Accident Prone - or just stupid?

I guess I am just accident prone, or perhaps merely a crap rider. Which ever it is, my rally in Wales came to an abrupt end when I had one of the biggest crashes I can recall.

The accident occurred whilst I was riding my little TTR along a deep rut on a green lane in mid Wales.  My handlebars caught some undergrowth and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air before hitting the ground very hard.  My shoulder took the brunt of the impact although my right wrist and left elbow also got a pounding.

I lay in agony for what seemed like hours but must in fact have been no more than 10 minutes or so. Eventually, one of my riding companions, Nick, returned to see what had happened to me. He lifted my bike which relieved me greatly as it had been leaking fuel and although I could smell it there was nothing I could do about. Nick removed my helmet and helped me to the side of the trail. Soon afterwards, the other member of our trio, and Robbie, also arrived back to see what had happened. It was clear that I was in no position to ride the bike, also we seem to be miles from anywhere. Mobile phones we carried could get no signal so Robbie rode up a nearby hill and finally managed to get a signal. Upon his return he announced that helicopter would come and pick me up.

In point of fact the first people to arrive were a couple of paramedics being transported in a local farmer's land Rover. Having examined me they realised that I couldn't be taken by road and they called in the helicopter.

 I was taken to Hereford Hospital at about 1830 hrs where I was first seen by a doctor in A&E. After x-rays were taken, two orthopaedic doctors saw me.  At this stage a tentative diagnosis suggested that I had dislocated my shoulder, elbow and probably broken a collarbone. It certainly felt like it and in order to take x-rays they had to fill me with morphine, even so it felt as if somebody was ripping my arm off.

The following morning I was seen by a consultant who said that there appeared to be a crack in my shoulder blade but there was no dislocation of shoulder or elbow and no break of collarbone.  He suggested that I should seek an appointment at my local hospital to get more x-rays in a weeks time. I have now been for more x-rays including a CT scan, and in a few days I am due to see the consultant once more.

As I write this the pain is much reduced, and although my left arm stays mainly in a sling I am able to take it out for periods in order to move it about a little. This should hopefully prevent the shoulder joint seizing completely.

I normally type with two hands but given my present inability to do so I have started using a dictation program to enter text in the computer. It seems to be working fairly well on the whole, and I can actually "type" faster than I can do so normally.

Accident Prone - or just stupid?

I guess I am just accident prone, or perhaps merely a crap rider. Which ever it is, my rally in Wales came to an abrupt end when I had one of the biggest crashes I can recall.

The accident occurred whilst I was riding my little TTR along a deep rut on a green lane in mid Wales.  My handlebars caught some undergrowth and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air before hitting the ground very hard.  My shoulder took the brunt of the impact although my right wrist and left elbow also got a pounding.

I lay in agony for what seemed like hours but must in fact have been no more than 10 minutes or so. Eventually, one of my riding companions, Nick, returned to see what had happened to me. He lifted my bike which relieved me greatly as it had been leaking fuel and although I could smell it there was nothing I could do about. Nick removed my helmet and helped me to the side of the trail. Soon afterwards, the other member of our trio, and Robbie, also arrived back to see what had happened. It was clear that I was in no position to ride the bike, also we seem to be miles from anywhere. Mobile phones we carried could get no signal so Robbie rode up a nearby hill and finally managed to get a signal. Upon his return he announced that helicopter would come and pick me up.

In point of fact the first people to arrive were a couple of paramedics being transported in a local farmer's land Rover. Having examined me they realised that I couldn't be taken by road and they called in the helicopter.

 I was taken to Hereford Hospital at about 1830 hrs where I was first seen by a doctor in A&E. After x-rays were taken, two orthopaedic doctors saw me.  At this stage a tentative diagnosis suggested that I had dislocated my shoulder, elbow and probably broken a collarbone. It certainly felt like it and in order to take x-rays they had to fill me with morphine, even so it felt as if somebody was ripping my arm off.

The following morning I was seen by a consultant who said that there appeared to be a crack in my shoulder blade but there was no dislocation of shoulder or elbow and no break of collarbone.  He suggested that I should seek an appointment at my local hospital to get more x-rays in a weeks time. I have now been for more x-rays including a CT scan, and in a few days I am due to see the consultant once more.

