Welcome to anyone who has no doubt stumbled upon this blog. What you have discovered here will probably be as useful as space junk... a random collection of brain farts I've had, things I've found on the net, experiences I've had etc.
If you are bored out of your mind and just want to kill time feel free to peruse through my posts. Maybe you find something vaguely interesting or amusing.
Laters
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
My Honda CB 600 F Hornet
I have ridden all sorts of motorbikes ranging from 50cc Yamaha Jogs to litre bikes like the VTR SP-1 and CBR 1000 RR Fireblade and so, while I don’t claim to know everything, I consider myself to be a pretty experienced biker. Part of this is due to the fact that I don’t use bikes just for weekend runs (not that there is anything wrong with that) but I commute on them daily too.
I recently took delivery of a brand new CB 600 Hornet and decided it was a good chance to do a review of it for those thinking of getting one. So here goes...
OUT OF THE BOX:
The saying goes “first impressions last” and rather than the tasteful angles shown on the Honda website (top) this is usually this is the sight you are greeted with (bottom) .
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I have been riding litre bikes for 3 years now so my first impression when I saw the Hornet was “wow it’s so small!” But when I climbed onto it I was surprised that the bike felt about the same size as the litre class bikes only lighter.
LOOKS & FEEL:
The Hornet fills the gap between the smaller capacity street bikes that one would associate with delivery bikes and the race replica sports bikes. The benefit of this is that it is a hybrid of the two cashing in on the features each class has.
From the street side the Hornet inherits the naked look and comfortable seating. After many hours and thousands of kilometres in the seat of superbikes, sitting on the Hornet is a joy. The riding position is more upright than a superbike, which means there is less strain on ones back and wrists. Similarly the pillion seat is far more comfortable too since it is much wider than those of a superbike. The foot pegs for both rider and pillion are situated lower down in comparison so the pillion won’t feel as if their knees are wrapped around their ears.
From the Race Replica side the Hornet inherits the engine from the 2007 CBR 600 RR. It has been detuned slightly to provide a smoother response and better fuel economy. This has definitely been achieved, but more on that later.
The dash is very neatly laid out and features pretty much everything one could ask for other than a gear indicator. It has a large centrally located analogue tacho (that’s rev counter in layman’s terms) and a digital speedo. Fuel gauge, the usual warning lights, coolant temp etc. A handy feature on the Hornet is a hazard light switch.
SPECIFICATIONS:
599cc liquid cooled, four stroke, transverse 4 cylinder, DOHC with 4 valves per cylinder is the ramblings you are told but essentially you are getting what is pretty much the industry standard for bikes these days across almost all manufacturers.
Up front the Hornet features 17” 5-spoke rims taking a 120/70/17 tyre, 41mm upside non-adjustable forks allowing 120mm travel and a single 240mm disc with 1 piston calliper.
Bringing up the rear the Hornet has the same 17” 5-spoke rim taking a 180/70/17 tyre, Mono-shock 7-step adjustable preload damper allowing 128mm travel and two 296mm discs, each with 2 piston callipers.
The Hornet has a six speed gearbox with final drive being chain and sprocket. Onboard is a 19L fuel tank.
Dry weight is 173kg and 177kg if you take the optional ABS brakes.
In a nutshell the Hornet has all the regular features.
OUT ON THE ROAD:
After running the bike in I went out for a few decent runs to get a good feel for the Hornet. The Hornet is very comfortable with a fairly upright riding position. This relieves pressure off the rider’s wrists which is caused by leaning forward on the superbikes. With motocross style handle bars you feel like you have a bull by the horns. It’s a nice riding position as it allows you to use your body weight to control the bike easily by moving around in the seat.
The 600cc has plenty of gusto, however the gears feel very short which means you have to change up and down very often. This is most noticeable when one pulls away from a standing start. Just as you have lifted your feet off the ground and before you can rest them on the foot pegs it’s time to change to 2nd gear.
Handling is pretty good. The Hornet seems to be attracted to corners. On bigger bikes you really have to lean and guide the bike into corners whereas on the Hornet simply looking at the corner and facing your body in that direction gets the bike heading for the apex. Leaning the bike over is a cinch considering the bikes weight. However, the steering is very light and therefore one feels if they are not careful they could jack-knife the steering on the way into the corner. Maybe this is a subjective comment though as I have become accustomed to bikes with a steering damper fitted.
Usually when manufacturers print their fuel economy claims it is based on tests formed in ideal weather conditions on a flat road being ridden by a midget weighing almost nothing. I weigh 90kg and while I don’t ride the Hornet like a stolen vehicle, I’m no granny either. Sticking to the speed limits and using the bike both out on the open road and commuting in bumper to bumper traffic I average 19km/L or 5.26L/100km which is very good. And with a 19L tank you will easily get 260km out of your tank before you need to think about filling up.
PROS & CONS:
The Hornet is a very nimble commuter that offers comfort, good looks, easy riding and fuel efficiency. Being a naked bike, doing DIY maintenance and repairs is a doddle and cleaning all the little nooks and crannies is easier.
On the down side, the lack of a windscreen means that anything over 100km/h will result in the rider having to strain their neck against the buffeting of the wind. The short gears make the bike feel a little slow because you are in top gear very quickly and then lack the torque to accelerate.
