Last week while riding on a busy Auckland street I came to a ton of gravel and rocks spilt from a gravel truck (who had then just driven on), it covered the whole lane, being a busy road by the time I saw it too late to stop.
I hoped I could ride over it but the front wheel let go and the GRiSO and I ended up sliding down the road,
fortunately it was about 20 mtr from a traffic light so not going fast.
The result was a flap of flesh being stitched back in place on my knee, grazes and bruising and similar sorts of damage to the GRiSO.
Once I was able to move around I got on with patching up the GRiSO.
When I got to the tappet cover I decided to see if I could incorporate some protection.
Here's where I went with the idea.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]I used teflon to prevent the laminate bonding to the metal
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Six layers of double bias glass fibre with black pigmented resin, a final layer of peelply over that
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]The glassfibre trimmed back
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]The plastic and glassfibre with a layer of carbon fibre twill over them. built up with layers of clearcoat to fill the weave and black sikaflex
used to fair the component to the metal tappet cover
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]The final result
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]I've been thinking for a while that it would be good to add some protection but didn't want to be bolting bits of steel on the bike.
I'm happy with the result. It saved me having to source a new plastic cover, gives 6mm or more of composite on the vulnerable
edge of the tappet cover and the carbon fibre doesn't look out of place on the GRiSO.
The cost was minimal, it took three days but that was because I had to wait for the layers of clearcoat to cure before I could sand back and add another coat. Three layers brushed on, final coat air brushed with flatting base added to cut down on the glossy plastic look.