As I write this the pain is much reduced, and although my left arm stays mainly in a sling I am able to take it out for periods in order to move it about a little. This should hopefully prevent the shoulder joint seizing completely.

I normally type with two hands but given my present inability to do so I have started using a dictation program to enter text in the computer. It seems to be working fairly well on the whole, and I can actually "type" faster than I can do so normally.

GPS stuff and preparations for the Autumn Equinox Rally

It's a whole year since i went to Wales with the ADVrider.com folk for their Autumn Equinox Rally. I made some good friends there and have enjoyed riding with them since, especially in Italy this year. I am going to take the TTR on my new trailer this time and I set off tomorrow morning. It's the ideal bike for greenlaning and as my wrist is sore, I shall appreciate the lighter bike to handle.

Stemming from my promise to lead some of the Knobblies crew along the Kent lanes, I have been investing a lot of time and money on maps and GPS stuff. (OK I am a gadget freak and I know a real man would look at the clouds, the sun and find his way anywhere but I need all the help I can get and I just love the neat stuff that's available now. After toying with several ideas, I finally plumped for a Satmap Active10 GPS unit to use off-road. It's the only one to display real OS maps on a screen that is of a decent size. You can plan routes and track your position on the screen just as if you were working with a paper map and it's bloomin' marvellous. You can program routes on the PC and retrieve tracks etc as with most units and this works perfectly with the included software - provided that you have a Windows PC. There is no Mac software for it yet but I find it works just fine with Windows running under VMware. It's not a cheap unit and the maps are expensive, especially in the 25k series but it beats the Garmin offering hands down. Garmin Topo maps are crap in comparison and whilst one could happily navigate with the Satmap as one's only aid, the Garmin requires a paper map to make sense of its screen presentation.

An ancillary purchase has been the Columbus V900 GPS data logger that can record umpteen million track points. I got this because it was very well reviewed and I was fed up with my regular GPS units (Tom Tom and Garmin Street Pilot 2820) losing data as they filled up. The Columbis is tiny and is small enough to fit in a breast pocket and remain quite unnoticeable.

I shall try to find time to write up my conclusions about this stuff properly and in more detail as I think they could be useful to someone and I did spend a lot f time and money on the hardware I have bought and the time taken to investigate what was available and useful. This weekend will be a good cgance to give the new purchases a workout and please don't blame me for taking a bunch of OS paper maps that I also bought recently - I have always been a bit belt and braces when it comes to travel.

Another "incident"

Out with the TRF again and the TTR was performing brilliantly - so well in fact that my riding was definitely entering the exuberant category. Unfortunately, I chose the moment to be particularly exuberant as I skidded round a bend on a forest track only to encounter (would you believe it?) - a tree! Classic object fixation followed and I hit it. Bike not hurt, tree only lost a bit of bark, I damaged my right wrist in a manner as yet unknown. I did carry on riding for a bit but I am not sure this was sensible (two weeks from now and I am still hurting!). Still the riding was fun and the TR guys are good value so no real complaints. This accident has caused me to add "Injury" to my list of categories for Blog Posts!

Ride to Folkestone

I joined my Knobblies chums for a ride down to Folkestone. we had good weather and travelled some nice roads on the way



I took the F800 which ran sweetly and the TKC80s are still in reasonable condition after the Italian trip, although I will likely change them before any longer excursions.



I appreciated the biker friendly attitude at the Cliff Restaurant!

Ride with Kent TRF

I went out for my first ride with the Kent TRF guys today. I took the TTR250 and had a great ride that covered 140 miles. The work that Perry Leask did on the bike proved its worth. The front end handled very well and the bike felt much more controllable.

Green Lane recce

I went out to do a bit of exploration of local lanes marked on the OS map as Byways. I didn't have a guide to what might have Traffic Restriction Orders (TROs) applied to them, so it was a case of going to look for myself.

First signs weren't good! Not only was this lane not a Byway at all but even as a footpath, it looked rather less than inviting. Subsequent meanderings showed that I had misread the map and indeed it was meant to be a footpath rather than a Byway  - still..



I did find some lanes later - this one a bit too nice!



This one, very open.

