Terry & Brenda Head West

Finally, Monday the 9th of August arrived, the big day. The first day of our yearly bike ride. This year it is the trip to see the wonders of outback Australia, staying for a few days in Broken Hill. Now I often say that I live in an outback town, but really I guess that's just a matter of perspective. I grew up on the coast so 400km inland seems to be outback to me, how wrong I was .. after the trip to Broken Hill I now have a much better understanding of true outback .. and I liked it!

Terry had worked like a demon for the preceding week to get all his jobs to a stage where we could just take off for a week with no stress, by about 11ish Monday morning the computer had been turned off and we were all packed and ready to go.

We both found it weird riding the bikes all loaded up. I had always had saddlebags in the past to balance the weight on the rack, this time I have no saddlebags and all the weight of my luggage is over the back fender .. it felt like the bike just wanted to tip over every time I stopped at first. Terry had a lot of weight in both of his bags, but by the end of the first day he realised that he had the heaviest bag on the rack, that was lifting the front wheel a lot and making steering interesting to say the least. He changed the way he packed the next day and it was a lot better for him.

The plan for this first day of riding was to get to Cobar, the first planned stop would be Nyngan for fuel but we ended up stopping at Trangie for a while to get eats, both of us had forgotten all about lunch in our rush to get out of Dubbo.




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Before we got very far along the road, about 30km's or so, Terry had the first mishap of the day. His right mirror dropped out and bounced along the road determined to take me out as well. Ummm should that have happened? He explained to me how it could have happened that evening .. ya see he had bought himself one of these gizmos ...

Picture from oneup.com.au

 It's a throttle control and pretty handy but he was still kinda learning to use it, so when he realised that he was still in 4th gear at 100km/h and forgot that the gizmo was set, then pulled in the clutch to go to top gear .. well the result is that the vibration was all too much for that bit of glass.

The rest of the day I rode at the back with the specific job of letting Terry know if there was anything interesting happening behind that he should know about.

We made it to Trangie with no further excitement.

Trangie is a pretty standard small country town with not much happening, we found a nice enough cafe to get a couple of toasties and a decent cup of coffee from.

And spent too long there, like we tend to do. Ah well we were on holidays, as long as we got to Cobar before dark we'd be happy.

It was a quick stop in Nyngan for fuel then back on the road. Til Terry spotted some seats and decided that we really needed a hydration break and a bit of a sit. Umm cept Terry, they aren't seats ...

They are country town park art ..

We had a bit of a drink then back on the bikes. The sun was starting to get a bit low in the sky, and even though we'd had cloud cover for most of the day the sun managed to get around the clouds and make the ride interesting for the last 100k's or so.

We also noticed that the trees were becoming different, more stunted and less of them. And our visors were getting full of bugs, so was the GoPro but unfortunately I didn't even think of that til the start of the trip home so most of the pics and video will have bug spots.

We rode into Cobar at 5:15pm, just as Terry said we would .. he's good eh.

The motel at Cobar was cheap, but that's pretty well all it had going for it, 'cept the mine shaft outside our door .. that was interesting at least.

We'd left Dubbo at 12:15 so it was a 5 hr ride to get us here, we were just taking it easy so far but the next day we had more k's to cover so we'd have to start making the stops shorter, get going on time in the morning, so we could make it to Broken Hill before dark.

The next morning we actually got up pretty early, and after getting packed and sorted we went to hunt down breakfast, nope they don't serve breakfast unless you order room service the night before, they could have told us that the night before ..  we headed into the small town of Cobar to hunt down something to eat. We found a little bakery that had a bunch of riders sitting out the front .. we figured it must be OK. Well it was OK but the coffee really sucked, I stuck with water. As we sat there I noticed a shop across the road that had a big Honda sign on it ...

I pointed it out to Terry with the thought that maybe they would have a mirror for him. So after breakfast he headed into the shop while I waited next to the bikes and had my last smoke before we hit the road. He soon came back out of the shop and pointed down the opposite end of the street ...

