Radiators on bikes are generally pretty much unprotected and stone thrown up by the bike in front can easily puncture the core, creating a high pressure jet of fluid which spews litres of slippery green coolant all over the front tyre. If that happens just before a bend you'll be on your ear in a split second as the coolant is like diesel when it gets on rubber - goodbye front end grip.

And if you do manage to avoid dropping it, now you have a bike dribbling the last of its coolant onto the road and not about to go anywhere under its own steam, so to speak.

Not a complete disaster if you are in England as a call to recovery and a couple of hours wait and the bike and rider are on their way home. But what if it happens deep in the rural idylls of France? On a Sunday? No recovery there; well there is, sort of, but it's days later which isn't a great deal of help at the time. So what to do?

Looking at my bike there is a small, rather pathetic little plastic grill over the lowest part of the radiator, presumably designed to keep stones from flying off the front wheel into the rad. OK as far as it goes, but the stones you need to avoid are those thrown up by the rider in front.

So, time for a decent guard to protect the whole rad, not just a little bit of it. This one comes from R&G but there are other makes, just depends who makes one for your bike.

Well made from stainless steel with a strong frame and curved to match the radiator, the guard comes with a dozen sticky sponge spacers and a couple of tiewraps - fixing the thing on is obviously a bit hit and miss, presumably because the bike manufacturers don't make any provision for such an essential item. Seems a bit daft when you think how stranded you are gonna be as and when that stone finds you ...

Pulling a modern sportsbike apart to get access to the rad can be a bit of a fiddle, partly due to all the little plastic screw-plug things holding the fairing panels on, which doubtless work fine when new but don't like being undone once they are covered on road gunk, mud etc. And then there are the pop-in centre plug things, which generally come apart OK but don't always seem to go back without writing off one of the little legs.

Two dozen various clips and bolts later the lower fairing is out of the way. Installation then is easy, just stick the adhesive rubber bits to the back of the guard frame, plus I stuck one in the middle of the guard to stop vibration, and offer the thing up in front of the rad.

On this guard there is a fixed bracket which picks up on the lower rad mount so you get a decent fixing there. There seems to be a fair bit more variation between guard designs on how you pick up an upper mounting, as there is no easy universal top fixing .

On this design there is nothing very technical, just a couple of tiewraps which can be looped round the upper rad mounts and pulled tight to secure the guard tightish against the rad face.

Seems to work so hopefully the ties will last a fair while and not snap or unravel. I'd prefer a decent bolt fixing but perhaps that makes manfacture of these things too complicated.

Once you're happy with the guard fixing it's just a simple matter of getting all those 25 little bolts and clips back into place whilst trying to work out just how all the plastic fits back together.

Once everything is back in place the grill is very discreet and will hopefully do its job ... £55 well spent I reckon if it saves the serious inconvenience or worse of a holed radiator.

Whilst perusing ebay one day I was bored and decided to buy some swingarm crash bobbins that double up as rear paddock stand bobbins too. Very nice they are, but they will never get used and in an accident I should imagine they tear off in an instant, but they are there all the same.

I then saw something that was far more useful and that was a Radiator Guard!! The radiator on the new Blade is a huge thing and as such will be a target for many stones and sharp items that could end up costing me the price of a bottle of Radweld again, (been there before with the RR-3). Honda even fit a small plastic rad guard that covers the bottom 1/4 of the Rad to deflect the majority of the stones tec., but a full one is far better security.

The one I purchased cost £95 from FAB Products. Anyway, it arrived today and as I was working from home I thought I'd take a little time out and fit it, after all, it couldn't be difficult, could it?

Well, actually, no, it wasn't difficult, but it was a bit fiddly, as you have to remove the bottom and top side panels and the top ones on the new Blade are a pain to get off, but if you're comfortable with doing this sort of thing, it won't be a problem.

So, once said panels were removed I then had to take off the bottom Radiator bolt, let the coolant expansion bottle hang loose, undo a 3 bolt bracket affair that houses lots of wires and connectors and also undo the top right hand fan bolt, so a lot of undoing.

I then managed to squeeze the guard into place and get everything lined up pretty well. The guard itself is only fixed at two points, one is the top right hand of the rad and bolts onto the right hand top fan mounting, the bottom radiator mounting and lug hooks over the top of the radiator on the left hand side too.

One thing you do have to discard though is the Honda plastic guard and when I did, I found I also had to wire brush away all the stones and shite that had collected behind this guard. Much of the debris I removed looked awfully like gravel covered in tar (can't think where that came from John??), and the entire bottom quarter of the rad was blocked, so I've obviously helped the cooling efficiency here too.

All the panels went back on nicely and I must say it looks like a proper job too, and could save me a small fortune in the long run, just hope it keeps it's good looks?? Recommended bit of kit though.