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!

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.

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.

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 form some monster firmware update (this would apparently have taken 2 hours and it’s seemingly to addess a stalling issue which fortunately, I don’t seem to have)  I am OK as far as BMW mandated fixes are concerned. I was pleased that Bahnsromer had shown such initiative and am only sorry that its 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 seemt 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.

I accomplished all of the above, only to discover that far from the imagined peace and quiet that would be prevailing on the roads at this time, countless, godless, antisocial idiots were already abroad, cluttering up the place just like a normal weekday. I turned as soon as I could onto the byways and quiet country lanes but found them so covered in mud and water that even with my new TKC-80s, I felt a mite insecure and given my kitten-like feebleness, I reckoned that it would be quite beyond me to pick the darn bike up if I fell off so I headed for home a lot sooner than I planned.

Aside from anything else, it wasn’t that warm. The bike claimed 5 degrees but my thumbs were sure it was sub-zero. Ah well, time to look at Gerbings heated gloves I reckon..

If you have stumbled across this for the first time, then I’ll just say that this blog is about my experiences on two-wheels – a BMW F800GS and a Honda Goldwing 1800. These are very different bikes and designed to do different things but I enjoy both more or less equally.

My crashbars and bash plate arrived from Adventure Spec this morning. They were delayed apparently because the guys at AS had been unable to get up a snow-covered hill to their workshop on top of some god-forsaken moor and as a result were not posted until Monday. They arrived as shown in a rather unprepossessing bag but also as shown, were actually very well protected from the slings and arrows of Royal Mail by various bits of pipe insulating foam and carefully positioned brown paper.

First impressions are of a very solidly made bit of kit with nice neat welding and excellent powder coating. I just had time to fit the bashplate before it got too dark and cold.

The bashplate makes the BMW supplied bashplate look really poor. Mine had split a weld somewhere on the trails of deepest darkest Wales in September and when you compare the welds it is easy to see why. The black AS plate on the right is welded inside and out whilst the BMW plate is welded only on the outside. Where the split occurred I can see only very limited penetration of the weld metal. Also, the AS plate is made from 4mm ally whilst the BMW plate is only 3mm thick. Also, the BMW plate has a welded seam running up the middle, whilst the AS plate is a single piece of metal at that point.

I hope to fit the bars tomorrow and if they go on as easily as the bashplate, it should be a doddle. All the nuts are in stainless steel and the five spaceers that come with the kit are in balck anodised ally.

I also got a phone call from Chris at Adventure-Spec from whom I ordered crash bars and a bash plate. He says they were being sent off today so with a bit of luck I should receive them tomorrow. I ordered these as a replacement for the SW Motech bars that I had so much trouble with when trying to fit them ( and which I sent back to Nippy Normans for a refund). I sure hope the new ones fit! I do have a bashplate already – the BMW one but that has cracked as a result of some darn rocks jumping out at me and in any case I wasn`t sure if the new bars would fit around the BMW bashplate. Also the Adventure-Spec plate looks more robust than the BMW one. I shall try my hand at welding that up with my little MIG welder, it’ll make a useful spare for someone.

Not unnaturally, I have not noticed any difference as the bike was running fine beforehand anyway. What I did notice was just how different the 650 GS loan bike I used felt (I had to leave my bike there for most of the day, and I needed transport). It seemed very low in the seat, rather underpowered, or at least lacking in the torque department and contrary to my expectations, the steering seemed very slow and the bike reluctant to tip in at corners. I didn`t check the tyres closely but they were road tyres, not TKC`s like mine – how much and what kind of difference this makes, I don`t know. I do know that I vastly preferred my own bike to the 650. Perhaps this had more to do with familiarity than anything else but the difference surprised me, I had thought the two bikes would feel much the same.

The weather was absolutely dreary and in the morning, cold with it. The heated hand grips are great but particularly my thumbs get cold even with them on. I guess it`s time to don winter wear.

I signed up on the Adventure Rider forum for a so-called Equinox Rally Novice weekend and the results are to be seen here I have nothing but praise for the organisers who had gone to endless trouble to sort out routes that were suitable for a largely unknown and mixed bunch of riders coming from all over. The weather for the previous several weeks had been anything but encouraging and I was very doubtful that the event would actually take place. As I was in Italy with LOML until a couple of days before, I had only one day to read the forecasts and weather history and then to decide it was probably worth the effort and then to pack all the camping gear for the weekend. As this was to be on the 800 sans trailer, it was a new experience for me. Needless to say, I packed too much as usual. I used half the clothes I took and still felt somehow overdressed but wanting something different.

The riding was exceptionally good. A great mix of mud, rocks and broken bones – thankfully not mine but requiring two helicopter medevacs in any case. These were performed by the Welsh Air Ambulance service and what a terrific job they did. So much so that we are all now contributing to this charity organisation.

I am pleased with this picture that Timpo took of me. He really caught the water as it sloshed into my helmet!

See the rally pix for more of this sort..

One thing caught me by surprise – we were doing a route called Strata Florida and went past a load of wreaths that had been laid for the young girl who had died in a recent flood when the 4×4 she was in had been swept away by the river at a crossing. We crossed at the same point on bikes and there was no danger of being swept away (I think) but it is crystal clear that conditions can and do change very quickly.

We crossed the river many times and went through so many very deep puddles that I feel quite at home in the water now although I`d hesitate to tackle it by myself having found out just how easy it is to fall down and get a leg trapped under the bike. The trouble is the rocks under the water are unseen, slippery and odd sizes – there`s just no way of picking a way through them unless you can see them from well above – as we did on a couple of occasions when there was a bridge alongside a ford.

I was delighted to find such a nice group of folk who like off-roading. They were very kindly disposed to all the newbies and helped me countless times in picking the bike up and in encouraging me up various routes that I would nt have had the courage to tackle on my own.

I was pleased with the performance of the F800GS, it performed very well and only sustained one broken mirror as a souvenir of three days of abuse. It seems to love dancing over rocks (or at any rate, I do) whilst the mud slogs are not such fun. To be honest, I have never felt so tired as when paddling the darn thing trough some of the two feet deep ruts that we had to contend with. Still it went through several where the bigger 1200`s got stuck on their cylinder heads and had to be picked up and pushed through such sections.

One tip I learnt from Robbie C was to use second gear and spin the rear wheel fast, so that it flung off the mud clogging the treads. This helped a lot in gaining traction in the really boggy bits.