Trip Tales

Our first go at off-roading

2008-10-14T14:39:00.008+01:00

On Saturday Ness (looking sexy as! in her MX gear), Pete (of Pete's las Americas Trip) and myself popped our greenlaning cherries. We found a relatively easy old roman road near Boxhill to try out - see Boxhill greenlane 1. Well, easy until we got to the first large muddy bog about half a mile into the ride. My sportsbike trained brain identified the potential hazard well in advance, bringing me to a neatly controlled stop well before the waterlogged, bottomless ruts, cris-crossing the clay pit ahead of me. The rapidly waning excitement was being displaced by an equally rapidly rising fear. How am I supposed to get through THAT!? What if I get stuck in a rut? And fall? And get wet? Or MUDDY??? Errr... how am I going to cross the Himalayas??? With my sense of perspective restored, I dived in at the deep end (quite literally) and what do you know, I'm still alive! :) It's been a long time since I've had that feeling of "I can't!" suddenly followed by "I did!" - awesome feeling.

While Ness and I were on DRZ's with appropriate hoops fitted, Pete was on his 950 Adventure which was wearing road shoes. One greenlaning trip with a big mud pit later... and Pete's search for the right DRZ has stepped up a gear. I take my hat off to him for how he rides that bike. While I would have been happy to let him have a go on my DRZ, there was no way that I wanted to embarrass myself on his big KTM.

I learnt 2 important lessons on Saturday:

1st - when in doubt give more gas - see mud pit above (thanks Trent/Pete), and
2nd - relax, and the bike will sort itself out (I suspect that this one will probably need a couple of first hand illustrative how-not-to's before it becomes second nature)

I'm sure I have plenty more to learn, and I'm looking forward to it :)

2008-10-06T09:39:00.002+01:00

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 :)

A change to the master plan

2008-07-03T16:43:00.003+01:00

The reason it has been so quite lately is because I decided to finish my studies and the house renovations before doing the trip. To do a 6 month trip would most likely require me to quit my job, and I would feel much better about doing that if I knew I could walk back into a similar job again and if we can rent the house out while we are away. I probably have 2 semesters left now - I say probably because one of the last exams may not have tested the best side of my brain (I find out in 2 weeks time), otherwise I would only have had 1 semester to go. The work on the house is also trundling along nicely again - this time next month I'll be taking manly showers instead of girly baths again (any previous lengthy soaks in the tub were purely to soften fingernail grease).

Something else has come up now. Last weekend a bunch of us were camping at the Assen round of the MotoGP (if you haven't been you REALLY should!) and Pete got talking about the Raid de Himalaya (http://www.raid-de-himalaya.com/). And talking, and talking, and talking... ;) Well some of it must have filtered through despite Amsterdam's finest, because by the next morning I couldn't stop thinking about it. The highest bike race in the world! And the guy who won it last year was a bike journo with no previous rallye experience. I'm not looking for a trophy, but if one of my grandchildren (no, Ness isn't pregnant) one day ask me if I ever raced it would be pretty cool to say "No. Except this one race that I did in the Himalayas at 18000ft...". Joking aside, I have been thinking about what my next challenge might be when I finished my studies, and something to do with riding bikes would be perfect!

I've already started reading up about the race and the more I read, the scarier it looks, but strangely also the more attractive it becomes - kind of "if it is really hard it is probably worth doing".

What Wheels? (A long one today)

2007-09-05T13:52:00.000+01:00

It's a no brainer that we're doing the trip on bikes, but what kind of bikes is the question!? I've dismissed tourers like HD's, Pans, etc without too much thought. Partially because they aren't any good off-road, but mostly because I wouldn't want my children to find out one day.

What we need is something that can do distance on tar with relative ease, as well as being able to carry us on gravel/sandy roads and perhaps through the odd stream or over a grassy plain. I doubt if we'll be going off-piste, so no need to restrict our choice to feather weight crossers.

Because both Ness and I love riding, we will be doing the trip on 2 bikes. Ask anyone who knows anything about overland bike trips and they will say that you should take the same make/models if you can - this way we have less spares to carry between us and only 1 bike that we (I!?) have to know how to fix.

Those of you that know Ness, already know that she is not built to kick start Boeings, or pick up dropped 1200GS's with 50kgs of luggage... (and despite appearances I'm not built to pick up GS's either). Therefore the bike's weight needs to be considered.

Both of us are just under the 1.7m mark (not sure what that is in old speak). We both have a fair bit of road riding experience (20+ years between us) which would make it easier for us to ride tall bikes, than someone who has just passed their test. However, neither of us has much off-road experience, and neither of us has had to paddle around on a fully loaded overland bike in muddy monsoon conditions. So seat height (and width) needs to be considered too.

Another key decider that comes up more than once is, FI or carbs? There are still a few die hard, old school riders out there who will tell you that carbs are the only way to go on a trip like this because "they are simple and don't go wrong". When was the last time that one of your mates had the FI pack in? OK, times up. I'm not really concerned by the reliability of FI. I'm a little concerned whether modern FI will run smoothly on 3rd world leaded fuel though, but having spoken to a few people about this I don't think that it will be problem for where we are going. Leaded fuel can be a problem on certain bikes fitted with lambda sensors though. What clinches the deal for FI is the fact that we plan on riding on the highest road in the world, and I can't be bothered re-jetting 2 bikes half way up the Himalayas (and half way down again). Most FI should be able to compensate for the altitude enough to get us over the top.

