Hitchcocks Forum

Took the 350 for a 180 mile ride today. Fanged down on the first ninety mile leg at a steady sixty mph. Came back at sixty five for long stretches and not a hint of overheating. Really pleased with the upgrade, it's made the bullet a very satisfactory motorway cruiser.

Hi guys---------- glad to hear that SIMON...Don't forget that just as the Aluminium barell heats up quicker, so it will also cool down quicker than the iron one it replaced ( God, aren't they HEAVY ??).. so it might just have a tendency to produce some "Mayo" during the cooler days ahead.............

No cooler days ahead for us Alan, we had about 10 cold days during winter, now we are at the second day of spring and we are in the mid twenties clecius. Fantastic weather for painting a Super Meteor petrol tank.... untill you drop it, not a good way to finish a day

Yes I'm even more antipodean than Norm and Auckland New Zealand is heading into a potentially even hotter Summer than last year having had the warmest winter since records began. Global warming! What global warming?

Hi Simon,
The thing with Auckland is it is on a fairly narrow strip of land with an ocean on the east and west sides of it, you don't have a huge land mass for the winds to travel over before they hit like we have here. Our hot northerly winds travel thousands of ks across outback Aus before they hit us Our winter just finished was the hottest recorded

Jeez NORM, you dropped a freshly painted petrol tank ?------------Just for the linguists amongst us could you post on here exactly what you said ??

Hi Alan, I had spent several days working on this tank and when I dropped it I didn't say a word I was so shattered that I just sat down and looked at it for a while, then I went inside and had a beer. I finally finished the clear coats on it yesterday and now it is sitting on the shelf out of harms way

You're right Norm it is a very marine climate here in Auckland the proof of which is that Sat,Sun and Mon were 20 degrees plus and clear and fine now its 12 and pissing down. I've lived in NSW in the past and remember well the hot westerly winds and the dramatic southerly changes. Love the Aussi climate but Auckland's high humidity is where I've ended up. It's pretty good (apart from the rain) for bikes. I remember a ride on an 860 Duc from Sydney to Wilton in the South West with a steady 42c breeze. I wet down my Kiwi Swandri jacket at a servo and nearly froze as the rapid evaporation caused refrigeration. The poor old bike was clicking and ticking in the heat. Too hot for anything but a air conditioned car.