 

Oh a rotten big motorcycle shop .. yeah they will probably have a mirror eh.

They were very nice and found a mirror that would do for the trip, and even put it on Terry's bike for him, all for just $10. The blokes didn't even laugh too much when we told him how it had happened .. nice.

The route today was pretty easy .. we just need to head west for 460km and we would be in our home for the next three days.



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So it was only about 11ish when we finally said goodbye to Cobar and started riding. It's a pretty straight road, just what I was expecting really, but there are some interesting things too. There are hills believe it or not ...

 and every now and then you get a bend in the road just to make sure you're still awake.

 We didn't see very many trucks out here, there were plenty of caravans and camper vans though, I guess it's a good time of the year for the grey nomads to head out this way.

Terry had told me all about the goats he'd seen on a work trip out to Wilcannia earlier this year, they are everywhere and he said they just kinda wandered all over the road. We didn't see any on the road but plenty beside it munching on all the lovely green stuff that was all along the road. It must have been a good season because there was a lot more green than I'd seen in photos, it surprised me that there were a lot of flowers too, it is spring of course.

The other animals that we were watching for was kangaroos, we actually only saw one while on the road during the whole trip, and not that many dead ones either which surprised me for a while til the first stop that we made. But I'm getting ahead of myself again...

The first stop wasn't planned til about 120km's from Cobar for fuel at a roadhouse called Emdale but, about 30km's out of Cobar I felt a sting on the inside of my wrist, just where I sometimes get hit by things off the road that manage to make it up the small gap between my jacket and gloves. This one really stung, and kept stinging .. I shook my hand and it still stung .. hmm 'Terry I think I've been stung by something .. maybe a bee. It's OK though, I've been stung by bees and I'm not allergic, it will go away soon'

About 30 more k's down the road I spotted a rest area and decided since it was still stinging that I needed to maybe pull up and see if there's a stinger still in my arm. Yep there was, I got out the trusty first aid kit and left-handedly tweezered out the menacing stinger that had embedded itself in my arm, it had even left a little runnel in my arm as it hit, just like those impact sites you see in UFO movies. With the offending foreign object removed I soothed it with a cool antiseptic swab while we took a couple of pics and chatted with the lady who was doing the cleaning of the rest area.

This is one of those free camping areas for grey nomads, we'd pulled into one the day before for a quick drink and there were about a hundred camper vans and caravans parked for the night setting up their camp, well OK not quite a hundred, but lots. We'd watched in amazement as one couple did their washing in a tub that they then turned with a handle .. not unlike a cement mixer. Today there was just the one van in the area we stopped in, it was the middle of the day and I guess all the grey nomads were on the road .. this guy however seemed to be intent on stopping at every rest area he could find .. we passed them at the next one along the road just pulling in. It didn't move fast but it sure was a different way to get around.

I also got my first taste of a bush loo at this stop .. hmm I'd try to avoid these, it was clean but whoa the smell!! The lady who was doing the cleaning was lovely to chat with and she answered the question of why there weren't very many dead Kangaroos out along this bit of road .. part of her contract with the RTA was the clean the rest areas and clean the road kill off the roads. Sad to say but this just fascinated me as a job, not that I think it would be a great job or anything but I did wonder how she did it .. she had a hook. Terry was insistent that we get a pic just as I was trying to get information.

Yep that's the bush loo in the background. We chatted for ages and soon realised that it had been over an hour since we'd left Cobar and we'd only travelled 60km's .. time to hit the road again. I stuck a band aid over the crater in my arm before leaving thinking it would protect it a bit from flying dirt and stuff, it was still a bit sore but not red or anything, it would be alright, I'm not allergic.

The first time we spotted Emus I was thrilled, I've only ever seen them in captivity and I love those big birds. Then I realised I probably need to watch out for them on the road .. we ended up seeing maybe four groups of them but all but one group was way back off the road, the group of three who were close to the road soon ran when a truck coming the other way got close to them. Unfortunately I only got one photo of them with the GoPro and you really have to look hard to find them .. they are on the right hand side of the road just behind those trees in the foreground.

