Changing the oil on a BMW R1150GS.

I'm not the most mechanically minded person on earth, so if you need to follow this guide you're probably fucked.

To change the oil on a BMW R1150 GS you will need.

1. A BMW 1150GS
2. Oil, about three and a half litres worth.
3. A new oil filter
4. A 10mm socket and drive thing for socket.
5. A bigish allen key. I dunno what size.
6. An oil filter wrench. The filter is all up in the engine, you need this badboy to get it out and get the new one in.

Take your GS and put it on its centre stand on flat ground. If its not absolutely fucking pishing down outside take it for a wee spin first to warm it up. Warm oil drains better than cold oil.
Put some old newspaper down in case you make a cunt of things and spill oil all over the floor resulting in you slipping later and dropping your bike.

Loosen the four nuts that hold the sump guard on. These fuckers can get pretty badly seized so put some copper grease or something on them. If the rubber mounts break use mole grips or plumbers pliers to unscrew the bastards. 

You should now have the sump guard off and four nuts. Two longish ones from the front with big washers and two smaller ones with wee washers from the rear.

Remove the sump plug to drain the oil out into an appropriate receptical, this will take a few minutes so go and have a beer or a cup of tea or something. I spoke to occasional Mikeworld visitor Paul and his dog Dot for a few minutes.

Once all the oil has finished draining replace the sump plug. Put a new crush washer on it if some spare ones came with your oil filter, the spare crush washers are for you gearbox and final drive plugs. DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN YOUR SUMP PLUG. Remove the old oil filter. Mind, this will be full of oil that with pish out all over the shop so be careful. Make sure the rubber ring from the old filter comes out too. Use some oil to lube the ring on the new filter and use the oil filter wrench to install it. Just don't tighten it up too much. Again, more ballet dancer than sumo wrestler.

Pour your new oil in. I went for this semi synthetic 20w50 from www.opieoils.co.uk. Put three and a half litres in then start your bike. It might knock it's cunt in for the first few seconds before the new filter fills up and the oil gets around the engine. Turn the bike off. Once you're sure there's no leaks replace the sump guard remembering to grease the threads so you don't get seized nuts. Check the oil level glass. If its half full perfect, if not top it up a wee bit. Mind that from top to bottom the sight glass is about a quarter of  a litre so don't go mental.

You should now be back to a scene like this but with oil all over the place. You're bike will appreciate it though.

Perfect.

Black Pudding

Black Pudding is quite a delicacy here in Scotland. Its made all over with the flavors being quite different from place to place. The most famous of all the Black puddings has to be Stornoway Black Pudding made on the Isle of Lewis by WJ MacDonald. Accept no substitute. This is the Stornoway Black Pudding. Big Aaron was up on Lewis recently and brought me a whole one back. Savory.

The real thing.

I also got my hands on some Clonakilty Black Pudding from Ireland. Its really nice and peppery. the only problem is its pretty wee. I guess some puddings are bigger than others.

BIKES!!!

Had plenty of bike related fun over the weekend. On Sunday I had Bob and Bennetts crashing on the couch after we had his birthday beers at our's the night before. After watching the Moto GP with some quality bacon and black pudding rolls Bob and I joined Ben for a spin down the Borders to visit Calvert.

We left East Lothian and followed the classic down the A68 and back the A7 route stopping to fill up with petrol before hand. You can't really see it in the photograph but fuel around here is around £1.34 per litre. For my American readers that works out as around $9.50 a gallon. Fucking expensive eh? After being shafted at the petrol station we carried on to Calvert's for some coffee and a chat about an up and coming bike trip.

You can just see Ben and Bob waiting in the distance. They love it when I stop for photos all the time.

Satuday was a cycling up the Lammermuir hills with friends from the East Lothian Mountain Bike pussbook group. I've bought a basic GPS thingy from a work mate and it worked a treat for keeping us on the route I'd planned. The route I'd planned was slightly fucked and swampy but we all had good fun, stopping for pints and a poo at the Goblin Ha' in Gifford and having a few more beers in the Winton when we got back.

Quality GPS thing.

Rick in a rut.

At the top of Lammerlaw

Beers at the Goblin.

The route the GPS thingy tracked. We done about 23 miles.

I got out midweek for a solo spin on the Pugsley. Just my usual route along Gosford to the subs and back but it was still nice to get out later on for a sunset. I even tried my hand at some beach art. It turned pretty misty on the way home though!

I'm heading for the wee clump of rocks just of the headland.

Here's a wee video I done to try and show crossing Gosford bay. Its a bit shit though.

At the other side.

Big sand bars at Kilspindie

Beach Art.