The more that I learn about what bikes to take, the more obvious it becomes that we want 2 modern, middle weight trailies. My final 3 to choose from are:

Suzuki 650 V-Strom - An excellent road bike, that can easily cope with our off-road demands. It's proven fuel-injected v-twin motor is probably the best of all the bikes that I am looking at, but its a bit of a porker (almost 200kg) and the seat is very tall (and wide). They have cast wheels that should be upto the job despite what more off-road oriented riders say, but I'm not sure if this might make puncture repairs more difficult..? Dunno.
Predictably the BMW 650 GS - Especially the Dakar models tick almost all the boxes. They have the best fuel consumption of the 3, which gives them a decent range. New they are not cheap though, and even low mileage 2nd hand examples will cost at least as much as the other 2 can be bought new for. Then compared to low mileage examples of the other 2... well you could kit the others out with the difference. There have been lots of reliability complaints on the older models so they are out. I'm not a complete idiot with a manual and a set of spanners, but I'm no bush mechanic either.
Yamaha XT660R - I've owned the supermoto X version of this bike before, and it was a hoot to ride. Ironically, after having owned several late model, litre sportsbikes (including the last one that could do 110mph in first gear!) I got the first points on my license on the XTX with a top speed of 100mph - go figure. The XT's are the cheapest of the lot and also the lightest. They have an excellent heritage with reliablity not coming into question very often. The biggest complaint with this bike is the low speed, low gear surging caused by the poorly setup FI. The front suspension on these also need a bit of work, but nothing major. The other thing that may be a problem is the ridiculously small tank at only 15L, but there are solutions.

Because of the Wee-Strom's height and weight, this is the first bike that was dropped from the list. If we aren't comfortable and in control of our bikes, especially Ness, both of us won't enjoy the trip.

Taking 6 months out of our working, mortgage-paying lives is going to be expensive business, so we need to look at cheaper options. The BMW's are not an economical choice, so they are also dropped from the list.

That leaves the XTR, our steed of choice for the trip. Ness is comfortable on them, I have experience of them, and I've seen them sell for as little as £3500 new, or £2600 with less than 1k miles on (probably due to the surging). They have been around long enough that we will have a choice of accesories to kit them out with, and the surging issue can easily be sorted out.

So now we know where we are going, when we are going, and what we are riding there :)

When & Where To Go

2007-08-30T09:17:00.000+01:00

Firstly, thanks for the encouraging emails that some of you have already sent. I suspect that lots of people wish that they could do an adventurous overland trip on a motorcycle, but once they face the reality of the sacrifices and logistics involved, many are discouraged. Getting encouragement from friends and family helps set aside the many "what if's" that can sabotage an adventure like this.

Right, back to the trip planning! The first thing that we did was to decide on a departure date, and having spoken with people who have already done these kind of trips, this is actually very important because it focusses your planning effort. As with almost any goal in life, if you don't have a target date for achieving it, more often than not the goal is not achieved. However, there are a few things to consider simultaneously, with the main ones being: where do we want to go? how long are we going for? and what sort of climate conditions will we be travelling through?

Thailand is 2 continents away, and neither Ness or I have been there. Sydney would also be a great final destination, but we are only going for 6 months and it might be just that little bit too far if we don't want to feel rushed. There is also the trip from Dover to Cape Town. Or around South America. Thailand is currently our preferred destination.

To get things going, Ness and I have decided on a "divide and conquer" approach to planning the trip, rather than "management by consensus" which hasn't really worked on our house renovation. Ness is in charge of the itinerary & finances, while I am logistics (a dream job for anyone with the male gadget gene who is into bikes).

For now I'm not going to say too much about the route (Ness' department you see ;) ) except that it will take 6 months, goes through very hot and very wet climates, and includes the highest road in the world (afaik). We would like to leave at the beginning of July 2008, and will be flying home at the end of December 2008.

Why Work?

2007-08-29T10:57:00.000+01:00

This is my screensaver at work.

Hello

2007-08-28T16:47:00.000+01:00

I finally have a blog. I suppose thats because I finally have a reason to have a blog.

Ness and I have spoken about going travelling since we first met. (In fact I had only just met her after my trip to Jamaica, when she went off backpacking around the world for 18 months.) Both of us have been to a fair few places dotted around the globe, and neither of us have had anywhere near enough of it. Unfortunately, due to circumstances (read British Home Office - may they suffer from itchy eyeballs), we are only now in a position to start planning our next big trip. Actually I think Ness has been planning and scheming away in the background all along, while I was perhaps more focussed on making money, buying a house, modding my bikes... Then in June this year, Ness had booked a weekend's camping for us at the Horizons Unlimited meeting at the Lumb Farm in Derbyshire, UK. Now I could say that we are more financialy secure now, or that my career is more secure, or blah, blah, blah... The truth is that the weekend seems to have flipped some kind of switch in my mind, because suddenly I am ready to go. Regardless of all the obstacles and what if's, I want to go. Now! I think it would take a special (in the adventurously challenged sense) kind of person to spend 3 days with all the interesting people who make up Horizons, and then not want to go. Now! So the decision has been made to do an overland motorcycle trip ASAP.

The rest of this blog will be my record of both the planning and the trip itself, and will hopefully help others who are also thinking about doing something like this. Please feel free to express your opinions and/or give us tips and advice (relating to our trip! I'm not too bothered about the best way to maintain a full bloom in rare Dahlias...).