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.
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