Suspension work

The TTR has been with Perry Leask at HM Racing for the last couple of days. Earlier rides had shown the front end to be a nightmare - bouncing all over the place so much so that I wondered if the forks were completely buggered. Well, Perry sorted it out perfectly. The work involved new seals, oil and adujsutments plus a lot of measurements but no great drama with new parts etc. Perry's workshop reminds me of the suspension shop at Lotus - it has the necessary pressure vessel for nitrogen charging etc. and is very clean. I have aprintout of the various settings before and after and to my untutored eye, it doesn't say a great deal apart from the fact that I could have messed around my self or ever without getting it right.

The service wasn't especially cheap but it has turned the bike into a usable machine which it wasn't really before and in my view it wasn't just money well spent, it was vital.

Mods Galore

My recent bike related activities have included a goodly number of maintenance cum modification items that I'll mention in the next few posts. I'm splitting them up so as not too make too long and dull a post in one go.

The Italian trip was a fantastic experience and an excellent test of both bike and rider. Apart from the duff hand, I think both came through it fairly well. The GS was very pleasing, coping with both the long trip there and back (1200 miles each way of mixed motorway stuff and country roads through very hilly areas with lots of switch-backs and the like) and the off-road riding in the mountains with generally, deep, big and sharp gravel plus many very tight turns.

SIDESTAND MOD.

The thing that got my attention mostly was the dismal side-stand on the GS which, especially when travelling heavily loaded, had the bike leaning over much too far, to the point of being sufficiently unstable as to fall over at the slightest opportunity.

I had noticed this before I set off an had cobbled together a block of wood some 4 cm. thick, zip-tied to the side-stand. This helped in keeping the bike upright but was hell to deploy as it required leaning the bike over a substantial amount in the wrong direction to sweep the stand down and forwards to the point it was in position to support the bike. On my return I solved the problem partially by spotting a bit of weld metal at the point on the stand where it is stopped against the attachment for the stand on the bike. This had the merit of stopping the stand from swing too far forwards and as a consequence, it holds the bike more upright. I also ground off the leading edge of the stand where it had previously fouled the ground in its arc. This helped by reducing the amount needed to hold the bike off the vertical when deploying it.

FORKS

The bike needed a huge amount of cleaning after the trip and I decided to move/remove various bits of bike to facilitate this process. One thing I wanted to do was to have a look at the forks to check that no corrosion was taking place under the clamps (as this was a potential problem I had read about some folk having) so I removed them, discovering in the process that the left hand fork stanchion was badly scored around its circumference at the point where it is held by the lower fork bridge (triple clamp), making it very hard to remove and to adjust up and down in the triple clamp - even after wedging the opening in the clamp wider. I cleaned up the scoring and read the service manual on the subject of forks, which made it clear that they had always been set wrongly. As delivered to me, the top of the forks was flush with the triple clamp rather than being set 7.8 mm. above it as specified. I set the forks at the specified height and although the difference is hardly discernible, it does feel that the steering is a little quicker as one might expect.

I complained to the dealer I bought the bike from (South London Motorrad) about this state of affairs (Mainly the scoring on the stanchion tube) but they were less than interested and despite me telling them that I thought the fork was potentially unsafe, and a candidate for a warranty claim (on the grounds that if they hadn't caused the damage to the fork, it must have been BMW at the time of manufacture). They took a few photos and said they would contact BMW and revert to me but of course I have heard nothing. My conclusion, after this incident and the two previous things that upset me badly about their servicing (jobs not done, wheel bearings not checked), is that SOUTH LONDON MOTORRAD servicing is very poor, the staff are unreliable and I recommend you don't go near them.

Mainly as a consequence of my unhappiness with SLM, I discovered Mark Holden, who runs an independent, and very reliable, friendly and helpful service workshop in Bromley High Street. He has now done a number of things on my bikes (the GS and the TTR and I have nothing but praise for his approach, speed and standard of workmanship.

It was Mark who put me in touch with HM Racing at Green Street Green where Perry Leask, a many times national motocross champ works on bike suspension for race teams, individuals etc. Currently as a later post will mention, he is scheduled to work on my TTR.

Catching up

Good grief - two months nearly since I last posted! I'm obviously one of those bloggers who gets caught up in a fit of enthusiasm that eventually recedes like the tide, leaving all sorts of beached detritus around the web. Well, the tide has turned, at least temporarily -  so here goes with what I have been doing bike-wise for the last couple of months.

