There is now a new website that will be continuing with the details of our preparation and the trip diary when it happens in 2013....


Please go to www.bikersabroad.com



Thank you

Early May '12

Andy here...

I've talked it over with my family and I've decided that, unlike last year, I'm going to do the next trip in aid of charity. The charity I've chosen is The Muscular Dystrophy Campaign

Our new website will have a link to my chosen charity as well as Nevil's so depending on where you live and what your charitable leanings are you may like to donate some money to either, or even both, worthwhile organisations.

I'd like to give you a reason why I've chosen this organisation to support...

My brother-in-law, Derek Oakley, died from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

My wife is a carrier of this insidious disease.

My daughter, Katie, is a carrier and she is going "through the hoops" at the moment as she is pregnant for the second time. I'm writing this whilst we are on tenterhooks waiting for the initial 'boy or girl' results. If it's a girl we breathe more easily...if it's a boy...loads of tests to find out whether it's an affected/unaffected foetus!

 

April's first fettling

Andy here

I went for a days jaunt with my son-in-law, Mike, a week ago and although it was great fun, Fat Bastard died as soon as I got it into deep water! The design of the Japanese carb allows the fuel drain, in the bottom of the float chamber, to act as an overflow pipe. As soon as the water got to the rubber pipe on the bottom of the float chamber, water got in and stopped the engine! This is not good news as it would only allow me to go through water that was only 12" deep!

The answer was to build a water trap. To do this I got three short lengths of copper brake pipe and a piece of copper I had cut from a copper pipe. I drilled the copper and fitted the pipes through the holes, finally soldering the joints.

100ml bottle and accessories

Then I used silicone gasket goo (RTV) to stick this to a plastic 100ml bottle so that the pipes penetrated into the bottom of the bottle. This is held in place by a hose clip - which also had to be drilled.

Then I got an old motorcycle tube, removed the valve and drilled out the centre to have a bigger breather. I drilled a hole in the base of the bottle and then I trimmed the valve down until it would pass through the bottle neck and fit in the newly drilled hole. I sealed it all in using RTV and a couple of 'O' rings for good measure.

After inverting the bottle, I attached the two breather pipes and the overflow pipe to the three soldered brake pipes. I used Mikalor 7.35mm-8.3mm spring clips to keep the hoses water tight.

I got a piece of 8mm silicone hose and using a small hose clip to keep it on the 'valve' of the bottle, I threaded the hose up underneath the seat.

I finally sat the bottle in place so the screw-on lid is resting on the front sprocket guard and attached the bottle to the frame using a 'velcro' strap. 

Theoretically, this would allow the carb breathers to get air from under the seat via the bottle and if the carb overflowed (usually after dropping the bike) it would be caught in the bottle.

The yellow line is the height of the front and rear tyres - 25"

The yellow line is parallel to the ground and is set at 25"

Last Saturday - 14th April '12 - I took FB to Lopwell Dam at 'nearly' high tide. The water was well over the walkway and nearly at the top of the ramp you can see in the Google StreetView. Normally I would have turned around and ridden away but this was a test of 'water-tightness for FB.

The beautiful Lopwell Dam near Plymouth, Devon, UK

 I killed the engine and reversed down the ramp until I was fairly level and the water was halfway between the hub and the top of the wheel. Then I started the engine. It ticked over very sweetly.

You can see from these two screen prints from Google Street View that the water does come up level with the end of the wall on the right.

Then, with the engine still running I backed the bike down the 2nd ramp into the main part of the river current. This is where the River Tavy comes crashing over the weir and flows out to sea. The current was quite strong and the water was about 6" above the walkway. I finally got the bike into the water so the water was above the rear tyre. This is about 25" deep. The bike still ran sweetly and I sat on it and rode it out. No hesitation of any sort.

Arriving home I removed the strap holding the water trap on and inspected it..dry as a bone! Job's a good 'un!

If the water was deeper than 25" then I wouldn't be riding if it was flowing. The amount of air in the rear tyre makes the bike very light on the rear and it tends to move about too much in flowing water.

Andy's April Aside....

