Thanks Karthikk sir, yes absolutely a treat is due, just that as you know stars need to align before we all meet up
Mark 13 has been chugging along well, have completed around 2000 Kms after last service, it's been doing well, except the heat, I thought engine Ice would make a huge difference, but I can hardly make out any difference, if anything I think it's heating faster. Will be changing to something else in my next service, maybe a combination of coolant and water, some more testing needs to be done.
Undertook a long ride to VVS dam to test the machine and myself, it was a total of around 500 kms along with exploring some nearby areas. The roads are amazing, except some stretch before Tumkur area, lots of potholes there, even after being super cautious, ended up going into few. The trip was otherwise pretty good, heats on highway is well contained, bike is super nimble, and behaving well. The road is cordoned off well from any unwanted elements, and you can cruise at some real good speeds. I was accompanied with a friend on his GT650, and even the GT650 behaved really well. Was pretty happy with myself to be able to complete this on a panigale in a day, and surprisingly I was not too tired even after such a long ride in a commited stance, as a matter of fact we were planning to take a long route back home, when a call from missus dashed any further plans.
Some Images from the trip.
Aftermath of the trip were realized after reaching home, while washing the bike, noticed that lost a fairing screw somewhere and while lubing the chain realized that the chain became extremely tight. Went to a nearby mechanic and got a screw that fit, but no one nearby had the bit to loosen the wheel to fix the chain issue. It was fixed at motospark in a visit detailed later, I am planning to buy the bit and keep at home to fix it myself, as I foresee this issue to happen more frequently.
In the meantime brother decided to postpone his trip from July to December due to Covid, so Got few updates done on the bike from locally sourced parts.
1. Got a new tank pad from one design. Looks good to me atleast.
2. Got PPF done on the side of the tanks as my tank grips are still with brother, and wanted to give protection to the bike.
3. Got some Dainese Vinyls done as I am a big fanboy of Dainese, should be visible in the photos above.
4. Next thing on my mind was the bar end mirrors, the current one though looked really good were functionally near pathetic. They used to vibrate on high speeds and visibilty over all was very poor and near about nil in the night. Problem was no good bar end mirrors are available in India and everything is a Chinese knock off, RCB has a decent one, but it is round in shape which won't go well with the Panigale profile. In one my discussion with my friend he told me that he had nice bar end mirrors on GT535, and sent me the photos, I really liked what I saw, and started the hunt for the mirrors.
Step in one of the most helpful person I have met on forums AKA @neil.jericho , he took it upon himself to arrange the mirrors for me. Spoke to the dealer got him to order the mirrors and then even went the distance to pick it up from him and courier it to me. You sir are a shining star, and I am very thankful to you for your gesture, beers on me when you come to bangalore.
These are the RCB mirrors, I will suggest it if circular mirrors will look good on your bike, quality is pretty decent.
These are the GT535 mirrors installed on the bike.
The FOV is still narrow but the build quality is phenomenal, highly doubt if they will vibrate, it's pretty expensive for RE parts also. Wish it had normal mirrors instead of blue mirrors. I will wait for few days to decide if I want to paint them black with a red pinstripe or black paint with a ducati logo. Good it does not come with any RE branding. Overall I can close this chapter and have it off my mind.
5. The last thing done was battery change, one fine day bike died and had to be pushed to start it. Happened again after couple of weeks, so it was time to change the battery. Considered few options including shido LI ion battery, but nothing was available in exact size, so ended up going with Stock Yuasa Battery sourced from Ducati.
The chain slack fix, battery and the mirror installation was done at mototspark, and I continue to be impressed by them, I don't have any affiliation with them, but would recommend them to bangalore SBK owners.
One thing to note was the ride to motospark from my house which is almost 30 kms from my place, the city traffic was extremely crazy and panigale was absolutely hot, it hates city traffic more then we do. I hit temperature of 120+ and lot of time speedo ended up flashing HI. The heat escaping from right fairing is like a steam escaping from a steam kettle, and left a burn mark on my right thigh, I was though wearing normal jeans, maybe riding pants would have shielded me better. I am really contemplating to get a thigh pad on right leg, and make sure to keep it in my riding bag. The heating issues on this is real and anyone planning to even remotely consider a panigale as a daily driver needs to be an Ironman. I told motospark guys next time I will come early morning and leave late night to beat the traffic
That are the few updates and leaving aside heating issues, I am really having a blast on the bike, when you are on highway the oodles of torque keeps you grinning inside the helmet.