MooN

I liked tham on the transalp, never noticed any untoward slipping, but did have a front one that had a fabrication defect. I gave up using them when it became impossible to buy any, then Michelin announced they were closing down a couple of plants with the loss of 5000 jobs in the same week they announced global profits of millions of euros... fuck 'em. tried others and I like these ok. and some dunlops trailmax I had on the tralp as well. Like I say, at MY skill level, I don't really think the tyres make much difference, I'm not exactly pushing their performance envelope...

pirelli scorpion trail II Pete, they're as good as the Michelin anakees on the road, if not better, and fine on dirt or gravel so long as it's dry, at least for my skill level.

it probably goes on for miles. this was facing south but it started turning back towards the East a bit further along, across the front of the coming storm, so I turned off it onto a more southerly route.

well I thought it was funny... a couple of other shots from 150km this afternoon dodging some nasty storm cells that were wandering around the area this was a biggie, mouving south east and starting to generate it's own wnd patterns in front of it, exactly where I was when I took this shot...ooops... and this was as close as I wanted to get. Don't get me wrong, these are not tropical storms and there's no rotation or other tornado like phenomena but they do generate locally storm force winds and dump huge amounts of water so you really don't want to be in one on a bike. Having stopped for the pic right in the path of it I then legged it, unfortunately home was also right in it's path and I got a bit wet in the last 5km as the leading edge caught up with me. I managed to get in the house about 5 minutes befre it really let loose and boy did it dump some water. For about 10 minutes, the water was standing about 2 inches deep in the yard and you couldn't see across the road. Short lived but intense is how I would describe it. I've just now ( hours later) been out to put the bin out and there's a lot of branches and stuff all over the road and a tree down a bit further along, so it looks like I did right to run away.

allo allo

Twins ( reduced) birthday party this afternoon so I shall find something very important that needs looking at somewhere else...

not that I'm aware of, but then we have a much better class of illegal immigrants here.

Did you miss me? I had some heavy family shit to deal with and didn't feel capable of pretending everything's normal whilst dealing with it. Done and dusted now, except for some administrative details that will take ages to sort out just cos that's how the burocracy works over here. With a bit of luck, and a smidge of decent weather I should be riding again tomorrow, as I will need to hide from the twins birthday party ( albeit a reduced one). Right now I have 2 weeks worth of drivel on here to read in order to catch up.

colder than I'd hoped today but I had an early lunch and ran away from home at around 11:30 determined to do the run I wanted to do last week. this basically, a little over 300km with a good mix of tiny back roads ( grass down the middle type stuff) and fast technical twisties. It remained cold in the shadows but the sun was out and temps up to around 10degC. Lots of hunters out in the woods with dogs bloody everywhere but nobody else about.

Great pics pedro, isn't it good to get out on a bike in the sun?!

'Ey up!

Ole Frank there's a Lock down!

What do you mean no scenery... I'm sure Lincoln used to have a big pointy uppy building thing in the middle of it, very picturesque, some nice pics to be had down by the canal too I expect, Fiskerton, cherry willingham, you'll have me all teary eyed and nostalgic with a couple of pics from there...you're only an hour from the coast...tattershall castle, Boston stump, SKEGGY ! Louth... there's the asylum at Rampton, that'd be a shoe in here for top pic ?

it'll need that leak sorting and then a bloody good clean before any paint will stick to it

lets face it, if you crash it they'll write it of and give you about 140£ for it...

Not anymore

Interestingly, or not, I had another Busted bolt yesterday but at work and when I discovered it it was lucky thay my "Technician" is off sick ( skiving since 6th June 2020) or he would have a) got punched and b) got an official warning for " Faute professionel" (three af them and you're out). This is what I was working on. planned oil and gearbox oil change, oil filters, fuel filters, air filter and belts, then sort the oil leak which I have traced to the oil pressure guage senders on the side of the block then clean the whole thing properly which obviously hasn't been done for some time. Note the excellent designof the hydraulic pump on the front of the main pulley, you have to remove the bloody thing to change either belt...( that's why the bolts are half out) When I looked at changing the alternator belts, I found this set up on the lower alternator: The whole thing was waaay out of alignement and clearly not correctly fitted. A while back I found two green painted bolts and a bush on my desk, with no explanation of where they came from... now I know. This is clearly a large dose of taking the piss and "don't give a shit'ism and means that my "technicien" if he ever returns to work, clearly cannot be trusted and is therefore worthless to us. I retrieved the bolts from my box of " That looks specific, I wont throw it away" bits and spent an hour removing the sh!t, changeing the belts, refiting the correct bolts and spacer and realigning the whole. ( all torqued down to "two white knuckles" ?) this is what it should look like

2 tools only, WD40 and gaffer tape. If it moves and shouldn't, use the gaffer tape, if it doesn't move but should, use the WD40. ? I actually dont grease things with WD40 , I have a pot of marine grease.

Well I need to get some ride time in this weekend cos it looks like the balloon is abot to go up here again, they're talking Lockdown on the Telly now... I told you they'd wait untill the Parisien holiday was over and then shut us down again... wankers

It's no fun if I'm the only one playing...

You remind me of the marine architect who drew the plans for an RNLI boarding boat we built when I was training, He'd decreed that the "stations" ( temporary forms around which the hull planking is done before fitting the frames and floors) were to be at 85.71428 cm apart. The master shipwright's first comment was " shall we tell him that we wrok to 1/8th of an inch tolerance...?" the difference between theory and practice,

without test riding one, the only criticism is that Fugly front end,,, two other things spring to my mind though, why chain drive and not shaft? Is all the high tech engine widgitry not going to limit potential usage to places ahere high tech widgetry freindly service centres are available? I imagine that ( despite the rhetoric) the actual target market is the US rider who would like a GS but would also like US made and will mostly ride on road, but enjoys the possibility of trails ( and lets face it this is a majority of "adventure bike" riders) and won't ever actually need a bush machanic to fix it with hammer and a screwdriver. Is 5000miles a normal service interval? seems a bit short to me, with most vehicles service intervals increasing with technlogy. My bike is 10000km so 6200miles, my car is 20,000km and wifeys car is 30,000km ( to be fair, that's a diesel, but my point is that I thought the tendance was an increase in service intervals). It'll be interesting to watch and see how it fares, I have rarely seen a bike get so many people excited, either for or against.

Yesterday I took it all apart again. The bolt that I had available and used was a slot headed machine screw. The original bolt was a Hex head so There was on hex head bolt and one slot headed machine screw in there and though out of sight, it Irked me, so I got a couple of 8x70 A2 stainless bolts and a couple of 8x50 of the same, a couple of stainless washers and as I had some spare time wednesday afternoon I removed the offending bolt and tried the 8x50, which was too short, and the 8x 70 was too long. I cut down the 8x70 to make and 8x60 and fitted that, with it's washer. I then realised that my 8 mmbol has a 13mm hex head and the original one has a 12mm hex head. This being the sort of thing that drives me round the twist when I come across it at work, I cut down the 2nd 8x70 and fitted that as well so there are two identical stainless bolts now. @skyrider I work on boats, force of habit means all bolts were greased before being refitted ?

Far from it Bob, "La Betise Humaine" is alive and well and living in Paris. The rest of the country HATES them