The centre stand arrived and with in 48 hours of ordering it. Fitting it was a barrel of laughs as Roger Moor and me pulled and tugged at the large spring which keeps it in situ. In the end brute force and some cunning with levers won the day and the stand was firmly in place. As I have mentioned in previous posts, the Transalp is not a big bike but I am going to have to develop arm muscles like Garth if I am to snap it smartly into the stand when the need for it arrives.
I am now waiting for the Givi crash bars to arrive. These were ordered at the same time as the centre stand but from reading the forums they are notoriously late with dispatching goods but I have noticed they have taken the money from my credit card. Oh well hopefully I will never have to buy these things again. After some experimentation with soft panniers I have also realised that some pannier racks will have to be ordered to keep any panniers from coming into contact with the exhaust. The exhaust on the TA is placed high up to maximise ground clearance. It exits at the exact point the panniers would sit on the rear seat and would burn a hole in the right hand side pannier if not kept away by some means.
Fortunately some scouring on the internet has found a cheap set which as well as stopping the exhaust burning a hole into the panniers should not burn a hole in my credit card which is currently screaming as funds are rolling away at an alarming rate. I will be including the cost of the pannier racks into the bike section as they will not fit any machine other than a TA. The cost of the bike so far stands at £3204.1 and the running total cost of bike and equipment stands at £4126.1. I figure that expenditure of another £2500 is required before the bike and me are ready to roll.