Vienna (pt 2)

Vienna (pt 1)

As I hit the "Buy Now" button on the ferry website last week, I happened to glance through the window and notice sleet.  "Bugger." I thought, "That's a bad omen." and with this in mind I set off into a Severe Weather Warning.

Harwich Ferry Termnal

 

I've been somewhat miffed about putting off the big trip, nobody to blame apart from myself of course but I really had intended on being on the road by now, maybe even making the Buenos Ares HUMM meeting and New Year in Ushaia so finding myself sat in my folks' spare room at a loose end, I decided to go visit some friends in Vienna.
Now Vienna is a bit of a trek from darkest Yorkshire.  Particularly on a motorbike, particularly in December when there's only about 6 hours of daylight so I opted to do it in stages, getting the overnight ferry from Harwich and staying in Leipzig the following night.  I've had the full range of bad weather but it must be said that the most unpleasant conditions were the wind and rain in Blighty.  Thankfully the snow and ice around the German/Czech border didn't get any worse.
Despite the cold, riding in Czech is a pleasant experience.  The roads are pretty good, the volume of traffic is much lower than in Germany and the satnav took me off the motorway and off the beaten track.  Fortunately, everywhere I stopped for petrol was happy to take Euros so there was no need to find cash.
The Czech/Austrian border is a cold war relic.  It's easy to imagine, only a few years ago, this was the Iron Curtain.  A fortified border between East and Western Europe with a kilometre or so of no man's land in between.  Of course now you don't even have to slow down to pass through except to visit the duty free shop.
So then, a few days in Vienna and then back to Blighty.  Route to be decided.

Drying bike gear

The Netherlands

German truck stop

Leipzig refreshments

Rural Czech

Czech

Czech/Austria border

Austrian border

Hidden Valley Rally

 A few pictures from last weekend's Hidden Valley Rally.  This a highly recommended event that just happens to coincide with the Cropton Brewery beer festival.  An interesting mix of people, bikers, the campervan crowd and people just there for the beer.  Thanks to the Tees Tornados MCC for putting on the rally.

Cropton Brewery and rally site.

Whitby from the North Yorks Moors.

Beer selection.

Cider selection.

Some orange people from Hull.

Myself and some orange people.

Fabrication

I finally have the rack an boxes fitted, thanks to George at ATV Services.  My departure date has slipped to the new year while I wait for some dental work but short of some odd jobs, the bike is ready to go.

Rack extended with steel rod to fit with rear footrests.

Box fitted.

Locking mechanism, inside view.

Box in locked position.

Box in unlocked position.

Box ready to be removed.

Rack.

Removed box showing fitting kit.

Second Impression

Having now spent a couple of days on the Tenere, I'm starting to get used to it.  On A roads and motorways it's still sluggish and quite hard work, I got around the top speed issue by winding it out right through the gears, changing up at 6K RPM or so.  It's still not overly happy about going fast but it can at least keep up with traffic.  I assume 5th gear is pretty much overdrive anyway.

Off road, the Tenere really comes into it's own.  I spent a morning on one of the local motocross tracks, I was the only one there for most of the time.  Having never ridden off road before I started out on the kiddie track; a short circuit designed for small wheel 80cc bikes.  Actually quite challenging on the chest high Tenere in anything other then first gear.  I then moved over to the adult circuit, a much longer track with a lot of jumps, banked corners, ruts and mud.  The bike was completely in it's element and is far more capable than I am.  About 20 minutes at a time was all I could manage on either track, I never knew off road riding was so exhausting.

The afternoon was spent riding little back roads around North Yorkshire, again the Tenere is in it's element.  I took many shortcuts on unsealed tracks and a quick cheeky blat round the edge of a field and again, the bike isn't just good, it's excellent.

Looks like I'm going to be staying as far away as possible from the highways in South America but then I knew that anyway.

Things to do:

• Re fit the rack and boxes.  Make the hard/soft luggage decision.
• Voltage regulator.
• Wire up the accessory socket.
• Fit the sat nav.
• Arrange to ship the bike.

Hopefully on the road in a couple of weeks.

First impressions.

It's tall, hard work to throw my leg over the seat and it makes a great sound or it's big and sounds like a tractor depending on your point of view.

Handling is odd, you're sitting up high and the front suspension bobs about particularly when braking, pretty much as to be expected I suppose but I'm used to a tele lever front end on the R1100 that doesn't dive at all so the effect is more pronounced.  I'm not sure how much I trust the knobblies on tarmac either.

