Gadgets used on the motorbike

Indicators

The GPZ9's front indicators are mounted on stalks sitting out from the front fairing. These suffer from being somewhat expensive to replace, and prone to being easily damaged if the bike is dropped, or passers-by lean their bicycle against it. I put up with this for a few years, until in early 2005 some right bastard broke off the right-hand indicator, and took a chunk out of the fairing as well, as can be seen in the picture on the right.

Since I didn't feel like replacing it again, and the price for a new fairing was around £500, I went to the local motorbike shop and purchased a pair of flush-mounted indicators for €25. A bit of superglue put the fairing back into place, and a large drill bit made a suitable hole for the new indicators. They make the bike look somewhat street-fighterish now.

picture of right-hand side of bike showing hole in fairing

Navigation

Some time in 2002, I bought a Garmin Etrex unit, which is a fairly basic unit that has the usual concepts of waypoints, tracks, routes, and a simple serial interface. No maps though. I've also bought 2 bicycle mountings, which stay on the bicycles.

When using it on the motorbike, it normally sits within the transparent top of the tank bag

Navigation

As purchased, the bike had the standard A1-A6 mirrors. I'd frequently fitted blind-spot mirrors to them. Some time in 2002/2003, I purchased a set of 'Delux' mirrors, followed by a set of A7 mirrors after the delux mirrors proved to be a wind-affected poor imitation.

I also put some blind-spot mirrors to the top of the windshield (which can be just seen in the photo above) in 2003, however these weren't the success that I thought that they would be.