First, Slovenia didn't happen but the Dolomites did. It was always the plan to start in the Italian hills, then to re-locate to Slovenia but the time available to the group I was with just didn't permit the double location so we stayed in Italy. This was no real hardship, the Italian trails were really good and the scenery is simply magnificent. I had a great time in super company and thanks to Giorgio Betteto, our local ADVrider colleague and guide, we enjoyed some fantastic riding and food along the way.

After three days of quite hard trail riding, my damned finger was swollen and giving me gyp so I bailed out to ride gently to the ferry at Calais, intending to meet my pals there after they had spent the last two days riding the trails around Pieve di Cadore (our base in Italy). I took a couple of days, riding via Venice, Torino, Annecy, Gerardmer, Compiegne where I met up with another of my group (Clive who had also left early). We had a great evening doing a bit of a pub crawl before finishing in an Irish bar across the street from our hotel. Despite being an Irish bar, it turned out they were having a Salsa night and it was fun for us two old fogies, watching the young and good looking girls strutting their stuff.

A few pix - first Clive on his GS1200 showing just how deep the gravel was. Then a few pix of yours truly enjoying himself.
!

Changing tyres

I figured it was time for a bit of practice in preparation for the Slovenia trip so I rolled up my sleeves and changed the tyres on the GS from part worn TKC80s to the original Battlewings that came with the bike. It was definitely a very useful experience. I learnt for instance that the tool kit I have been carrying is missing a couple of items that are needed for tyre changing. Notably a third tyre lever - one of my long steel ones. The two alloy ones I bought do a pretty good job but I needed the extra leverage this afternoon - owning perhaps to a question of experience but also my hand which is still painful. I also used a 13mm open ended spanner to adjust the chain tensioner bolt/nut and this size of spanner was not in my kit except as a ring spanner on one end of an alloy tyre lever.

In removing the rear wheel I found that in practice it was unnecessary to slacken off the chain tensioner adjusters as there was sufficient play to remove the wheel without slackening them. I learnt that a bit of lubricant makes the job much easier and that KY jelly does the job very well. Not a lot is needed so a smallish tube of it is sufficient. I noticed a bit of a tear in the inner tube close to the valve stem. I don’t know if I was responsible for this or someone else. However, the tyre did hold pressure OK. I pumped it up using my new cyclepump for which I soldered up a connection enabling me to use a battery connected fly lead usually used for my heated jacket.

At the last service with South London Mottorad, the rear wheel bearings were replaced as they had started to collapse - great for ony 5000 miles! I asked SLM to carefully check the front wheel bearings as I wanted to be sure they would be OK for the Slovenia trip. SLM told nme they were fine. However, on removing the front wheel it was clear they had not removed the wheel themselves and I could feel a distinct roughness in the bearings which also felt as though there was no grease in them. I am very disappointed in SLM - things have gone downhill since the takeover. However, I am coming to value Mark Holden more and more - he is a super guy to do business with and really knows his stuff. As an independent, he s also a lot cheaper than the BMW dealerships! Mark will be replacing the front wheel bearings for me and altough it won't be paid for under warranty, I am confident I'll get a better job and we'll use SKF bearings rather than some no-name Taiwanese things.

Riding again

I went out for an hour on the Goldwing. My hand is the thing causing the most problems at the moment. It continues to swell up at times and become painful. Initially it felt quite sore on the bike but settled down after a while.

It is strange how unconfident I feel when not able to grip the bars/levers normally. It seems to be much more handicapping than I would have expected for a little finger. My knee remains somewhat swollen with fluid over the kneecap and immediately above the knee and the skin above the knee is still overly sensitive - like neuralgia. It is now four weeks since the accident and I had expected that things would proceed a bit faster than they have done - perhaps it’s a sign of old age that they are not? There is another month before the Slovenia trip so I am very hopeful I should be OK for that. I did give up the idea of Llangollen this weekend - sounds as though the weather may be crap so I am not totally disappointed but it is a shame nonetheless.

I’m still not sure if I need to buy another helmet - obviously I’d prefer not to do so but the traditional wisdom is that a fall necessitates one. If I get another it will in all likelihood be another Arai Tour-X. I’d like to try a Uvex carbon one on but haven’t found anywhere that sells them from a bricks and mortar store and I am not about to buy an unknown helmet online - the chances of it not fitting properly are very high!

