Since I last posted I have been looking at what bikes would be best suited to do something like the Raid de Himalaya. The main criteria for selection were:

• it needs to be light enough for novice off-roaders like Ness and I
• it should be suitable for both tar and dirt
• it must cope with extreme altitude changes
• and lastly, it must run happily on whatever fuel will be available in remote Northern India (typically 87 octane with "bits" in it)

To cut a long story short, we now have 2 DRZ400SM's in the garage. The only difference between this supermoto version and the S offroad version is the wheels and forks. The SM has slightly better USD forks off a more recent RM model. It also has 17" inch road wheels so we have bought extra sets of S offroad wheels - 21" inch front and 18" rears that take a wide range of offroad tyres - these wheels bolt straight onto the SM and only need the larger 310mm front disc swapped over. We will be running stock gearing on the front, and most likely 44t (stock SM gearing is 41t) at the back for offroad use. The E (enduro) version of the DRZ runs a 47t at the back, but we would need a longer chain to fit a sprocket that size - not ideal, as we are hoping to be able to easily put the road wheels back on for a bit of back road fun. So 44t seems the best compromise.

Here is my new scooter with its road boots on:



To prepare for our first bit of greenlaning next weekend, I thought that I would fit the offroad wheels to the bikes on Saturday. I was off to a rocky start when I realised that the stainless steel brake disc bolts that I bought online were the wrong size. This was not the end of the world though because I could use the disc bolts off the stock wheels until I can sort out the replacements. The next task was to fit a new tube to the front wheel. Having repaired many bmx punctures in my youth, I set to the task brim full of confidence. I'm not sure how much later, but lets just say more than an hour! and I was looking for a can of high octane and some matches. It was probably the worst time that Ness could have come in and tried to offer some advice... which she quickly realised and promptly exited stage right. A little while later (after I had beaten the wheel into submission and discovered that I must have pinched the tube) I was feeling guilty for snapping at Ness so went inside the house to apologise and found her watching a Youtube tutorial on how to change MX tyres (or in this particular video, tires). Oh how I laughed when he said that if it feels difficult you're doing it wrong... I must have been doing it very, VERY wrong. Then he mentioned lube. The man was a genius!! 30 minutes later I had taken the tyre off, fixed 3 punctures (from pinching the tube with the tyre levers) and fitted the tyre back on again. Lube ROCKS!!! The wheel does still have a puncture... I must have pinched it again, doh! But now I know it won't take me the whole of next weekend to fix it :)