It was only about another 60k's to the next stop for fuel at Emdale Roadhouse. The area at the front of it is enormous, I suppose to fit in all the trucks and caravans, we pulled up to the diesel pump first then had to do a u-turn to get to the regular pump.

After the caravan moved out of the way we were greeted at the pump by a nice young man with a Scandinavian accent who unlocked it for us. Now we'd been told some interesting stories about this stop by Terry's daughter, she even warned off stopping here if we could avoid it. With Terry's tank being so small there was no way we'd make it all the way to Wilcannia without a top up so we had to stop, plus I wanted to see all the guns hanging on the wall that she had told us about.

They weren't there, there was no grumpy bush man with a shotgun at the ready to chase off all the evil people who he thought were going to rob him either. The place did have something hanging out the front but it was a surfboard .. no kidding .. I have no idea where the water was but I looked for it.

We parked the bikes and had a bit of a chat with the guys who were in those caravans, then went and sat in the shade of a lovely old tree to munch on some sandwiches

Real ham off the bone too .. very nice. The local cat also liked that ham.

After a nice relaxing late lunch we realised we really needed to hit the road again, we hadn't even made it half way yet and the daylight was getting away from us.

Next stop was Wilcannia, it was a fuel stop and I also wanted to take a cruise down the main street to check out some of the historic buildings I'd been told about. Now Wilcannia has a very bad reputation, we'd been told more than once to just drive straight through if we could. And I've often heard how bad this town was as far as violence went but I figured that it wouldn't hurt to just go for a bit of a cruise. By the time we got there not only was it getting late but the group of interesting youths using the very colorful language at the petrol station kinda changed my mind.
While we were there I did notice that the whole place was being circled by some kind of bird, it was too small to be an eagle, and not enough color. I have since found out that these birds are Brown or Black Kites. They tend to scavenge along the roads out here on the road kill, so we saw a lot of them on our trip but unfortunately no pics .. here's one from Wikipedia

We only had one more stop after Wilcannia, just as we topped a rise we saw a small rest area and the view that hit us was pretty breath taking.

More than anything I was just getting tired and dry, I wanted a drink and to walk around a bit ...

We were only about 60k's from Broken Hill now, and it's not a bad ride into town. While the rest of the ride had been pretty well just point the wheel straight ahead and look at what scenery you could find, the couple of k's before town gives you a few bends just to make it interesting. Of course by now the GoPro was completely flat so I didn't get any pics of the only bit of interesting road for miles, but it was good to see if I could remember how to take a corner, the first couple went slowly as I got my hand back in. We'd arrived in Broken Hill at about 5pm .. not bad timing at all considering all the long stops we'd had along the way, and it was pretty easy to find the holiday cottage that was to be our home for the next couple of days.

As soon as we got the bikes tucked away in the garage I headed down the road to the closest service station to get vitals like milk, coffee and chocolate. Walking back to the cottage fully loaded with vittles I realised just how painful my arm had become, when I looked at it I saw a spreading redness that ended up covering my arm from wrist to elbow, swelling and pain as well as an unbearable itch made me think things weren't going good with it. It seems I am now allergic to bee stings. We ordered pizza for dinner and Terry arranged a hire car for the next couple of days. First thing the next morning I was going to have to head for a chemist to see if I could get some drugs.

We had a big comfy bed to fall into that night, and trust me, we both slept well.

Meeting Al

 A man walks down the street
He says why am I soft in the middle now
Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard
I need a photo-opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard

Bonedigger Bonedigger
                                                     Dogs in the moonlight
                                                      Far away my well-lit door
                                                     Mr. Beerbelly Beerbelly
                                                    Get these mutts away from me
                                                  You know I don't find this stuff amusing anymore
 

                                                If you'll be my bodyguard
                                                I can be your long lost pal
                                               I can call you Betty
                                              And Betty when you call me
                                            You can call me Al

                                                Paul Simon - You Can Call Me Al

 Today was the perfect day for a ride .. sun was shining and the birds were singing. Actually I sat in my backyard this morning with camera in hand waiting for those birds to come into view .. not a one appeared until Terry said we'll go for a ride soon, so I put away the camera in my tank bag. Then all the birds appeared didn't they ...