New tyres

The healing process has progressed far enough to allow me to do a bit of light physical work - just as well 'cos I am getting fat - and so today I used my new bike lift to remove the wheels from the TTR which I then took to Watling Tyres at Swanley where I had the TKC80s replaced by Michelin AC10s. The price was pretty good and fitting is free so I was a happy bunny. Alan Clark who runs the Swanley depot is a long time motocrosser and enduro racer himself so he knows what's important to a biker.

The lift makes a potential awkward job very easy and the TTR is well designed to facilitate a simple job like removing/replacing the wheels.



The new tyres look businesslike!

To the van driver..

A Day out in Devon

Trailer arrived, towbar fitted

Courtesy of an excellent itinerant towbar fitter, I now have the means to pull a trailer and as of this morning, a trailer to pull. All I lack is the body to ride a bike.. The muscles in my chest just scream when I try to do anything involving my upper body with bending, sneezing, coughing or (not much of this) laughing. I made the mistake of trying to sort out my new trailer and I felt something in the region of the pec muscles tear as I did so. I am just praying I shall be OK for my next bike trip to Wales and after that to Slovenia.

And the week started so well!

With the new bike in my garage, I submitted it to a very close inspection - something that seemed both unnecessary and difficult to do with the Goldwing and the F800GS. In the case of the Goldwing, everything is hidden under acres of plastic and even the BMW needs quite a lot of stuff removing to get at things - try changing a spark plug! Plus of course, I bought these bikes new. By contrast, the simplicity of the TTR lends itself to care in the home workshop - even when the owner is not that experienced a mechanic.

Things seemed pretty good. I had the covers off the starter and rotor to check the starter gears for wear but couldn't see any so that relieved me from worrying bout the slight noise the bike makes when switching it off - something I had been concerned might indicate wear in the sprag clutch. The rear brake pads looked as thought they could do with replacing so I ordered both front and back sets from Moto-Ward which arrived by post on Thursday. The day before, I had received another item - a bike lift with which I can lift all three bikes clear of the ground. With the TTR I can do it single handed but with the other two bikes, I need help. I steady the bike whilst dearly beloved pumps up the bike lift. Thus on Thursday, I was in good shape to change the brake pads, a task that proved very easy. I also got to test the alloy tyre lever cum ring spanner I had bought for the F800 as the rear wheel nut is the same 24mm size. The alloy lever had no trouble undoing the nut and appeared to suffer no distortion in the process - so perhaps it was worth the rather high price.



Yesterday, I was keen to bed the new pads in so went for a ride around the neighbourhood, taking in a few unsurfaced roads - they led me to think the front forks could do with some attention but I shall await the first real offroad experience (planned for the coming Sunday)  before fiddling with them. All was going well until on the way home, a van did a u-turn in front of me without signaling. I slammed on the brakes but the front wheel locked and I went down hard. The van driver did at least show concern and claimed he was a biker and said he had signalled - frankly I don't think so. In any event, I managed to ride home OK but with a very sore hand, knee and ribs. It was the hand that hurt most and X-rays taken later at the A&E department of our local hospital showed I had broken my little finger. This was strapped up to a splint and I was sent on my not very merry way.



It has put paid to my weekend plans for sure. No doubt if I was 20 years old and a MotoGP star, I'd be out on the track ignoring the pains in hand, chest and knee and just getting on with the job - unfortunately anno domini has decreed that ain't gonna happen. I just hope I'm back in shape for my next Wales trip planned for the middle of next month.

Blog needs new title - Three Bikes at a Time

Yes, I got another! The new one is a Yamaha TTR250R bought off the bay expressly for greenlaning. So far I have only ridden it home from the seller's house but I plan to go off-road to Salisbury plain next weekend so it should get a good workout there. The bike is a 2004 model with 3000 miles on the clock and although 25 kilos heavier than the Honda CRF230 I was initially looking for, feels light enough nonetheless. It's quite a tall bike - the same as the F800 GS actually but I hope much easier to deal with on some of the more difficult trails. At this stage, I guess my only reservations are whether the bike will have enough power and if I shall outgrow its capabilities before old age diminishes mine sufficiently as to need an even smaller lighter bike..


