Hebrides 2019 - Prep Part 2

It's getting closer to my leave date for the trip, so I need to finish up getting the bike ready.

I lost my kickstand foot plate the last time I went for a ride. These are very useful for parking on soft ground because the stock kickstand has a very small foot on it which will just sink into the ground. Fitting a larger foot reduces the pressure on the ground (same weight over a larger area). The main reason to do this is to stop the bike falling over when the stand sinks into the ground. I had this happen when the bike was parked on a friends lawn after a rain shower. Anyway, turns out the last one I fitted fell off because the kickstand foot is damaged. I had assumed that the bolts had rattled loose and it fell off, but it's only held on with three bolts and the part of the original foot it clamped to was no longer there. The kickstand had damage when I bought the bike which I had to straighten to fit the last foot, but it must have fatigued the metal. I'll buy a replacement kickstand off eBay, so will have to fit this some other time.

Next I took the headlight off, because I want to fit a USB port. I have previously replaced the appalling "candle in a jam jar" headlight bulb with a much more powerful (but lower current draw) LED H4 headlight. This will give me the overhead needed to run the USB socket without being at a power deficit.

Headlight housing removed and the headlight connector located. It's a standard motorbike connector which I had no trouble finding on eBay. I make up my own little harness to go between the bike's loom and the headlight. I don't like modifying electrical systems when I don't need to, so this little plug in solution pleases me. I take a tap off the dipped beam (which is always on with this bike) as the power feed for the USB port.

I fit the USB socket (with built in voltmeter showing the regulated voltage) to the handle bars and reinstall the headlight and housing. I have a USB voltmeter I can use to test the port.

 With my phone plugged in, it shows a good 5V @ 1A.

Good steady output. Very nice.

 

One other thing left to fit (other than the sidestand and foot - still waiting for the replacement to turn up) is a clock. It's just useful to have and doesn't take up much room. It's a bettery operated quartz clock from Oxford.

 And that's the work done. Once I have the replacement sidestand and foot fitted, I should be ready to go.