Last weekend I took the plastics off for the first time since winter and I was amazed by the amount of Essex I've been carrying around for the last few months. When I removed the lowers and separated the bottom of the side fairings this is what fell out. It's not solid lumps, just compacted grit and sand that's obviously come in through the holes in the radiator guard and can't find its way out again (and that's with a fender extender). I do put the hose in through the gaps between lower and side fairings when I wash it to try and blast it out but that obviously doesn't work!
Wow, I noticed very mild grit when ever I remove the lowers to change the oil, but that's remarkable! To be noted, I don't commute with the bike nor do I ride often in the rain. I am assuming you are riding year round. Do you travel on many gravel roads?
That's impressive. I get caught in the rain a couple times a month and go through dust/mud daily in my driveway and boarding the ferry and still don't get all that.
I've seen that much and more after riding through gravel, roadways being scraped in anticipation of re-paving, fire roads, etc. And the chin of the 4th gen collected nearly as much debris too, if not just as much.
The roads department likes to do "chip and seal" around here which is gravel plus tar instead of proper asphalt. Every time I unbutton the fairings a lot of loose debris from that and other country road debris comes out.
Wow, I noticed very mild grit when ever I remove the lowers to change the oil, but that's remarkable! To be noted, I don't commute with the bike nor do I ride often in the rain. I am assuming you are riding year round. Do you travel on many gravel roads?
Yes, year round and on stereotypical English country lanes!
Dirt happens, just not as much of it where I live.
Kind of on that subject, I've had road rash from a bad bicycle crash and the hospital kept me on an anti-biotic IV for several DAYS. They didn't want me to leave because
they said that pavement is one of the dirtiest, most evil bacteria laden places there is. I had to go under general anesthesia FOUR times so they could clean the grit and fine crud out of me.
I told them I thought that was a little drastic or something to that effect and they told me that they wanted every single tiny piece of grit that they could see out of the wounds and that
infection from road rash was very hard to deal with. I didn't argue with them.
Just a little FYI in case anyone goes down in that stuff. ATTGATT