 The plan has been to go for lunch at a place called Andonbel Alpaca Farm and Coffee Shop for a couple of weeks now. I mean why wouldn't you want to go somewhere that has Alpacas, coffee and lunch in a train carriage and an Alpaca wool gift shop. Sounds like heaven to me.

 There was something new to test out today before the big trip too, I've been a bit annoyed about having forked out a tonne of cash on a riders backrest that I cant even reach when I'm seated on the bike, and I also noticed that even when I lean back on it while stopped (by taking both hands off the bars) it isn't very effective anyway, it's too upright and when you lean back on it the only part you can touch is the very top .. digs in. So after a bit of thought about it I decided what it needed was to be padded out a bit mainly at the bottom. I decided to get one of those lumbar support rolls. After a couple of days looking everywhere I could think of in Dubbo, I finally found one at office works.

It was good but not quite what I needed, it was just a touch too small still, needed a bit more padding, and it needed a weather proof covering. So I nipped down to Spotlight and grabbed some foam to wrap round it, and some black vinyl to cover it. Now I'm not a sewer .. I hate sewing (weird that I'm doing cross stitching as well but that's different) so this wasn't a quick job for me. But after only about 6 hours I had the new little lumbar support roll ready complete with a heavy duty strap instead of the bit of elastic it came with originally. I chucked it on the bike today to test it out.

 I think I still have to play with the positioning of it a bit more but it was pretty comfy on the ride today .. I'm calling this one a success!!

 We arrived at Narromine, and after a ride down a dirt road, led by me, and parking the bike on gravel, led by Terry, we finally parked in the shade of a nice big pepper tree.

 It was starting to warm up a bit by now, I had to get a couple of pics while we got undressed and cooled down. Then we had a nice chat with a couple of ladies .. well with one lady while the other waited for her and tried to get a word in every now and then. She told us she used to live in Broken Hill when we mentioned our upcoming trip and then told us all the good parts to visit.

 Then I spotted this which I hadn't noticed as we turned in the driveway (I was too busy being stressed bout parking on gravel).

 It appears to be a Formula One Wheelchair.

 Now it was time to go check out the dining car ...

 No that's not a real Alpaca. Inside was just like a train carriage, with tables...

 And things to buy, and things to look at ...

This old Station Clock was on one wall ..





















 There were photos all along the wall of when the carriage was put into place, looks like fun!











 It was a pretty normal kinda menu, but nice food. I had a BLT which is something I haven't had in ages and was pretty yummy. Terry had a healthy Chicken Caesar.

 After lunch I went to look at the goodies, there were some lovely things there made out of Alpaca wool, the blankets and scarves really caught my attention and while I couldn't afford a blanket at the moment, I'm determined to come back and get one before next winter. I had pretty well decided on a scarf then my eye was caught by these guys ...

 How could I say no .. all I needed to do was decide who was coming home with me to be my new mascot ... I would call him Al, and he could call me Betty.

 After a short shopping spree we headed outside to find the Alpacas ....

 There they are .. oh wow there's about a million of them, they went off into the distance then around the corner too. There was a fence between us and them but they were coming right up to the fence cause that's where their feed bins were. Terry made a friend ...

 And I kinda did .. actually I'm not sure this guy really liked me as much as I liked him. I think he hated the sound the camera was making, he came right up to it and after staring right into the lens while I took picture after picture of him ...

 He spat at me ... I got the message and went and photographed other Alpacas .. this Al had Attitude.

 They are gentle creatures, but quite skittish and I didn't get to pat one. The babies were cute but seemed to be surrounded by adults the whole time. Except for this young-un who laid down out in the open with just one adult keeping an eye on him.

 Then Al with Attitude came back to me while Terry had the camera .. I thought it was the camera he didn't like .. now I'm not so sure ...

