Ignore the blog time/date stamp: this a retrospective update while I get things back up to date: the timings and workload weren't conducive to the real-time update that will follow from this point forwards.

Thursday 15th April 2010: 22.00am

With a hundred miles over the thosand showing, and a few hundred miles planned for the weekend, the plan to combine fte thousand mile service with the first upgrade was shelved: of the parts required, some were in Chester, but some were grounded with the no-fly zone over Europe and no-one really knew when that was going to change.

The motor was settling in nicely, and the only concerns were a rattle from the exhausts on fast tickover on choke - which was identified as one missing and one loose bolt on the upper exhaust mount that I'm now keeping an eye on - and play in the clutch and throttle cables, both of which form part of the assigned checks anyway.

The question relating to wheels was asked - as in do I treat them with something - to which the answer was 'yes, frequent cleaning'. Great. My favourite. Still, it's got to be done.

I'd been aware if some great dusts settling onto the bottom of the wheel rim when parked and immediately wondered whether it was caustic brake dust or Icelandic ash, and dusted it off anyway.

The trick with wheels is the same as any aspect of washing the bike: don't just wash the easy bits ... the visible bits. As it happens, Andy the Ad man had brought something from Quasar products for us to review - see main blog. Called the Strong Arm lift, it's beautifully simply and allows a single operator to lift the front or rear wheel off the deck, according to where it's placed, and Steve, Chester's tech, told me the blindingly obvious trick to avoid using the oil tank's sump as a levering point.  Introducing something between the frame rail and lift on the primary-drive side, about the same height as the timing side's protective skid, allows you to lift the bike 'square', and the stand located further forward that you would otherwise be able to do, by which time the frame gets narrower than I would prefer for the sake of stability. A lump of soft wood does that beautifully - and was what was lying around in the shed - without any chance of marking the frame's paint, but I'm emailing the guys at Quasar next to ask them whether a sliding collar might be even better: one that can be moved into position on bikes that need it, but moved out of the way if not.

Bike upright and stable, and with the front of the bike held off the desk by a block under the front engine mount, I can spin both wheels easily to clean them AND because the bike isn't leaning on the sidestand, the primary side of the engine's fins - so frequently forgotten and the first bit to start looking tatty on a black and chrome motor - are visible, accessible and easily to clean ... with a rag: they're machine finished and sharp as hell. It also makes it a lot easier to get to the front of the motor, which really cops for the road dirt thanks to the block tread pattern and the short front mudguard.

Other than all that, the bike gets a clean bill of health and we can start to use it increasingly harder.