CONCLUSION:
If you want superbike performance, go buy a superbike. If you want a fuel efficient bike that looks good and performs well for the tasks for which it was designed then the Honda CB 600 F Hornet is a good choice. And that’s not propaganda. Before I bought the Hornet I was a fan of 1000cc full fairing superbikes, sometimes known as “rice rockets” or “crotch rockets”. After buying the Hornet and getting used to it (and a small paradigm shift) I’ve come to enjoy the bike immensely. The Hornet isn’t going to win many ¼ mile sprints nor decimate Nissan Skyline’s sporting “Zooped Up” stickers on the highway, but then again that’s not what Honda designed the Hornet to do.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Setting Up My New PC
And so the day finally arrived when all the components of my new rig arrived and I could set it all up. Right from the very beginning though I ran into problems! My camera battery was flat so I couldn’t take photos during the build… I couldn’t wait, so I built it without taking pictures.
I proceeded to check that everything was in order and the right parts, and then got stuck in.
Opening up the case, I saw for the first time how attractive having a black interior in a chassis is. It really is aesthetically appealing and makes ones rig look more “professional”. It might not be for everyone, but I really like this Antec 900 Two chassis
So first up was the mobo. I unpacked the MSI 790GX board and screwed in all 9 spacer screws. I Popped the mobo in and screwed it in. I sat in awe for a few seconds staring at the chassis. This tower makes a full ATX mobo look small!
Dropping the AMD Phenom II X2 550 CPU in took less time than writing this sentence, but the CPU cooler would prove to be a whole different situation! Let’s just say that if a part is designed for both Intel and AMD sockets, it’s not going to fit either perfectly. Believe it or not I ended up taking a hammer to the clip in order to get it to fit… After attaching the relevant spacers, screws and thermal paste, I realized that the clip was not going to attach on both sides very easily. Using virtually my entire bodyweight and sacrificing some skin on my fingers I soldiered through the excruciating pain of pressing down on a 1mm thick steel plate in an attempt to secure the clip. Alas, it would not fit.
So after wiping the blood and tears away, I decided to have some revenge on the sanctimonious clip and beat it with a hammer to alter its shape a little. Finally I managed to get it to fit onto the AM3 socket. A word of advice for people reading this, if someone tells you that an AM2 or AM2+ socket is “virtually identical” to the AM3 socket and that a cooler designed for AM2 will fit…. Tell them to fuck off and die. The Gigabyte G-Power II Pro is clearly not designed to work on AM3 sockets, although it can be forced against its will.
Ok, so after this traumatic experience I was reeling in pain and needed a break. So I had some dinner. I swear on my life that glass of wine was the best glass I’ve ever had!
Right… back to the PC. Next up was the RAM. Wow, I had no idea that the Corsair Dominator heat sinks were that big. Once seated they are a mere 1.5mm away from the CPU cooler. So that’s the 4GB of DDR3 1600Mhz RAM installed. Nice!
Having hard drive cages that are removed through the front of the chassis are awesome. In previous chassis I’ve had close encounters with having to contort drives past graphics cards or onboard heat sinks on the mobo to remove the drives. Remove 8 little screws though, and the hard drive cage slides out effortlessly through the front of the chassis. I installed my two drives (a 1TB and a 400GB) in bays 4 and 6 to leave a nice gap in between them for airflow. My new 1.5TB will go into bay 2 or 3 when it arrives.
The PSU I bought is a Cooler Master eXtreme Power series, which conveniently is black too. This went in without problems too. I must say however, even with longer than usual cables, some of them are still a little shorter than I’d have liked, but that’s due to the size of the chassis, no fault of Cooler Master’s.
Lastly it was time to connect all the I/O cables and fan power. The Antec chassis has a neat way of hiding all your spare cabling by making a small gap between the back chassis wall and the mounting plate of the mobo. Feeding all your spare cabling through the holes provided, there are little harnesses to tie them down. This leaves the interior of your rig looking very neat.
As this rig is a still a work in progress, the graphics card and hard drive are still to come, but for now there are enough components for the rig to run.
After throwing away the thousands of boxes lying all over my lounge floor I plugged in all the cables and booted up into the BIOS. CPU core temp was 22deg and chassis temp was 25deg. Cool! Excuse the pun.
My next installment will be about installing and setting up of Windows 7 64 bit and all the drivers and applications.
After that will be updates as my new parts arrive such as new monitor, graphics card and BluRay drive.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Miracle Hangover Cure
I was introduced to a great new hangover cure this weekend. After a big (understatement of the year) night on Saturday I was blessed with a hangover of note.
Following a friends advice I popped in to a 7 eleven and bought a can of Super Juice. No jokes it's really called Super Juice!
Well after downing a can I didn't feel any better, actually a little nausea started to swell inside me, but that subsided in minutes. Within an hour or so I was feeling better and soon I was back to 100% and even tapping in to a little wine with my lunch!
Following a friends advice I popped in to a 7 eleven and bought a can of Super Juice. No jokes it's really called Super Juice!
Well after downing a can I didn't feel any better, actually a little nausea started to swell inside me, but that subsided in minutes. Within an hour or so I was feeling better and soon I was back to 100% and even tapping in to a little wine with my lunch!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Dirty Grease
Have you ever tried to clean that siff carbon dust filled grease that comes off a motorbike chain off of the swing-arm, rim or fairing? If you have you will know that even soap and a scourer are no match for the persistant filth.
I have however discovered a miracle solution to this problem.
Available from most auto-spares stores are cans of carburetor cleaner. Simply spray that onto the dirty surface, allow to soak for a second or two and wipe it off. It's actually quite scary how well this works.
I have however discovered a miracle solution to this problem.
Available from most auto-spares stores are cans of carburetor cleaner. Simply spray that onto the dirty surface, allow to soak for a second or two and wipe it off. It's actually quite scary how well this works.
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