Hi John,

Went out and took a pic on my ride out today, I was wondering if you'd consider it for the front page. I know its not great, the focus is a little out, but it was done on my phone!

If not don't worry, it was only a thought!

Many thanks, ride safe.

Jake aka JakeRS

Thanks Jake. It made it to this months cover, although I took the liberty of playing with it in paintshop pro.

Greetings,

I have now managed a reasonably long ride and can provide a bit more of a comparison of my old K2 model to my new K6.

The K6 seems to be much more responsive especially in a roll on mode in highway traffic where the K2 I sometimes had to gear down once. I am positive that the K6 has a much lighter fly wheel which is what enables the bike to rev much quicker and I am sure that on compression braking the K6 does not have as much braking as the K2 did. On the same piece of road I had to brake with the K6 whereas with the K2 I just closed the throttle. Once the K6 gets to 1500 km I will fit the K&N Air Filter and we will see if there is any further improvement. The saddle is very comfortable and I never once felt that I was getting tired riding.

I am having a little trouble with the Dunlop D220 tyres. I do not have the same amount of confidence tipping it into a corner at speed as I did with the K2 which had Bridgestone's fitted. Perhaps the tyres just need more mileage on them. The K6 standard suspension seems to be a lot stiffer than the K2 model. I have had to back off on the fork preload 1 and a half turns to get the front end to stop bumping around and have also backed off the rear by one click. With my old K2 model I had to go the other way in order to get the ride to how I wanted it.

I have attached two pictures (my old K2 and new K6) taken at the same place, the Comrades Wall, which commemorates people who have finished the Comrades Marathon 10 times (I think...). The Comrades is run from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, some 85 odd Km's every year alternating the starts. This year they will run up to PMB which is no mean feat. The race is run every year on the 16th of June and is usually attended by numerous foreign runners. The topography does not lend it self to road running as there are several rather steep climbs along the way. Me, I would rather ride the bike. The picture taken at the beach was taken 2 weeks ago just to give you an idea of our lovely autumn weather........

Regards, Dave Loubser E mail: davel@lantic.net

Interesting for me to read this, considering I've gone from a '99 to a k4 myself. Hadn't noticed the engine braking, but now Dave mentions it, I think he's right. I'm quite happy with the Dunlops, they give me everything I need including confidence in the wet, unlike the dreadful Metz that were fitted to the '99 SV, they were awful. The suspension is stiffer and I prefer it that way, so I've left the settings as they are. Looks like you're having better weather than us.

Hi John!

Here are my SV again... doing love with it !

Thanks and bye!

Sergio from Barcelona, Spain

Blimey, That was a quick fix.

Hi John,

Thought that these may be worth placing on your website:

Regards,

Stephen Scott

   I'll add them to the FAQ section also

Dear John,

I have to comment on the mounting instructions of Garry with regards to the Oxford hotgrips (last month). I would not connect the hotgrips direct to the ignitions switch. Since the power consumption is fairly high (6 to 10Amps) depending on the brand you run the risk that the ignition switch breaks down leaving your bike impaired. I would prefer to put in an extra relay (at little expense) and let the ignition switch power the relay and the relay in turn switches the power for the grips directly from the battery.

This is how I fitted it 3 years ago and it is still working

Best regards from a warm and sunny Holland (at the moment……)

Marc van der Kuijp

Sales Engineer

Good Advice.

Well, let's start with the weather. Anyone know when summer is going to arrive?  Things finally warmed up a bit, but it's still too wet. As I write this (22nd May) it's being raining on and off, mainly on, for the last four days. I finally managed to get on the annual Thundercat ride out with DarylB this weekend and we got absolutely soaked. It was drizzling slightly as we set off from Welshpool and just got worse and worse as we headed for Dolgelllau. I was using my foggy anti-mist mask which usually works well, but even that gave up and my visibility deteriated. Opening the visor a notch cleared the misting but then I got great globs of water on my glasses. We were also climbing at this point and had entered a low cloud. The words 'bale out' started to enter my brain, but I pushed on and keep a safe distance behind a slow moving Transit until we dropped out of the clouds. We finally stopped at the Ffestiniog power station for a cup of tea and a break to warm up. Fifty odd bikers all wringing out gloves and trying to pull out ear plugs with cold wet hands is an interesting site. Anyone from Mars would wonder why we bother. The day did improve and finally ended with dry roads and sunshine and then I knew why we do it.

An old friend from London dropped by for a biking weekend a few weeks ago. We had good clear weather but it was damn cold. We went for a spin around the welsh lakes. When we got to Bala and my mate spotted one of those old fashioned gents shop, the type that sells woollen shirts from wooden drawers. He's frozen and makes a bee line for the shop. He's after a pair of long johns, which they had. Now warmed up, we carried on and headed up to the Horseshoe pass, back through Llangollen and home. The next day I went to use the SV and noticed the gear lever hanging off. 'Ah' thought I , the well known gear lever problem has hit me too.  Not quite, the circlip had come off the pivot shaft. I think this is down to me, as I had taken the clip off to clean and grease the lever. Guess I didn't put it back on too well.

I finally sold my old SV. Sorry to see her go, given all that we've been through together. Sold to someone coming back to biking after a long layoff, so an ideal machine to start with I think.  The bike market seems a bit sluggish at the moment, again probably due to the weather. I just didn't get any calls. I started to look at Ebay and other SV's for sale and comparing prices, mine seemed reasonable by comparison. This was vindicated when this lad popped round for a viewing, he was more than happy with the bike and the price. I got a phone call from him the next day, my heart sank, thinking disaster had struck on his way home. Turned out that one of the Sun-riser handle bars had moved whilst he was man-handling the bike in his front garden. I was a bit surprised by this given that they were Araldited on.  Not sure I'd really recommend these in future, they were reasonably priced but I thought they could do with a bolt top and bottom of the clamp.

The new bike is now nearing the 7k mile mark and the front tyre is looking a bit sorry. Time for a new one I think. Probably stick with the OEM Dunlop, as it seems to work well enough for me.

Keep praying for better weather!  

John