Km. 91150

2x front brake pads from brigton kawasaki, $195, 91150km.

Previous pads was racing ones apparenlty (2 pads on each 'plate'), looks 'metal' and was very noisy. The new ones are very quiet and stops as quick.

DIY Heated Handgrips: part two

I ran the wire through the grip, isolate using a piece of bicycle tyre rubber, and then wound it back inside. Once completed I taped the whole thing.




At first attempt I used only insulation tape, which did not hold and produce some amount of smoke !!










Wound the wire to the inside. Took some trials to get the correct gaps. Pull it enough so it grips nicely. Remember that hot wire will increase in length.






Tape the whole grip to prevent water and moisture. I replaced the insulation tapes in the picture here with gaffa tape (cloth tape) at the end because it is more water resistant.






Do the same for the throttle grip, allowing cable slack. I also tied the cable to secure the connections.

DIY Heated Handgrips: part one

Seems like winter came early this year in Melbourne so I decided to do something about my numb fingers. Off to the shop, ebay, and such and could not find anything good and cheap enough. Oxford handgrip looks to be the most common but it's $149 and looks like farken harley grips... big and chromy.

So a quick search on Google "DIY heated handgrips" found nice instruction to make a cheap one.

Bill of material (all from Dick Smith Electronics):


4 metre packet of “Cuprothal” resistance wire
Part number. W 3200 about $2 (Note: the other option is“Nichrome” wire which is a bitch to solder)

Three-way switch (off-on-off), about $3from Dick Smith, also with the waterproof hood, $3.

Buy also a fuse holder.

Other stuff I already have are bicycle inner tube rubber (for insulation), soldering iron, solder, wire, insulation tape, etc……

The design I found on the internet is quite genius. It doesn't utilise a nasty hot resistor but simply connect the heater in parallel (for high temp) and serial (for low).

The desired heat is 18watts per grip which is the commercial norm, this translates to 8ohm worth of Cuphrotal wire -- approximately 1.2 meter in length per grip.

Update: I ended up not using this serial-parallel setup as the heat difference is too much. Simpler to use serial connection with 5W 1.3 ohms resistor.

Frame slider

Bought frame slider from the us, $37. Delrin ones.

Brake bleeder

Bought brake bleeder from eBay, $16 shipped from Germany.

DIY heated grips

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Km. 90,000

- Oil change 90,000km Valvoline Premium XLD
- Fitted HEL braided lines (2 front, $70 from ebay)
- Bled and replaced brake Fluid (Castrol DOT4)

Great Ocean Road with Dave

Dave arrived from UK. I Led 5 bikes (steve, michael -gold coast, Dave-UK, me, steve) through Sorrento - queenscliff - Lorne - Anglesea. Back through Geelong. Rainy and wet but beautiful rainbows all over the place!

Braided line

HEL steel braided lines, Ebay, $70 + $8 shipping.