For my 'motorcycle adventure' in 2012, I will be riding the Swiss Crazy Run in June. 24 cols, 30 hours riding and nearly 800 miles....on my Honda Valkyrie. I will be accompanied by my two cousins Rob and Nick Carter. Rob has an uglier BMW than Nev (an R1200RT) and Nick is on his "Hardly Moving Son"!
The, no pun intended, high point of the ride for me will be the Stelvio Pass as we 'pop' into Italy.
Leaving the UK on Wednesday 13th June and arriving back on the night of the 18th via the Channel Tunnel. 

April....no fools here....perhaps!

Andy here..
I managed to get a second-hand, but nearly new, Acerbis tank for my XT. It holds 23 litres (5 gallons) and will dramatically improve the range of the XT over the original, 15lts, tank.
I also bought some 6mm braided fuel hose, 12 x 11mm Mikalor hose clips and a very natty, little, fuel filter.
The tank came with two fuel taps and when you look inside the tank both taps have fuel filters but I wanted a filter so that I could see any water in the fuel. The little filter has also got a small magnet to trap metallic impurities. A bargain for £1.25... I bought 4 so I can carry spares.

The 'Fat Bastard' has now earned it's name after this mornings 'girth expansion' exercise

Natty little filter

Just over an inch long, a clear space below to spot water and a small magnet...£1.25!

As the Honda advert said for the CBX1000 "No wider than the rider's knees"

If I wear white trousers it'll look like this!

Canadian winters are a good time to work on your bike.......just don't expect to ride it for 6 months!

Greetings from the Canadian Rockies....via Nevil,

I have been lazy in the upkeep of my side of the blog for sure. I hope to remedy this now. Please bear with me as this post will be a bit technical but if you're reading this because you want to prep your DR650 there might be some useful info.

Christmas came and went in the blink of an eye and before long I was back working on the DR. The first task was to fit the bash plate, new handlebars and MSR brush guards.

My choice of hand shield was basically the biggest lump of plastic I could find to bolt onto the brush bars. MSR provide such a thing and so far they have certainly managed to keep the cold winter winds from freezing my hands.

The engine bash plate was easy enough to install and during this process I drained the oil, installed a magnetic drain plug and put some cheap oil back in. Why cheap oil? Basically i will run the engine for about 1000 kms and drain the oil out again to see what state it's in. By inspecting the magnetic drain plug I should get an idea of how the engine is wearing.

Rear shock absorber. There are many products out there for the DR. I chose to go with a Cogent Dynamics rebuild and restore the bike to its full factory height in the process. The turnaround time for the rebuilt shock was a couple of weeks and pretty soon I was back in the workshop installing a shiny new item that I hope will stand the punishment of Mongolian roads and the Road of Bones with me and luggage on board.

Old shock absorber...note the two holes at the base on the right. This is the factory way of lowering the back end of the DR.

Shiny, new and with some extra adjustments added in lovely anodized red. Basically it was fitted with a new gas bladder, cogent's own internals and an 8.1 Eibach spring. According to Ric at Cogent this will be good for me (185 pounds) and around 70 pounds in luggage, tools, tyres etc.

Front forks. Hmmm.....what to do. The front end is way too squishy and dives heavily under normal braking. I've spent a lot of time on forums recently, especially the DR forum (DRRiders) and there appears to be a growing fanbase of Intiminator users out there. Ricor Racing Intiminators are basically a valve system that one can install without having to remove or drill out the dampening rod. Just install under your spring on top of the damper rod and screw it all back together again. Fill with 5W oil and ride. Actually it's not quite this easy because you really should set up your preload according to your preference by manufacturing and sizing up spacers on top of your springs too. Many people claim that you don't need to replace your stock front springs for this either. I will give this a try....watch this space for a report.

Tool tube. I built this a few weeks ago from some 3 inch PVC pipe and two pressure bungs.The idea was to fit it in place of the existing stock tool tube to gain more carrying capacity.

                                                  

Everything was going well until my mate Grif bought me a new shiny alloy tool tube for doing some renovation work at his house. I will be fitting this new item very soon!