The design is pretty basic - air-cooled, carburetted with no fancy electronics, just what one needs if a bike has to be fixed in the middle of nowhere! Thus far I have adjusted a few things here and there, topped up the brake fluid front and rear (the pads need changing but as it's Easter, I can't order new ones before tomorrow. I had a side cover off to look at the starter motorshaft and idler gears (these can wear badly once the sprag clutch gets worn apparently) but everything looked pretty good to my relief. I have not adjusted any suspension settings and will wait until I've had my first off-road experience before touching them.

On the 100 mile ride home with the new machine, it managed 55-60mph on the motorway fairly readily so it will be good for getting to local trails not too far away. For going further afield, I shall be getting a trailer however as I don't fancy riding all the way to say North Wales on this bike. Apart from anything else the seat is hard on the bum! I am going to try fitting the Airhawk to it for the ride down to Wiltshire and back. I can stuff it in my rucksack when actually riding the trails.

Bike Fixed!

Yesterday, I got a call from Mark Holden to say that my parts had arrived. I elected to have him install them as I wanted to see what kind of a job he did. I took the bike over in the afternoon, went into Bromley for a coffee and about an hour later got a call on my mobile to say that the bike was ready. Everything seemed fine and the price was reasonable so I am happy so far with Mark's service. It is a big plus point for me that I live not far away so it is much less of a hassle to go there than to visit South London Motorrad.

I just hope the next couple of outings on the bike leave it in good shape for my trip to Slovenia in June! The first is a novices' run I am joining on Salisbury plain so that should be OK (a good test for my wrist..) but then in May I am heading for Wales again with UKGSers and those Welsh trails can prove demanding! If I succeed in my mission to get a pogo before then I might well take that instead.

Finding a pogo is proving harder than I expected. The Honda CRF 230 sounded ideal ut they have stopped making it and newones are like rocking horse manure whilst used ones are few ab]nd far between as well. I have therefore been considering new bikes but first, finding one that sounds as though it would suit me has been tricky, as they are all virtually designed for racing and as such have what sound like peaky engines and potentially tiring characteristics. Of the new ones, a Husqvarna TE310 has caught my eye as the most like to suit but so far I haven't seen one in the flesh. I have (I think but so far with nil feedback) booked a trail ride with Husky Trails that would allow me to sample the TE250.

Another problem with competition focused bikes is the demanding maintenance schedule with many requiring oil chages every 500km and piston/ring changes every 100km or similar. I have no wish to take up bike maintenece as a hobby and although I realise that some is inevitable, I'd like to keep it to a minimum.

Bike repairs and thoughts of a new bike..

I rang South London Motorrad but was told they only had two techs (out of four they were supposed to have) and couldn't look at my bike until the end of next week. This was too late for my liking as I am planning more off-roading on the 19th April and I want to be sure to have the bike ready for that (I'm assuming/hoping/praying that my wrist will be OK for it!). Accordingly I rang an independent service shop (Mark Holden Motorcycles) who could see me straight away. I took the bike over there pronto and that was easy as it's only a couple of miles from my place. The workshop isn't inspiring itself but Mark Holden the owner seems to know his stuff and after a few phone calls seemed pretty confident of having the necessary bits by Wednesday of next week. Replacing the broken bits should be a very easy job so I am looking forward to having my bike as good as new in short order - albeit at considerable expense because BMW parts are NOT CHEAP!

The cost of the bits has reinforced in my mind the merits of looking at a small bike (a Pogo) that will be a lot easier to ride on the more challenging trails I'd like to try. It would also be a lot easier to pick up being lighter. The bike I am very close to ordering is a Honda CRF 230 F which has a very good reputation and although perhaps best known as a beginner's trail bike is also apparently very competent in more experienced hands as some of the Youtube video attests. I am not that experienced but equally not a beginner anymore so I want something that will satisfy me for a while. Other possible contenders are the Suzuki DRZ 400E and possibly the Yamaha WR 250R but I like the idea of simplicity too and the Honda has an aircooled motor and a spark plug that is actually accessible, so even if it gets drowned in a water crossing, it ought to be easy to sort out..


It doesn't come road legal but I have found a place online that will convert them and ship them, so that is not a problem. More of an issue is understanding what mods I might need from the start, there are all sorts of possibilities ranging from stronger handlebars to a new front suspension. I shall do some phoning around next week and see what I can find.