He didn't spit this time .. just a hiss .. I still like him anyway :)



 It was getting very warm now, and I was feeling sorry for all the Al's, that wool looks beautiful but I bet it was hot as hell under all that insulation.

 We headed back home, I actually backed the bike on that gravel and turned a very tight U-Turn on it too, all without doing anything wrong and as Terry said 'Without whining the whole time too ..'  I was pretty proud of myself by the time we got home, it has been a long time since we went on any decent ride and I'm happy to say I haven't forgotten how to do it, I even think I've improved in some things.



 And I now have a mascot for Roxy. Meet Al the Alpaca with Attitude ....

TGIF!!

She's Got The Look

1-2-3-4
Walking like a man,
hitting like a hammer,
she's a juvenile scam.
Never was a quitter,
tasty like a raindrop,
she's got the look.
Heavenly bound
cause heaven's got a number
when she's spinning me around,
Kissing is a colour,
her loving is a wild dog,
she's got the look.

She's got the look.
She's got the look.
What in the world can make a brown-eyed girl turn blue.
When everything I'll ever do I'll do for you
and I go: la la la la la
she's got the look.
 

Fire in the ice,
naked to the T-bone
is a lover's disguise.
Banging on the head drum,
shaking like a mad bull,
she's got the look.
Swaying to the band,
moving like a hammer,
she's a miracle man.
Loving is the ocean,
Kissing is the wet sand,
she's got the look.
 

And she goes:

na na na na na na na na. 

Roxette 'The Look'

 My baby bike is named after my teenage memories of this Swedish 80's pop duo, and I'm starting to feel that she's really starting to be the bike I always wanted her to be. She still has a way to go but she's really starting to come into her own and to look like the gutsy girl she is to me.

I told you that I'd put in the HID light kit, that was all about safety but there was more that I wanted to do as far as lights went. I wanted a particular look as well as getting rid of the standard things that to my mind don't work the way they should. As far as lights go it's gotta be visible, Terry has often told me that he didn't see my indicators, and I've wondered if they were working at all but nope they work, they just aren't very bright. Add to that the fact that they are chrome flavoured plastic .. I've never really liked them, so when the back ones rusted out a while ago I replaced those with some very pretty but much smaller chrome ones. Surprise, Terry said they are heaps more visible than the standard ones ever were. I knew I had to replace the front ones as well, but as well as that I wanted something classy to finish off the look. I wanted a light bar complete with driving lights and indicators and had the ones I wanted picked out for a while.

A couple of weeks ago I finally got them and they only sat in a corner of the lounge room for a week before I finally got to put them on Roxy.

It was an adventure to install them, at one stage I was thinking that I'd have to take off my tank to feed the wiring through, but I found a way to feed it through without going to that extreme (I know I'll have to do it one day if I keep fiddling with her, but I just don't feel quite up to that just yet).

 I had to pull apart the headlight again to connect up the indicators and I was kinda wishing I'd realised that before so that I could just do the bar and the HID kit at the same time, but at least it didn't take too long to get that bit done this time cause I knew what I was doing here. It was the rest of the wiring that was tricky, I had to employ some interesting tools at times ...

Yep that's whipper snipper cord, and that's what I used to feed alongside the existing wiring under the tank and pull up the wires from the battery.

Anyway it was dark as I finished up and I still had to shorten a few wires and I'd run out of wire connectors, so it all had to wait a few days til I could get to a shop and buy more. I wasted more than a few of those connectors before I got the hang of how to do it properly without destroying them.

Now she positively glows ...

 I've only been on one ride since then, we took the bikes out for dinner one night to meet up with another couple of SRA members who were up here from Newcastle area. I got to show off my new lights and even though one of the lights had decided to stop working (it was a loose connector that I fixed easily the next day, I also checked all my other connectors and yep they were all loose, learn by your mistakes eh) I was still pretty proud of the look. Not to mention very pleased with the light.

