Apparently OK on both counts!

So – After just about 9 months, my busted scapula and the associated nerve damage were obviously a lot worse than I ever imagined after my first few hospital trips. I fairly soon gave up on the NHS – it’s never done (been able to do) anything much beyond simple first aid for me in the last 15 years I have had occasion to visit. Fortunately, I am in a position to take myself private when the occasion warrants and my shoulder was certainly one of those occasions! I paid to see one of the most highly rated folk in the country and after lots of CT scans (I think I glow in the dark!) and several consultations, I learnt that basically, surgery was out (too fucked up to risk it!) so time and physiotherapy were the options.

Time of course has been the great healer (plus an attractive South African physiotherapist – who has been well trained in massage which albeit painful, worked wonders). So here I am 9 months later, able to ride a bike on the road, with perhaps 90% movement in my shoulder and strength that varies from 10% to 90% depending on what I ask it to do. Naturally that calls for a celebration, so I am off to the USA for a 4000 mile trip through the USA and Canada with my buddy Jed whom I met on the trip to Tierra del Fuego.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

A Day out in Devon

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 with 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 ws 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.