UK Honda Owners Club

 

for the UK Honda Owners Club magazine "Golden Wing"

As I recall my motorcycling as a teenager it never involved cleaning a bike and certainly never involved keeping the chain lubricated. I think the mileage I did was far less and I was an indestructible teenager which must have been correct because I’m still here…

When I returned to motorcycling in order to commute into London and deal with the mid-life crisis, sorry the mid-life crisis wrapped up in pretending to commute, I followed the Deauville, DN-01 and VFR1200 so didn’t need to learn about the maintenance of chains. All that has changed with my purchase last autumn of a NC700X based on its comfort, price and economy albeit back to a chain drive.

Unlike my teenage years I now find myself reading the paperwork that comes with new toys and there was a great deal about chain cleaning (won’t do that) and maintenance all of which was underlined following the recall by Honda to check and change the chain. It dawned on me that this may be an important piece of the whole. I like adding little bits to my bikes, I refer to it as "personalisation" and my son is very good at designing them, NEC Live 2011 DN-01 if you recall, but I do not like to muck about with the engine or the electrics as that leads to problems, problems with warranties, problems with insurance and all that but it seemed that the only way I was going to keep my chain well lubricated was to cut into the wiring loom or access the engine vacuum, whatever that is!

There must be a better way, someone in Taiwan must have solved this with all of their little chain driven machines, but no they haven’t; someone in my very own Gloucestershire has done it brilliantly. My NC700X has been fitted with the TUTORO Chain Oiler for 7,600 of its 8,100 miles and it has done a fine job of trickling oil onto the chain and not all over the bike. My son fitted it, albeit that I had to read the paperwork, and it did not require any electrical or mechanical connection, nor did it need the life sucked out of it by someone’s vacuum, it just does its job in a fiendishly clever way that is all internal so that you attach the bottle, position the tube, fill it with their special oil and ride away. From that moment on, and for more than 7,000 miles in my case, you just have to top up the oil reservoir.

As a biker who has no desire to maintain anything but only to enjoy it and who has ended up with a chain again this is a wonderful piece of engineering and it’s all just here in Gloucestershire. I’m not on commission, damn, but please take a look for yourselves at

http://www.tutorochainoiler.com/ and feel free to contact Nick Ibbitson at info@tutorochainoiler.com and he’ll tell you what TUTORO stands for…..