The HID light is definitely worth everything I went through to fit it, it lights up the road as well as any car lights .. so much better than the standard light. The driving lights don't really make things much brighter but they do spread the beam a bit, so you can see more of the side of the road .. makes spotting wildlife a bit less of a challenge.

I tried to get some pics of it on the gopro but they didn't turn out very good .. here's the best ones....

Just with low beam.

With all the lights on.

So now she has a sexy sleek front end as well as giving me the visibility I need when riding at night. I just had the back end to tidy up. I got the rack I really wanted and I have to say I was very pleased that it took me maybe a whole ten minutes to put it on! That has to be a record for me!!

Now she has a hot back end too! The rack and backrest comes as one piece and cost a pretty hefty amount for the added backrest so I'm a bit disappointed that I cant actually lean back on it while riding. Oh the joys of being short ... it's too far back and I really don't want to go to the added cost of moving it forward so it's in the right position, I'm thinking that I might see if I can get it padded out a bit more by the guy who did my seat, it needs to be recovered anyway as it already has a small rip in the leather at the back. I don't think it was there when I put it on so I'm not sure how it happened unless it was from trying to swing my leg over it. Oh yeah and it's a challenge to get on her now, no more swinging the leg over for me .. now it's a kinda shuffle-from-the-side-with-leg-outstretched mounting manoeuvre .. not very cool looking but I don't wanna scuff the leather!

The only thing left to fix here is the brackets that used to hold on the pillion pegs, they are welded on and stick out like they don't belong to anyone, I have to find some kind of unobtrusive cover for them.

I also got myself some new bags, having sold on my saddlebags. I never really liked the saddlebags they felt unwieldy while I had them on, and it's not a look that I like .. so out they went. I invested in some Kreiga bags, one 30lt and a 20lt that piggy backs it. What a great system! I've only put them on the rack empty so far and they do move around on the rack a little as they are supposed to strap on under the pillion seat, so I think I will use another strap from end to end when I have them packed and ready for the trip just to make sure they don't shift. I really don't think they will once there is stuff in them to put a bit more tension on the straps but I don't reckon you can put too many straps on things.

And about the trip, yep it's getting close now, I'm getting excited!! All our accommodation is booked in Broken Hill and we have a bit of a vague plan worked out. We're taking a couple of days to get there just because it's a holiday and who wants to tire themselves out just getting there. We'll travel about 300km the first day to Cobar, a short overnight stay there then on to Broken Hill on the second day, that will be a longer day of riding with about 450km to travel. We were going to stop over in White Cliffs but that got put aside when we realised that we couldn't stay in underground motel cause the road to it would suck for the cruisers. So we're just going on to Broken Hill in one day, try to catch a sunset somewhere (the sunsets out there are something special!) then spend three days exploring. Menindee is on the agenda, and a camel ride, as well as a place called Silverton that has been described as a gold mining ghost town ... there are still people there tho, and museums including the Mad Max museum!! We're also going to get ourselves to South Australia .. well at least gonna cross the border which is only about 30 km's from Broken Hill.

We're all ready to go, my bikes ready, Terry just has his lights to sort out (I promised to do the kit for him cause I'm the expert round here now :) ) and he wants highway bars, but that's all pretty easy stuff.... I'm ready to leave now and have to admit emotionally I'm more than ready to head away for a week and forget about life for a while. Work has been pretty stressful lately and it's all getting me down a bit, not to mention I haven't been able to ride in ages. I'm more than ready!! Let's go!!

I Installed a HID Kit

Well I've been pretty slack lately, not riding much and not really doing much blogging either. With a combination of bad weather, illness and insomnia I haven't had the chance to do anything besides work. So I thought it was about time I got off my haunches and did something productive this weekend. I didn't really think about going for a ride, besides the wet weather all week, I'm still not really feeling very alert even though I've gotten a couple of good nights sleep .. I've had a bit of a bad stretch lately of sleepless nights so it's going to take a while to start feeling normal. Sunday however, I not only got a real night's sleep with a sleep in, the sun was also shining. Time to put in the HID headlight kit that has been sitting on my desk for the last couple of weeks.

