Richard Browne
.020 Over
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2019
- Messages
- 33
- Location
- North Buckinghamshire
- Ride
- 2009 Rocket 3 Touring and 1968 BSA Bantam...
In the past I've been a bit lax with my garage hygiene - I've got a load of old sheets which I use for protecting the floor when I'm decorating, constructing make-shift spray booths, covering my vintage bicycles when I'm sawing or grinding, or using various power tools in the garage and even covering motorbikes.
The problem with dust sheets is this - dust. Ever had decorators in? Seen them throw down dust sheets? When they leave and take their dust sheets with them, did you notice that just about everything seems to be dusty? That's why they're called dust sheets - they capture all the dust from stuff you don't care about and then deposit it all over the stuff you love.
I'm certain that this is true.
So, I've been covering my Rocket with old bedsheets, but they're old, they've been around the garage doing covering stuff for years and they are at least 40% dust. Over the past few weeks the weather has been horrible. Now, I don't mind riding in the rain and cold when I have to, but I wouldn't choose to do it when there's a choice, so the Rocket has been sat in the garage with it's nose pressed up against the window sulking about why it can't go out to play.
I decided to give it a treat - a proper wash and brush-up when the weather broke for a few hours, then something I've been meaning to do since day one. DiamondGlaze.
If you haven't come across it, DiamondGlaze is on of those ceramic paint protection "systems" which dealers try to sell you when you buy a new car. Normally they charge around £400 but I generally negotiate the price down to a mere 5x what it actually costs - around £100. Last time we bought a new car for my wife, I negotiated a couple of bottles of both the stage 1 and stage 2 liquids into the deal with the intention of coating my W650 and Bantam. Both were done and it worked well.
Not convinced? I had a Land Rover as my last car, and I had the same stuff (with a different name) applied by the dealer. When I sold the car, the dealer I PX'd it with ran an ultrasonic doohicky over the paint as a part of their assessment. The guy doing the evaluation asked if I'd had a paint treatment applied and said that he could always tell because of the depth of paint - the reading on my Land Rover was thicker than the factory paint application which showed that even after 5 years, the coating was still there doing its thing.
So, in short, I am always really cynical about anything a dealer tries to sell me, but I'll always take the paint protection. If they don't reduce the cost of it, I buy it and apply it myself - it's dead cheap and really easy to do.
Anyway, back to the story. With a proper wash and clay, I applied both protective coats, and the paint came up like glass. I was proper happy.
Now I've done this, though, I don't think the old sheets are good enough any more, to make sure that the paintwork is protected from dust, I'd like to buy a decent bike cover. This is a first for me - I've always used the bedsheets of dusty-doom!
But which one? Does anybody else have a recommendation? It's only dust protection I'm looking for - my bike lives in the garage and so I don't need any weather protection. I have the Touring, so it needs to be pretty large to cover the screen and panniers.
What do you use?
The problem with dust sheets is this - dust. Ever had decorators in? Seen them throw down dust sheets? When they leave and take their dust sheets with them, did you notice that just about everything seems to be dusty? That's why they're called dust sheets - they capture all the dust from stuff you don't care about and then deposit it all over the stuff you love.
I'm certain that this is true.
So, I've been covering my Rocket with old bedsheets, but they're old, they've been around the garage doing covering stuff for years and they are at least 40% dust. Over the past few weeks the weather has been horrible. Now, I don't mind riding in the rain and cold when I have to, but I wouldn't choose to do it when there's a choice, so the Rocket has been sat in the garage with it's nose pressed up against the window sulking about why it can't go out to play.
I decided to give it a treat - a proper wash and brush-up when the weather broke for a few hours, then something I've been meaning to do since day one. DiamondGlaze.
If you haven't come across it, DiamondGlaze is on of those ceramic paint protection "systems" which dealers try to sell you when you buy a new car. Normally they charge around £400 but I generally negotiate the price down to a mere 5x what it actually costs - around £100. Last time we bought a new car for my wife, I negotiated a couple of bottles of both the stage 1 and stage 2 liquids into the deal with the intention of coating my W650 and Bantam. Both were done and it worked well.
Not convinced? I had a Land Rover as my last car, and I had the same stuff (with a different name) applied by the dealer. When I sold the car, the dealer I PX'd it with ran an ultrasonic doohicky over the paint as a part of their assessment. The guy doing the evaluation asked if I'd had a paint treatment applied and said that he could always tell because of the depth of paint - the reading on my Land Rover was thicker than the factory paint application which showed that even after 5 years, the coating was still there doing its thing.
So, in short, I am always really cynical about anything a dealer tries to sell me, but I'll always take the paint protection. If they don't reduce the cost of it, I buy it and apply it myself - it's dead cheap and really easy to do.
Anyway, back to the story. With a proper wash and clay, I applied both protective coats, and the paint came up like glass. I was proper happy.
Now I've done this, though, I don't think the old sheets are good enough any more, to make sure that the paintwork is protected from dust, I'd like to buy a decent bike cover. This is a first for me - I've always used the bedsheets of dusty-doom!
But which one? Does anybody else have a recommendation? It's only dust protection I'm looking for - my bike lives in the garage and so I don't need any weather protection. I have the Touring, so it needs to be pretty large to cover the screen and panniers.
What do you use?