Spares Shopping Weekend!

Last weekend was spent majorly shopping for spares. Not that i needed any immediately, But my Xbhp friend Krishna needed spares for his Zma, which are must have while touring. So, we hit Jc Road on saturday morning and ended up hoarding stuff :P I was itching to change the headlamp bulb too, not that i had the stock crap bulb, i had got rid of it long back and was using Osram SilverStar 55/60w Bulb, It was great, but the highbeam was narrow. Then i read in Bcmtouring about Philips Vision plus 55/60w Bulb. One of the members had tried it and found that the high beam too was as wider compared to other bulbs. So, i wanted to try that. Krishna's Zma was still on the stock crap 35w bulb, so he too was ready to buy it.

But before that, Krishna needed a new helmet. He had lost his earlier AGV helmet (some one had whacked it from helmet lock of his bike :( ) So I took him to our usual place and got him a GPR Lid for Rs 2600 with mercury and plain visor. Now he too owns a similar helmet like me, GPR black lid. Then i tried my hunt for Barclavas and luckily found black baraclava, but they had jacked up the price to Rs 90! i had earlier bought White baraclavas for Rs 35. My bargaining skills failed and i picked up 2 baraclavas for myself, 2 for my friend sachin and needless to say, Krishna too picked up 2 for himself. The shopkeeper made a lot of moolah indeed :(

Then the hunt for bulb started. We went to the shop, from where i had bought osram bulb few months back, but that shop had stopped selling bulbs less than 100w. But, the shopkeeper asked us to wait and got the Philips vision plus bulb for us. We paid Rs 225 for each bulb, it was expensive compared to osram (Rs 120) but i decided to give it a try. While we were waiting, i found 2 customers buying bulbs and stuff from that shop, the amount of 100w bulbs and reflectors they were buying was too many, later we found out that they were buying all that stuff for a brand new truck! :P Four 100w Bulbs with reflectors and 2 Fog lamps! No wonder we bikers get blinded at night by truckies! HID is the only way to pay back these guys in their own coin! coming soon in future, on a zma near you :P Truckies/buses/Cagers, be afraid....very afraid... :P



After the bulb, it was time to get spares for krishna's Zma. We went to Navin Associates in JC Road, this chap is the authorised distributor and stockist for all HeroHonda bike spares. Bought throttle cables, Clutch cables. Unfortunately spare fuses were not available. I had read in Xbhp that HeroHonda chaps had increased the front disc pads cost to Rs 1500 now from Earlier Rs 770 change, I had ranted about it few days back. Few guys had posted that some dealers had old stocks and were giving it for old rates. So, i casually asked the chaps there about the price of the disc pads, to our luck, he told us the old price! We were overjoyed. They had old stocks of disc pads. So we both bought a set each immediately! We verified about the chain sprocket set cost and thankfully it was still in Rs 800 change territory. But knowing Herohonda's past record of insane price variations of few spares of Zma, iam not gonna take chance, will have to get a spare chain sprocket set by next month.

Went to Castrol Bike Zone in Jc road and got the Philips bulb fitted on Krishna's Zma. I was keen on doing it myself in my bike, so i just watched. Later, we did some testing in dark corners there and the result was good indeed. The highbeam of this bulb is wider than my Osram bulb. Krishna was very happy with the lights now, his night life had lit up for good :P

Bought a few rubber bushes which were worn out near the fuel tank from honda spares shop! they were not available in Herohonda spares shop! Bid byes to krishna and reached home dead tired. Managed to fit the bulb yesterday by myself. It was another DIY Session for me, like the earlier session. Surprisingly it took just 15 mins for me to remove the front faring of Zma, unplug the osram bulb and plonk in the new philips bulb and fit back the faring. Now, am truly becoming a part time mech for sure! :P The rubber bushes from honda were a perfit fit on Zma :P Tested the bulb on my way to work at night. As i had noticed in Krishna's Zma, the philips vision plus bulb has wider high beam and equally wider Low beam. But the distance between Low and hi beam is less. It's also lot whiter and brighter than the earlier Osram Silverstar bulb. Over all am satisfied, need to see how this bulb performs over a period of time. However, mission HID is very much on cards, till then, have to do with Halogens :(