I've been putting this off for a while now cause I was feeling a bit timid about pulling apart my headlight and fiddling with wiring. I had a lot of help from a friend from the Shadow Riders who sent me heaps of pics of how he did the same thing recently as well as advising me which kit to get for my bike and numerous other hints .. don't know what I would have done without him, probably not even tried it to tell the truth.

Well it was a matter of just getting out there and doing, I really haven't felt like starting this project but I knew once I started I'd have to finish. First thing to do is to pull off the black plastic covers in front of the tank, they cover the wiring that is going to the front of the bike. Easy, just a screw on each side of the cover then unclip the two halves .. cept that it has been said that to take off this cover you need to take off your tank. Ugh that I wasn't into, I'd been told by my friend that you could take them apart without taking off the tank though, with a bit of fiddling. So I fiddled, then I fiddled a different way, then I worked out how it all worked so I fiddled with a screwdriver. It's a little metal clip that slides onto both halves of the plastic, and I could see either one of those bits of plastic snapping pretty easily if I tried to force it, so I just had to slide one half forward while sliding the other half backwards .. there wasn't a lot of room for the them to move in there but there ended up being enough .. with a little nudge of the clip with a small screwdriver I managed to slide it enough to slip one side out. That was easy .. only took 20 minutes or so ..

It has also been said in some YouTube clip somewhere that I found while trying to find out how to go about this project, that the whole job will take about 20 minutes. They didn't take into account the level of noobness obviously .. it was going to take a lot longer for me to finish, but then it always does the first time you do something new doesn't it.

Now I could see a bit more of the wiring, that had been worrying me, I had no idea where anything went or how it all fitted in .. I was starting to get a better picture. Next I pulled apart the light. This would the easy part I thought. Two screws holding the front of the light and fitting onto it's holder .. undo them and the light should just come apart. Should ... I fiddled a bit, pulled a bit, looked at it trying to work out where the clip was, I squeezed while pulling and pushing, I twisted. It wasn't budging. I found another screw, so I started taking it out. I turned it .. and turned it .. then turned it a lot more before I realised I was trying to take out the headlight adjustment screw .. oops. I stopped and went to find my users manual.

After reading 'how to change the headlight globe' in the users manual I then pulled gently on the bottom of the light forward til it came loose then pulled the light down and out. Yeah that was easy.

Looking in there I realised just how tightly the standard stuff was squeezed in, and I had to try to fit yet more wiring and plugs .. not to mention the ballast and relay that came with the kit. This wasn't going to be easy. Here's what I the kit looked like when I got it.

It came with instructions, they were kinda basic and told me that the reason it might not work would either be because the two pin plug was round the wrong way, or the wiring on the three pin plug was different to the plug on my bike, all I would have to do to fix that was rewire the plug .. ugh I was praying it would work first go.

The first thing I had to do though was take out the standard bulb .. should be easy, just gotta pull on this plug .. umm should just need to pull out this plug .. call Terry .. 'hey Babe can you pull this plug outta here for me please?' Get Terry to pull out this plug ... ummm yeah it just pulls out, it says so here in the manual .. there's no clip I swear .. right so I'll have another go .. opps I split the rubber cover over it .. 'what does the manual say bout this rubber thing babe?'

It was just a dust cover, well as long as it's split .... I just peeled it off and got a screwdriver under the plug and managed to carefully prise the plug apart .. sheesh that was a tight fit!!

Finally I got to the moment of truth, I followed the instruction sheet carefully ...

And managed to put the thing together and connect it to my headlight. Turned on the ignition and .. nothing. Oh it's alright, I just have to turn round the two pin plug, that'll fix it. Turn on the ignition and .. still nothing. Oh :( Stand and look at it for a while then reach for the instruction sheet to make sure I was turning the right plug. Yep .. sigh. I started to pull it all apart again, thinking I was going to have to rewire the stupid plug, I really don't wanna do that. When I had it half pulled apart I started to think that maybe when I'd turned the plug, I had turned it a full 360°. I put it together again to try one more time before I had to bite the bullet and get out the soldering iron ... turned on the ignition and .. ta da!!

