Sports Archives - Page 68 of 70 - TBNI.Blog

16/05/2015 NW200 Saturday Race Day

June 12, 2018May 24, 2015 by TomBoyNI

After a great Thursday night racing and the weather being exceptionally kind, Saturday rolled up. When I left the house it was glorious! So sunny it was almost hazy. I had to stop half way there to put my waterproofs on as it looked like it was going to chuck it down, and by the time I arrived although it hadn’t rained it looked like it was going to, big time! It was dark and there was some proper big ass black clouds floating menacingly over head. It did not take long for them to burst! And so began the theme for the day, sunny, windy, cloudy, raining, heavy ass raining, sunny, warm, windy, cloudy… and repeat!

The first race of the day had to be cancelled after a couple of restarts but from about 1.30 -2.00PM we did get some more continuous according to plan racing, it even looked like, for a short while, that the road closure contingencies would be used to get the final race in however as the winds had picked up again the riders and management decided against that.

So all in all it was a great days racing and thankfully, ultimately no one was fatally injured. A rider was critically injured as was a spectator when a bike left the track and hit her in a garden, a tragic freak accident, however thankfully and mercifully all involved and injured people are now well on the mend, and all are expected to make a full recovery.

See you next year! Onto the TT!

It’s Race Week… Vauxhall International 2015 North West 200 – NW200

May 12, 2015 by TomBoyNI

Just a quick note to all the riders, teams, and spectators, have a great and safe Race Week! Keep an eye on my twitter where I should be live on Thursday and Saturday!

It’s gonna be great. And if you can’t get down there check out the BBC for live coverage of ALL practice and race sessions!

Let’s go Tyco BMW!

http://www.northwest200.org

Vauxhall International 2015 North West 200 - Race Week — Vauxhall International 2015 North West 200 – Race Week

Dakar 2016 Routes and Stages Unveiled… The Odyssey!

April 28, 2015 by TomBoyNI

Some day I will be doing this! Until such a time all I can do is follow it, and here is what I / we will be following in January 2016!

★OFFICIAL 2016 DAKAR ROUTE★

Today, the stages of the 2016 edition have been unveiled in Argentina:
3/01 – Stage 1: Lima – Pisco
4/01 – Stage 2: Pisco – Nazca
5/01 – Stage 3: Nazca – Arequipa
6/01 – Stage 4: Arequipa – Lago Titicaca
7/01 – Stage 5: Lago Titicaca – Oruro
8/01 – Stage 6: Oruro – Uyuni
9/01 – Stage 7: Uyuni – Salta
11/01 – Stage 8: Salta – Belén
12/01 – Stage 9: Belén – Belén
13/01 – Stage 10: Belén – La Rioja
14/01 – Stage 11: La Rioja – San Juan
15/01 – Stage 12: San Juan – Villa Carlos Paz
16/01 – Stage 13: Villa Carlos Paz – Rosario
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#‎Dakar2016‬

2015 Adelaide Motorcycle Festival – Belfast

February 6, 2015 by TomBoyNI

It has been a year or two (2013 actually) since I have went near this show, but I ventured back today for a look with huge hopes that it had improved since my last visit.

Thankfully it has. I will address the 2 bad points firstly that I came away with today – firstly £12 entrance fee is just crazy. That is only slightly cheaper that the NEC’s Motorcycle Live which was simply outstanding. This show is more like a gathering of dealers, with a range of their bikes that they want to sell you. Nothing new, nothing revealed, just a load of nice and shiny bikes all in one place to tempt you out of a few hundred quid for the next 36 – 48 months, therefore I think it is a bit cheeky to be expected to pay such a high entrance fee to essentially enter a huge multi-manufacturer’s show room.

Secondly, on your way in you will pass by the ‘Jumble.’ Make sure you go in because there is simply some stunning vintage bikes and cars in here and a few interesting vendors. However Bad point 2 is also in here. Some of the vendors are just selling junk, and they genuinely don’t seem bothered.

My eye was taken by two quaint little signs, neither of which held any real world value, I just thought they would look rather cool in my garage. Heres’ how the conversation went….

Rugged Roads Headlight Protector for BMW F800GS Adventure

December 30, 2014 by TomBoyNI

Like all motorcyclists and adventure motorcyclists we all love tinkering and new bits of kit. ABRs more than any I believe love protective stuff, little farkles that protect more expensive items on the bike, are reasonably priced but look mean! Let’s be honest the look of the kit is probably its biggest asset, of course in this case we have a £40 unit protecting a £500 unit, but it looks cool and makes everything else look a bit more serious! And that is half the fun!

Don’t forget the other half though! This is after all a serious piece of kit, it does have a purpose, namely to guard the headlight from stones and debris, and this piece of kit is serious enough to do it! From the second you take it out of the packaging you will feel how sturdy it is, it is obvious that this will protect your headlights from impact of flying debris and it will only have to do it once and you will be very glad you spend the cash!

For your info here are the details from www.ruggedroads.co.uk

Protect your headlights from expensive damage due to wayward stones and other detritus with our heavy duty polycarbonate guard.

We have redesigned our headlight guard to give even more protection to your headlights without defusing the effectiveness of the lights.

This polycarbonate headlight guard has been designed by us at Rugged Roads and is manufactured to the highest quality here in the UK. We have made the fixing brackets out of Stainless Steel – and the guard itself from Makrolon®

Colour – Clear polycarbonate.

