Metal Mule

Yesterday I took the moto on its first journey, down to Metal Mule HQ (near Brighton) to sort out the luggage system. The BMW stock exhaust was taken off and replaced with the MM version, which is smaller and allows the use of symmetrical cases. My old MM frames were a bit tarnished so they are being blasted and recoated in black, and I'll go back and pick them up in a week or two. I treated myself to the MM topbox while I was there, something I've been meaning to do for a while, even with the old GS. There was a lot of crud on the road yesterday which all got thrown up inside the bike, so it got an extra careful clean with this stuff when back home - it's brilliant and made it look absolutely new again, which it is of course. I will install the rear mud protector which I had on the old GS before my next journey.

The new exhaust makes the bike quieter and smoother - perhaps a bit too much for my liking. I'll ask the MM guys if there are any alterations, legal or otherwise, that might bring back a bit of the turbo-fart noise. But the bike performed flawlessly again. It's still not sunk in that the engine cut-outs are a thing of the past.

Here's how it looked after its clean.

And here's the second part of my route down to MM yesterday, planned on Garmin Basecamp - lots of twisties and hardly any dual carriageway - ideal for running it in. The Garmin isn't wired in yet, so I can only use it for a limited time before the battery runs out.