I've had fun recently. Fixed a minor fuel issue a few weeks ago, tested bike, all good. Next day, clutch cable snaps 400 yards into a journey... replaced cable next weekend, went out for a test ride, get nail in rear tyre. Get tyre plugged same afternoon, get told the rear wheel/axle/hub bearings (call them what you will) are worn.

I've had heave on the wheel myself. There's no question about it, there's a very small, but nonetheless detectable amount of play on the rear wheel if you grab both sides and try to rock it from side to side. I have been advised that it's currently only going to get an advisory at worst as there's only a few fag papers of movement. Clearly it won't get better, so it will be getting fixed. In the 'just in case pile' I happen to have a brand new, sealed in bag, in original box, utterly mint rear bearing holder bought at a bargain price from DSS.

However, I always watch the MOT being done on my bike, and the tester always checks the bearings very carefully. I've not had any advisories for this before, nor have I been told quietly that I might want to start thinking about having them replaced. Is there any chance that something else could be worn, or that maybe for some reason the wheel hasn't seated absolutely perfectly? I'm assuming probably not seeing as the wheelnut torque figure is three figures. Given that getting the sprocket carrier off the axle assembly can often be a total nightmare, I am very keen to avoid having to have the whole lot to bits just in case I find something else is the issue!

Difficult if you rule out to dismantle the assembly. So the only way I can imagine is still to start a step-by-step dismantling of the the rear hub and free your bearings for closer-inspection.

If there's play in the rear wheel i dont think theres anything else it could be, i find the worse bit about removing the hub is that bloody bastard circlip as i still to this day haven't bought a pair of pliers to fit it and instead struggle with whatever i can find in the garage.

I think I can live with the hassle of buying some circlip pliers, I get fed up buggering about with the wrong tools trying to remove smaller ones, I seem to recall the hub one is about three inches... lol

I bought a cheap set of circlip pliers long time ago...mainly because of that hassle when having none and using all kinds of other tooling to remove circlips Got myself angry if I ain't got them to hand, and now bloody easy and relax when you have them in your toolbox. Just do it.

My race bike failed scruitneering at cadwell last year because of play in the rear wheel and i had to miss the round as i couldn't find another bearing holder. There was a noticable knock there if you grabbed the rear wheel and tried to rock it. However, when i got home and stripped it down i found it was in fact the needle bearing in the suspension tri link that had failed (it was an exchange one from Rick which replaced the rubber bush for the shock mount with a roller bearing).

Not neccessarily likely in your case but might be worth checking as the RVF linkage also has roller bearings for the shock mount.

make sure the hub nut is toruqed up too, its like 60nm or something (check that its only a guess, probably 55)

but if its not upto spec you can get movement too, although the chain usually loosens / tightens if thats the case.

for the sake of swapping the hub you will soon tell if it really is that. give you a chance to inspect the old one too

It was done up with an air ratchet, so my guess is that if anything the nut will be overdone, but the first thing I am going to do is have the wheel off again, check everything it locates against is clean and not worn, then put it back on using the specified torque. Just in case. However, I suspect there will be no difference. I would imagine that the nut gets tightened slightly with use, until the split pin arrests the movement, as the wheel rotation is the same direction as the thread on the axle. The bike has been used since, and the play is still there.