Farkle day!

Jennie has gone to the next town on a shopping/lunch trip with one of her mates.  As I've not been presented with a list of chores, a very happy morning has been spent fitting my newly-acquired radiator guard and a quickly detachable mount for a GPS.  I mentioned in a previous post that in October, I'm competing (if that's the right word) in the annual Rusty Nuts Grand Challenge 1000 miles in under 24 hours endurance ride.  For the 5th time actually, which is probably a good mental state indicator given the world of pain that is the Grand Challenge!  Anyway, the front guard on the Triple is very short which exposes the radiator to missiles flicked up from the tyre.  A punctured radiator in the middle of the night on some crummy back-road miles from anywhere doesn't bear thinking about, so a guard seemed a sensible precaution.

After perusing the 'net, a titanium guard from Cox Racing Products in Oregon was chosen.  Beautifully made, perfect fit and weighs nothing.  Fabulous service too, only 5 days from ordering to delivery in NZ.  Took about 15 minutes to fit.

On the previous 1000-milers riding the BMW and the Blackbird, I've always used a paper map with the route marked on it but in the middle of the night when you're on some unlit goat track in the pouring rain, it's easy to miss a critical turnoff!   We've had a Garmin GPS for use overseas and in the car for 2 or 3 years so now is the time to give it a try on the bike.  We get a few hours' notice of the intended route before the ride starts so there's no problem programming it before setting off.

The hollow headstock spindle seemed a good spot for a quickly detachable mount so found a plastic rod in the workshop (I knew there was a valid reason for never throwing anything away!) and epoxied and screwed it to a car GPS cradle.  Ran a power source from the switched side of the electrical circuit and we're away! Must test it in the next few days, particularly in the dark but ergonomically, it feels fine.  The GPS doesn't have voice alerts, just visual signals and alert beeps but that should be fine.  What an excellent morning it's been!