Stock Suzuki tool tube at top. My home made tube in the middle and the cavernous new storage at bottom!

Grip Heaters. Yup... I need them. For the longest time I considered Oxford slip on heaters but in the end I went with Happy Trail's kit. This includes a set of heaters, a toggle switch all the wiring and a free set of gel grips. I also elected to buy an aluminium throttle tube to replace the plastic one on the DR. I did this for two reasons, 1), I didn't want the new heaters melting the plastic of the stock tube and 2), Suzuki glue their grips on with REALLY strong glue. I'd rather lose my sanity in a more complicated way...not wrestling with a set of cheap grips!

Toggle Switches.  The heated grips come with a toggle switch to control them. I also want to install a toggle switch that will cut the power to the headlamp and save generator time when I need to run the heaters and charge stuff like camera batteries etc. There's not a lot of room behind the small fairing for this so I've elected to mount a small plate to the left handle bar clamp that will contain these switches. see below.

I have a feeling I'll be revising this design but for now it will do.

Rear wheel ...Especially the Sprocket bearing. The DR is famous for eating the rear sprocket bearing. Basically it's a combination of a nasty OEM bearing that only has one dust seal on one side and the cush-drive rubbers wearing and getting sloppy. My advice...replace the rubbers with new and install a bearing that has a dust seal on both sides. Don't forget to pop the dust seal on one side, pack it full of grease and replace the seal again. Bearing factories are very miserly on their grease application.

So far so good. I did actually manage to get out for a couple of rides near the beginning of February. At this time of the year in the Canadian Rockies that's a real bonus I can tell you! So far I have only racked up about 130kms but spring is on the way!

 I am expecting a large order from ProCycle soon that includes a windshield, lower chain roller bearing assembly, intiminators, gel seat & cover kit, fork brace and back light assembly.

Future purchases will include a centre stand, 30 litre Safari fuel tank and happy trail panniers and racks.

That's about it for all the technical stuff for a while. I promise there will be some more stuff on travel planning, medical jabs and gear testing soon :)

Kindest regards

Nevil

First day PROPER green laning

Andy here....

Well, it was great. Gabriel (thoroughly good egg) turned up on time and the 3 of us set off to explore the myriad of green lanes in the South Hams area of South Devon.

The XT is a heavy beast and, since some previous owner put braided lines on, there is little or no feel to the back brake. It's either on or off. This is slightly disconcerting to say the least.

I had no problems other than trying to understand lots of torque and no revs compared to my TTR250 which has to be buzzed up a bit more.

Richard (my son) was riding the TTR but we swapped over and he liked the XT. At lunch Richard had to leave us and I sent him home on the XT as the TTR had all the tools strapped to it's rear carrier.

Gabriel and I reached home at 15.50 and after he'd loaded his bike onto his trailer he showed me the Mefo Tyres, the Enduristan Monsoon Panniers and the Rigid Industries LED Spot Lights.

These are all bits that I want to take with me on next years voyage. The Mefo Explorer tyres are absolutely the dogs dangly bits. The middle tread area is well spaced but has enough rubber to allow for fast tarmac cruising but good 'off-road' grip, whilst the outer edges are more closely spaced for good tarmac cornering. They wouldn't be so good in thick mud but most of the places we're going have good trails so I think the Explorers will be OK. They also have a good mileage life with Gabriel getting 7K+ out of them.

The Enduristan Monsoon Panniers are just so brilliantly thought out that they are definitely my first choice for soft panniers. Gabriel has already been around the world and we discussed "Hard v Soft" luggage. He is in agreement with me..hard luggage for mega tarmac miles as long as you stay on tarmac but soft luggage for off-road trips.

The Rigid Industries LED lights are another matter. They are very bright - see www.zenoverland.com - but they are 15w per light and this is a lot when I only have 200w to play with. I'll be fitting a 35w HiD headlight which is as bright as the LED lights so I'll wait and see if I need any more light! Watch this space.

This morning I washed and checked the bikes over and all is good. The squeak from the rear suspension on the XT has gone.....over to the rear suspension of the TTR! I've now greased the TTR's rear suspension so hopefully it'll be OK now.