March Moon Rally

I had a great time at the weekend in North Wales with the folk who frequent ADVrider.com.

The occasion was the March Moon Rally which saw 60 riders and their very varied choices of bike gathering at the Three Pigeons in Graigfechan near Ruthin. Many of us camped at the pub while others chose the soft option of a B&B somewhere nearby. I rode up early on the Friday, leaving at 6 am to be in good time to pick a decent spot to pitch my tent - not a problems as it turned out for the available space was quite large enough and there were no flooded areas (unlike last year's foray to Ireland!

When a few others had arrived, we elected to go for a road ride around various of the Welsh lakes (Bala and Vyrnwy amongst others)a very nice introduction to the Welsh hills.



Friday night was cold - as Terry could testify the next morning



But it soon warmed up and we had some great riding on the lanes



Although it wasn't always smooth sailing..


I like the puddles - when I stay upright



But it's a bugger when I don't



This tumble put an end to my day's outing as I sprained my wrist badly and had to make for the campsite without further ado - I am thankful my wrist wasn't broken, it felt like it at the time.

Getting home on the Sunday, my bike was clearly very dirty



But sadly, also the worse for wear







So I shall be seeing what the dealer says about the repairs later this week..

Practicing with a Leatt neck brace

A few hours of sunshine is enough to make me feel I should be on the bike and this morning I was out and about looking like a Dakar rider who lost his way. I was wearing my new neck brace that I mentioned previously to get used to the feeling of it in preparation for my trip to Wales. It felt rather awkward at first and seemed to sit higher than desirable, I think because the distance from the front chest piece to the back piece is a little short and it rides up over my jacket with its built in back protector. I would undoubtedly fit better over bare skin and under body armour but I am not thus equipped and besides, the weather is cold enough for me to need my jacket!

In any case, after a few miles, I get used the the feeling and was able to turn my head sufficiently to do a "lifesaver". It still remains to be seen how it will be when off-roading but I don't anticipate any great difficulty after today's experience.

Getting ready

I am going to the March Moon Rally in Wales in a couple of weeks and have been thinking about the stuff I need to take. As I shall be camping and considering the changeable weather we have been enjoying lately, I decided that a new sleeping bag was in order so I ordered a Rab Ladakh 800 Down Sleeping Bag.

It is a four season bag and should keep me nice and warm even if the weather is crap.

For the bike, I have invested in a Motion Pro Trail tool from Adventure Spec and a couple of Motion Pro tyre irons. With the addition of one or two Torx bits, this kit should enable me to do most small repairs and change a tyre if need be. The nice thing is that I can get it all under the seat of the F800GS in the very restricted space that exists there.

Unexpected Service!

I went out on the F800 GS today as the forecast didn’t seem bad. The sky was threatening the entire time I was out but it didn't rain! I was glad of me heated clothing as the temperature stayed below 8 degrees for quite a while before struggling up to 10 degrees around 2pm. I hadn't been sure of where I was heading for but settled in the end on Bahnstormer as a destination. I had a mooch around and bought an Airhawk for the bike. I don't find the saddle too uncomfortable at all but thinking ahead to my planned trip to Slovenia in June with the ADV rider crowd, I figured it might be a good idea to cushion my bum on the 1000 mile slogs there and back.

Whilst chatting to the sales folk, they asked if I had had the top radiator hose recall done. I knew there was one in progress but I hadn't had it done as I had had no word from South London Motorrad. Bahnstormer offered to do it there and then and having time on my hands I said "Great, please go ahead". When they entered the registration in the BMW database, it seemed that there was a bunch of other recall type work to do. This puzzled me as SLM were supposed to have done it already (re-routing the ABS lines for instance) but they also did that for me so apart from some monster firmware update (this would apparently have taken 2 hours and it's seemingly to address a stalling issue which fortunately, I don't appear to have) I am OK as far as BMW mandated fixes are concerned. I was pleased that Bahnstormer had shown such initiative and am only sorry that it's really too far away for regular servicing.

On the ride home, I was very conscious of the AirHawk under my backside. I think there is probably a little too much air in it as I seem to wobble from side to side on it quite a lot. It also seemed to tip me forwards somewhat so at present, I am not a huge fan of it. No doubt I shall get used to it in time but will need a much longer run to determine its worth as an aid to stopping numb bum syndrome.