Yay there's light!!. Now for the part I was really dreading, all this had taken me about and hour and half to accomplish so far. That's including breaks for pics and sitting round reading instructions, not too bad I don't think. I also had to take into account the time that it took to play with the dog for a while. Gizmo the amazing staffy was on hand as always to help, although I think she was more concerned about the bone she has been carrying around for the last couple of weeks. It's worrying when you have an awesome bone and nowhere to bury it .. she found somewhere just as I took a break before tackling the next part of the saga .. putting together the wiring jigsaw puzzle.

That's Giz with a bone nearly as big as her digging a hole in a nice inconspicuous corner.

I took it all apart again and fed the wiring through the back of the headlight, leaving all the connections inside the protection of the headlight, and taking the ballast and relay to the outside. I then shoved and pushed and then wheedled and coaxed then shoved a bit more and rearranged for what seemed like at least half an hour before I managed to fit it all back together. You remember that rubber dust cover that I split, I taped it up with some electrical tape and put it around the new fitting then pushed and shoved for a while, before giving up on it and just putting the thing in my left over bits bag. It just wasn't gonna fit, I figured since it was just a dust cover that I would see how it went without it. I have since asked on the forums what others did and no one puts it back on (and everyone splits the stupid thing when taking out the original bulb). The new fitting is bigger than the original and also insulated so I think it should be OK.

After arguing for about 10 minutes with the little screws that hold the headlight together, not to mention the fun of chasing round the little plastic dress rings that go round those screws after they drop out of the holes about 20 million times (OK I exaggerated a bit), I tested it again before working out what to do with the ballast and relay that were now hanging in the breeze. It still worked .. this is going great!

The ballast comes with a little plate and screws to mount it somewhere, there was just nowhere that it would fit with the plate on it, so I used zip ties and put it behind the plastic covers that I'd taken off first, it fit snugly in a little spot behind there and with three zip ties it didn't look like it was going to move. Unfortunately I put the covers back on next before thinking to take a pic of my ingenuity, so I just snapped a pic of where I would zip tie the relay alongside the wiring.

You cant even tell it's there. I was pretty impressed with my handiwork by now. All I had to do was test the light one more time then adjust the beam.

Here's some comparison photos of the standard light against the HID light.

 It's a lot lower, time to find that adjustment screw again. I turned it and nothing happened, it turned but the light didn't seem to be moving at all. I know I'd been turning it for ages before so I played with it for a while before starting to get a bit annoyed that nothing seemed to be happening. I looked into the light .. now that's a dumb thing to do .. I turned off the ignition then looked at the light. If you look carefully at the HID photo in the comparison below you will notice that the light seems to be sitting very off centred in there. Yep I'd unscrewed the adjustment screw so much that it had all let go .. sigh, I pulled the light apart again.

I worked out how to get the screw seated properly and straightened the light before struggling and swearing for a while at the stupid jigsaw wiring trying to get it all to fit in there again, then chased around the stupid little plastic dress thingy for a bit before losing one, then Terry came out to help me to swear at it all for a while and found the stupid little bit of plastic that I was just about to leave out in disgust .. then Terry ran from the abuse that was being poured on the poor little plastic thing while I screwed the silly thing back where it belonged. Sigh .. I'm exhausted by screws and silly bits of plastic. But ..

It's all together now, it's so much brighter than the standard light that it was actually worth it all. Not only is my vision at night going to be better, but my visibility to other road users will be improved too. It was a longer job, as it often is for me, than other people might make it, but it's all practise and that's always handy. I have other things to fit up this end of the bike, and I need to get familiar with all this stuff. I'm also going to fit a new light bar with driving lights and brighter indicators. I'm hoping to get those next week. Then as far as I'm concerned the lights on my bike will be complete, the blinkers will match the ones that I put on the back when my original ones rusted. So not only will I be visible and safe, Roxy will be looking sexy. Win - Win in my books.