And it's slow.  Dan Walsh complained that his XT was dangerously slow for European roads and I can see exactly where he's coming from.  Cruising speed is around 100 to 110 Km/h, it will go a bit faster but that means holding the throttle full open and I'm pretty sure that's badly affecting the fuel consumption.  Having checked the internet, some people seem to be getting the same sort of performance and others are having no problems holding 130 to 140 Km/h.

My todo list is getting a lot longer:

• Fix the rear puncture, actually, fit a new inner tube and a bead lock to stop the bike shredding another tube.  How do I remove the rear wheel at the side of the road with no centre stand?
• Check and seal the HT circuit and fit a new coil and HT lead if necessary.
• Double check the wiring harness and make sure there are no stretched or bare wires. Make sure the connection blocks are OK and seal them with petroleum jelly.
• Check the air filter.  A possible reason for last night's breakdown is water in the air filter.  Make sure it's OK, clean or replace if necessary.  I need to work out how to do this anyway.
• The regulator/rectifier might be on it's way out.  The indicator lights flash much more quickly when at high RPM and this is often indicative of the voltage in the system being too high.  Fortunately this can be tested with a meter so I don't need to buy the part just yet.
• Check the mixture.  Bit of a pain in the arse this as the tank must be removed to get at the plug but a standard chop test should do the job.  The fact that it needs a bit of choke even when the engine is warm would suggest that the mixture is wrong.  Check the plug gap while it's out of the bike.
• While I'm at it, make a note of the number of teeth in the sprockets.
• Acquire all tools necessary to do these jobs.
• Find a supplier of spare parts that is willing to ship to South America.

A baptism of water (and air).

I'm now the proud owner of a 1991 3AJ Tenere.  

Picked it up yesterday evening in Wiltshire and started chugging up the motorway in the dark.   It was about 1am and absolutely pissing down.  I was flat out (about 100Km/h in the slow lane) and the engine just died.  It had been been spluttering a bit all the way, particularly on a wide open throttle but this time it was completely dead.
I pulled into the hard shoulder hoping I'd just run onto reserve (a bit disappointing at 280 Km on the trip meter, I was expecting 280 miles) and tried to get the bike started.  Nada.  Not a sausage.  Fully expecting it to be water on the electrics I phoned ahead and said expect a recovery truck (and a bill), they were cool with that so I left the bike for half an hour, tried it again and set off up the motorway to the emergency phone.
The Highways Agency guy on the end of the phone said they could sort out recovery to the safe area in the next service station so not having much choice, I handed over my phone number and went back to the bike to wait.  At this point a police car had stopped next to the phone.  They were professional, courteous, and completely non-condecending.  Completely out of character for UK plod.  They didn't even bother checking my documents when I didn't know the bike reg so I guess they must have believed my story.  They gave me a lift back to the bike, put some traffic cones and flashing lights around it and said they'd check on me next time they went past.
Sat at the side of the road for about two more hours.  The rain stopped although I was already soaked (my waterproofs being in one of the panniers and obstructed by a spare tyre cable tied to the box) and eventually I got a call from the HA explaining terms for my recovery.  £141 for recovery to the next safe area, £90 if I cancelled.  Having little choice, I agreed and then thought "wouldn't it be just typical if the bike started now" so I gave it a go.  It coughed straight into life.
I left the bike running and waited for the recovery guys.  I wanted to get a bit of charge back in the battery and not having a phone number for the HA and rather than just fuck off and leave, I wanted to speak to the guys on the truck and see if I could talk my way out of the fee rather than get threatening letters sent to my folks' place.  They turned up exactly when the HA had predicted and would have been happy to cancel the fee but needed sign off from the HA who were less accommodating and ended up phoning home for a credit card number at ungodly o'clock.
Back on the road, the recovery truck followed me for a couple of exits to make sure I was OK and then turned off to go back to base.  Just at this point, the bike died again.  This time there was a little spluttering as I pulled onto the hard shoulder.  Turning to reserve got the bike going again and I cursed myself for not filling up when I got the chance a few miles before the first breakdown.  When I eventually got to the services, I filled up.  I'd done 280 Km and put 22L of fuel in the bike, tank capacity is 23L.  Got home at around 5am with no further complications.

Addendum.  Went out this morning to get some pictures of the bike and got a puncture about 3 miles down the road.

I shall be going back to work on the BMW.

Inspiration.

As usual there were a few bikes on the Dublin Holyhead ferry and we always talk to each other.  Two lads on KTM Adventures, one heading to the Brecon Beacons for a weekend of green laning and the other off to Morocco for a 10 day tour in an organised group.  Then there was this German lady on a 1987 R80GS.  Said she'd had the bike from new and it now had nearly half a million Km on it.  She said she'd only had the engine rebuilt once.  Suzanne, you're an inspiration.