Bike, snow, ACF 50, Ace Cafe

I had planned to meet up with a few folk tomorrow to ride to the Ace Cafe where they are holding an “Adventure Day” with speakers like Austin Vince of “Mondo Enduro” fame. The freezing weather and snow are putting this in some doubt. My road hasn’t been salted and after a fresh fall of snow last night (not too much thankfully) and temperature below zero, it has been looking unlikely that I will be able to get my bike safely out of my road to the roads where salt has been spread. I had a trial ride through the snow and slush that has started to form this afternoon as some sunshine raised temperature above freezing and it wasn’t too bad but temperatures tonight are forecast to go as low as -10 degrees in places which could render my trial meaningless.

Just in case I sprayed exposed bits of the bike with ACF - 50 to ward off the salt I will encounter tomorrow if I do go out on the bike. It would have been better had the bike been really clean before I started but I sprayed over the dirty bits! I had to shake the cold tin a lot before it would spray properly and even then, it wouldn’t spray through its little tube. Still, I think I kept it off the brakes at least. The last time I used it, I got some on the brakes and hard a hard time getting rid of it and it made the brakes practically useless!

I shall see how things look in the morning and make up my mind then.

Service, Neck Brace and stuff.

I took the Goldwing to Doble's yesterday. Traffic was absolutely solid
all the way there and back. How glad I am not to have to fight that
sort of thing every day! It gave me a good chance however to compare
the filtering abilities of the Wing and the little Honda 600 courtesy
bike I used to get back and forth. Whilst the smaller bike can
certainly go through smaller gaps I found that I preferred the Wing for
its road presence, lights and low down grunt. I seemed to have to rev
the nuts of the little bike (its redline is at 11,000 rpm and below
4000 it really does nothing) to accelerate smartly and felt very
vulnerable facing oncoming traffic whilst I scooted down the middle of
the road. On the Wing, it was plain that the oncoming traffic could see
me and moved more to its side of the road - which was not the case when
I was on the smaller bike. The service cost me £275. The technician
noted that my rear tyre was getting squared-off. Inevitable I suppose
given the proportion of motorway miles I have done since the tyre was
replaced (a mere 4000 miles ago) but it underscores the fact that tyres
don't last long on this big heavy bike.

The postman brought me a
belated Xmas pressie - well actually something I ordered only a couple
of days ago, namely a Leatt neck Brace. I have been watching the Dakar
rally on the TV and every rider is wearing a neck brace. It gave me
pause for thought and I ran through memories of times I have been
pitched off riding off-road. There were certainly a few when my neck
was jarred and I decided that a neck brace was probably a good thing. I
haven't use it yet and am still in the process of fitting the thing. I
expect it will feel constaining and uncomfortable at first - I just
hope it's like seat belts in cars. When they first became mandatory, I
hated the feel of them but nowadays feel quite naked without one. It
was expensive at £260 but I got a £215 discount (down from £475 ) from Dirtbikebitz
so I feel that it is probably good value - it certainly wll be if it
saves me from serious injury although I surely hope it won't need to!

Service Postponed

Well the snow arrived and thanks to the freezing weather we are experiencing, it stayed and is still here. As my drive is covered by what is in effect a skating rink, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and put the appointment back a week. Let's hope the stuff has gone by then!

12,000 mile service

I'm looking at the weather forecasts with a somewhat nervous eye at the moment. I have booked a 12,000 mile service for the Goldwing at Doble's on Wednesday and there is a possibility of snow that day according to a couple of the forecast sites I use. Another says nothing about snow, so as usual, "You pays your money and takes your choice". Of course, I paid no money to any of these sites, so can't really complain if their prognostications are wrong. Either way, I am not a fan of riding in snow.

Doble's unfortunately don't operate on quite that principle - a service for free -  and as the 12,000 mile service is a major one for the Wing, I can expect a big bill :( However, I see from a recent flyer that they are offering 25% discount on everything apart from bikes over the coming weekend. The trouble is I don't really need anything from them at present and a 25% discount isn't enough to persuade me to buy stuff that I don't need. Although, having said that, there is quite a decent range of Honda branded clothing (Joe Rocket stuff in actuality) that includes a Goldwing jacket that would look better on the bike than the BMW Rallye 2 Pro jacket I often wear..