This item fits the following models:
– BMW F800GS – 2008 – 2012
– BMW F800GS – 2013 onwards
– BMW F800GSA – 2013 onwards
– BMW F650GS (Twin) – 2007 – 2012
– BMW F700GS – 2013 onwards

Installation is simple…

Motorcycle Live 2014 – Birmingham NEC

November 22, 2019December 30, 2014 by TomBoyNI

This year I took myself over to Birmingham for what is meant to be one the best Motorcycle Shows in the UK. It was my first time over and without doubt I will be booking my tickets ASAP for the 2015 Show.

With a great variety of manufacturers present along with pretty much all the accessories you could safely carry away the show has a lot to see and do.

This year the show piece, in fact the show stopper was the Kawasaki H2 and H2R, and when the track ready version was put on the dyne the show literally did stop! The ear defenders they were handing out were actually a requirement, if you had any sense! This bike is deafening, more importantly this bike is impressive!

You can check out my YouTube Video of it on the Dyno below :

Here is a Gallery showcasing some of the other outstanding machines on display – and check out that Honda ‘Prototype’ – is this the new soon to be released Africa Twin! Hell I hope so!

Northern Ireland International North West 200 – 2014

October 9, 2014 by TomBoyNI

Some how I missed these photos in my ‘To Attend To’ folder on my computer, so for that I can only apologise.

A few very quick words will have to suffice as I am so far out of date, but another spectacular NW200 this year and I look forward to the next. Thoughts and Prayers of course with the family of , Simon Andrews, the rider who was tragically killed at this years event.

NW200 2014 Gallery :

Preparing MicroSD Card for Use in Garmin Dakota 20 (& Other GPS Systems)

January 18, 2014 by TomBoyNI

Last year I purchased a Garmin Dakota 20 GPS System to use on my Motorcycle and also for GeoCaching. I never really used it. However I have now set up setting it up properly and getting it ready for use this year.

One good point about the Dakota 20 is the fact that it has a expandable memory by the addition of a MicroSD card, which sits neatly behind the batteries. This is a bit of a no brainer really as SD Cards are so affordable now. You don’t even have to go that big as the Custom maps from Garmin are a maximum size of 4GB, an 8GB should easily do most users. One other option is that if you have a lot of custom maps you could buy bigger, store all your maps on the device then move them around into the proper directories as required as your journey progresses. (Pretty much the whole of Western Europe on a Custom Map is squeezed into 4GB).

To utilise this all you have to do is prepare the card.

(One quick tip for when you get set up, make sure you leave the WW BaseMaps Enabled, this will give you at the very least a base map whilst your detailed maps load, removing any white screens that you get as loading occurs, it is purely cosmetic, just nicer to work with!).

To do this follow these simple steps.

1. Format your MicroSD card as FAT32 (FAT MS-DOS on a Mac)
2. Rename the Card – ‘GARMIN.’
3. Create a folder named ‘Garmin’ in the root directory.
4. Any Map files with the extension ‘.img’ are placed in this directory.
5. Copy the File Structure from your Actual Garmin GPS to that of your Freshly Formatted SD Card. The folders named below are all within the ‘Garmin’ Root directory.
6. The ‘CustomMaps’ folder will contain any ‘.kmz’ files.
7. The ‘BirdsEye’ folder will house any ‘.jnx’ files.
8. The ‘GPX’ folder will be the home of waypoints and so on just as the Garmin was itself.

Nike Fuel Band… 9 months on!

August 8, 2013 by TomBoyNI

So it has been 9 months since I got my Nike Fuel Band and I have been using it regularly ever since.

In fact for 8 months it pretty much never left my wrist, however for this last month it hasn’t even been close to my wrist!

And I will state from the start that is not the fault of the fuel band.

So forgetting the past few weeks that I haven’t been wearing the Fuel Band what are my opinions?

Simply put this is a great device, it makes you set a goal to achieve an amount of Nike Fuel, which isn’t any real measurable unit, people think it is calories, it is not, others think it is steps, again it isn’t. It is Nike Fuel. Nike would tell you this is a figure that takes into account your movement throughout the day and converts it into Nike’s own unit, the ‘Fuel.’

So you set your limit, I set mine at 3,000 Nike Fuel Units in a day. It took me a few days to come to this figure, but for me it means that a normal working day won’t hit this value, for me to hit it I have to go out and do a run or a long walk.

A value of 2000 I could hit just by getting up and going to work, so I set it high enough that some actual exercise had to occur for me to hit it.

G-Shock GW300B UnBoxing and Initial Thoughts…

August 8, 2013 by TomBoyNI

So I have had this watch for a while now, picking it up whilst on holidays in Florida, for an amazing price, which I’m going to keep as a secret! But the same watch retails here for the equivalent £250GBP.

You may recognise this watch as it currently one of Casio G-Shock’s Poster Models, and with just a quick look it is easy to see why it is so desirable! Just look at it, it is a stunning watch!

Casio knew what they were doing whilst marketing this watch…Put a jet on it, people will want it! Damn straight!

The added information from Casio below will tell you of the features and functions of this watch, but here are my real world points in relation to every day wearing :

1. Comfortable – I have big wrists and it fits well.
2. Big but not massive. I thought this may be a bad point for me, however it isn’t. I usually wear large faced watches, the GA-100 and GX-56 are usually found wrapped around my wrist. This watch is noticeably smaller when being worn than both, however its depth somehow beefs it up and after a couple of minutes I had fully accepted it. Instead of saying smaller, I will say neater.

Disclosure :