Hiya<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It feels like just yesterday that we rode four days through blistering Australian heat, from Melbourne to South Australia\u2019s south coast, around to Mildura and back to Melbourne last Australia Day and yet, here we are again about to venture off for the ninth annual Australia Day Ride. You can read about previous adventures here.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019m totally psyched this year\u2019s ride, for some unknown reason called life, I never got to take that long solo ride I was planning back in November and I desperately need to take the S1R out on the open roads and be silly with a bunch of mates.<\/p>\n
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Having done this eight times over now I am getting pretty good at cutting down the excess, trying to keep it simple, but I have a few obvious things to get in order and I like to think (a lot) of all the different aspects of being on the road for a few days.<\/p>\n
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Namely the\u00a0bike, luggage and keeping various devices charged. Let\u2019s break it down in reverse.<\/p>\n
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I have to film shit, I just cant help it. I\u2019m not particularly good at it but I like trying. This year with the addition of a UCLEAR HBC200 Bluetooth Headset I have in-lid-music which means I also have to consider keeping lots of various shit charged. My phone has a crap battery and won\u2019t last a full days use and the GoPro lasts about two tenths of not long\u2026<\/p>\n
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The best solution was a dual USB charger I got for $28 from Peter Stevens spare parts, it\u2019s a cheap Chinese thing but hey, IT HAS ONE JOB. Sure would be nicer if BMW included ONE single power outlet on the S1R, but they didn\u2019t so lets just move on. It has dual USB outlets housed in a waterproof rubber case and two long cables wrapped in a tubing that hopefully is heat resistant, much like this one from Amazon only without the inline fuse.<\/p>\n
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I spoke to ADR fellow Murphy and was advised that an inline fuse would be a good idea so after I ran the wires down behind the side fairing below the tank and poked it out at the battery termys under the seat, I shot out to see him\u00a0Discount Motorcycle Wreckers\u00a0and he was kind enough to help me wire it into the battery with a 5A inline fuse, job done.<\/p>\n
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My only reservation is the tiny blue backlights that will stay on permanently. I will be monitoring in the days leading up to departure. This also means I need to remember to only charge while\u00a0riding<\/a>, which is the plan anyway, just have to unplug at longer stops.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ve created a rule for myself this time around: all photography will be done with my Olympus PEN, leaving the phone for music and GPS app. Then I\u2019ll shoot \u2018good bits\u2019 of video at 1080p 30fps on the GoPro so I\u2019ll have one USB port hooked up to the N5 and the other the GoPro. Best I check how many microSD cards I can muster\u2026expensive suckers, the good ones are.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To solve the issue of how to charge the phone (Nexus 5) on the go, I grabbed a\u00a0Ram Mount Universal X-Grip\u00a0and I am super impressed with how it works. The bar mount is a padded claw and you simply tighten it up in the desired position and then you have a universal movement ball mounted onto another claw of sorts which grips the phone. Fitting is easy and I double checked for free movement with the tank bag on, everything fits and moves smoothly.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I insisted on a tank and rear bag when I bought the bike, so I got this covered. I have played with, tested, rode with, packed and unpacked and I\u2019m happy that what I\u2019ve got will do the job easily; it\u2019s only a two nighter this year, so not much to worry about in terms of capacity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Took a few happy snaps and I gotta say it doesn\u2019t look too untoward. Kinda spiffy even, of course I\u2019m gonna be swinging my leg up and through the gap now rather than over the back seat but that\u2019s ok.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bike is good to go! Had my first service at 1,500kms (or was it 1,000?) and am nearing 4,000km on the clock as we speak, so I have nothing to worry about as far as it goes. I\u2019ll grease up the chain the night before, check my tyre pressure in the morning and top up with rocket fuel then hit the road for our 7:30am departure time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While visiting Murphy I also grabbed a tiny can of chain lube for the trip, it\u2019s like a small can of Aeroguard which is the perfect size for travel.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ve got my little\u00a0BHACO toolkit and a plug kit\u00a0tucked under the rear seat for any unexpected punctures or things that rattle, and of course if I run into real trouble I still have 24\u00d77 BMW roadside assistance to fall back on. Ahh the warm embrace of comfort offered up on new bike purchases.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Packing for the ride will probably happen at the last minute on Friday night, but it\u2019s pretty straight forward \u2013 3 jocks, 3 socks, 3 t-shirts, 1 pair jeans, swimming shorts and a set of wet pants<\/a>, 1 pair runners a toothbrush and my meds (a long boring story for another day).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ll chuck all that in the rear bag with the wets on top for easy access, and put all my electronic crap up front in the tank bag.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m looking forward to really trying out this sweet little GPS app I have just scored some more. It\u2019s called\u00a0the Ulysses Pro Speedometer\u00a0and for a buck 99 AUD I\u2019m pleased with it\u2019s features so far. It can time your attempts at the quarter mile, 0-60, 0-100 and the best feature is that it works entirely from Satellite so it won\u2019t chew mobile data.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m expecting having the screen on fulltime while riding and the app running as well as music playing chews the battery pretty damn quick so that USB charger will be getting a workout. Maybe I\u2019ll do a full review of the app on my return\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So I never quite covered all the\u00a0technology farkels I wanted\u00a0but I have managed to get two devices powered at once for under $30.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Next week I\u2019ll cover what went down (hopefully no-one). Expect much hooliganism.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Until then, enjoy this short video I made for ADR 4 five years ago now (shit, I\u2019m old), and stay upright.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hiya It feels like just yesterday that we rode four days through blistering Australian heat, from Melbourne to South Australia\u2019s south coast, around to Mildura and back to Melbourne last Australia Day and yet, here we are again about to venture off for the ninth annual Australia Day Ride. You can read about previous… Continue reading Charging Accessories For Your Ride For Less Than $30<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","entry"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailybikers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailybikers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailybikers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailybikers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailybikers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailybikers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":527,"href":"https:\/\/dailybikers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions\/527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailybikers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailybikers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailybikers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailybikers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/h3>\n
Luggage<\/h2>\n
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The bike<\/h3>\n