wirral Group of Advanced Motorcyclists. They are the opinions of individual contributors and are published with the view that free expression promotes discussion and interests. So you have been warned. Interested in doing the Advanced Car Test? Wirral Advanced Motorists are the people to see. Go to www.wirraliam.co.uk