Mike's Tenere & Motorcycle Blog

 Zoleo Satellite SOS Communicator A satellite SOS communicator is an essential safety/emergency kit for anyone who ventures outside cellular service areas, into remote locations & travels alone or with others that don't have one. Several consumer options are available depending on desired features: Satellite Phones, Personal Locator Beakons (PLBs) & Satellite SOS Communicators, which offer the best value for features that may include emergency SOS, 2 way messaging, tracking, navigation, weather + more. The Garmin InReach Mini2 Satellite Communicator is the device of choice for those balancing messaging with tracking & navigation, but pushes price enough that a lower priced sub-set has emerged focusing primarily on messaging, which is more appealing & practical to the average user or those that might never have considered a full featured satellite SOS device with tracking & navigation. Which is a great way to segue to the Zoleo that I opt...

  Black Widow Decat Race Header Black Friday strikes with a purchase of a  Black Widow Decat Race Header to mate up with my MIVV Dakar high mount exhaust , arriving in just 5 days from England. The header + air filter box de-snorkel necessitate another Black Friday purchase of a  2WheelDynoWorks mail in ecu flash to ensure correct fuel & ignition mapping. This years mail in ecu flash Black Friday sale ($225 US or $313 CDN) is for the entire month of Nov & can be done via mail, drop off or ride in at their shop just east of Seattle Wa, USA. Kudo's to them for having no time limit on when to have the ecu flashed, so will be able to ride down in the spring when the bike is insured. The Black Widow down pipe o.d. is 37.2 mm vs the oem's 35mm, with a 42 mm o.d. collector/connector pipe, 1 mm wall thickness & is 46%  or 1.5 kg lighter than the oem. Quality & fitment looks good across the board with supplied port gaskets thicker than the oems, 2 ...

  NGK LMAR8BI-9 Laser Iridium Spark Plugs Do these make my bike a 'Yamazuki' ? Installed new NGK #91909 LMAR8BI-9 Laser Iridium Spark Plugs @ 17,678 km, which are the Iridium equivalent of the oem Yamaha NGK #4313 LMAR8A-9 standard plugs to be changed every 13,000 km/8,000 miles...the oem plugs had no major deterioration with similar discoloration & normal operation of the bike except for a slight increase in vibration/courseness that commenced around 15-16k kms...which has vanished after changing the plugs. Apparently knock off fake plugs are a real thing so do your due diligence to ensure authentic NGK plugs...I sourced mine from a local Vancouver family owned shop 'Modern Motorcycling Ltd' whose everyday prices are usually better than most on-line vendors & dealers. The benefit of iridium plugs is longer service life/interval & improved performance. Plug Removal Process The job is involved & time consuming as access to the plugs & coils is restric...