Sir Fallsalot

Love the scenery there ?

That's my modified 650 dominator with XR400 clothes and front end on i have an oversized EBC disc on the front to slow her big ass down it makes a great long distance trail bike, always wanted the |XR650L but they don't officially import them to the UK so had to make my own, suspension not the best but it works its also my winter bike.

And the year before you were last there in 2016 lol

Inspired by Bob i thought i'd share my attempt at this years Dragon Rally. The plan was to go to the Bruce Pollard memorial rally on the Friday night held at Y Giler Arms at Rhydlydan, Betws-y-Coed and then onto the Dragon rally on the Saturday night. The route planing was easy i drew a straight line from my house to the pub and just picked the roads closest to it no off roading was planned. So set off after the rush hour traffic had died down about 9.30 no breakfast as the first stop would be the dolwen garage cafe just outside Llanidloes two hours away it's a bit of a tradition of mine stopping there every year, weathers great for January, the bikes running sweet and i'm really enjoying the roads to get to the cafe and i'm starving, to my surprise its bloody closed ? Feeling a bit pissed off i pushed on thinking i'd get something to eat in Bala another hour further on, The roads are even better from here ( using some google street view images as i was riding ) the road past Clywedog Reservoir After this its back onto some smaller roads with great scenery and no traffic not that i'd had much on route At the end of this there were some trails i hadn't done before and my sense of adventure took over and next thing i know i'm climbing up some rocky track with way too much pressure in the tyres i struggles on for about a mile only to end up a few yards from where i started but on a much easier trail lol. I come to a closed gate with a guy doing some gardening i ask if its ok to go through and what the track is like, he says its OK but the track is rough and i may struggle with the luggage on, well in my head i thinks yeh ok man I've heard this all before just trying to scare me off, so i say OK i'll have a look if you don't mind and off i goes. Its a bit slippery with the hard tyres but not too bad I gets to this little stream crossing thinking this is great goes on a few hundred yards and things start getting a bit narrow Ends up pushing it backwards back to the stream and up the field on the left this had me a bit hot and sweaty sometimes the land owners not lying LOL. Anyhow back on the road for a few miles to cool down i'm off my route now and have to do another lane to get back to it luckily this one is great My original route is at the bottom of this valley passing the white house heading up over the hills in the distance the photo doesn't show just how steep this is Back on the road now and gave myself a little row for going off road but it was worth it this is the top of the pass another regular route for me to get to the dragon I gets into Bala and realise its only another 20 minutes to the pub so decides to have food there, Pitches the tent and has a quick look around its about 14:30 and there's already a few there i bungee's the the bike to the tree as I've seen the weekends weather warnings So into the pub for food but the welcoming committee is there and i consume a lot of alcohol before the food and its all downhill from there Getting merry with my enemy Jager ? The night was great, in the morning my jaw was aching from laughing last night, i hadn't spewed in the land ladies flower pots this year and still have all my possessions everything's peachy. I'm up for breakfast relatively early scoff that and catch up with a few for a chat but when i go back to the tent last night gets hold of me with a vengeance i'm dying takes me almost two hours to pack my kit away and i head off to the Dragon checkpoint after stopping for fuel and a lucozade hoping it will pick me up. when i get to the checkpoint i just stop and rest my head on the bars of the bike for about 20 minutes before i get off to get my ticket stamped and directions to the rally site, i leave there heading west and the wind is picking up getting blown about and riding like an old lady, the campsite is another 20 minutes ride north west of me i come to a junction at Capel Curig and take it south towards home and don't stop until i get there never been so happy to see my bath ? When i get up the next morning i see the photos coming in of the night i missed i do wish i was there to experience it for some reason but glad i was home This is a photo of somebodies ride home

Yup that's why mine stays tucked up in the garage through the winter. I think you are the problem here Bob the last time you went to the Dragon there was a tornado on the same weekend or was that the first time LOL

Glad you made it Bob i overdone the Friday night again and failed to get there had a lucky escape i think. Watch this from 1 minute on to get an idea of what it was like lol

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Do you polish the tyres as they go round because the the bits that are supposed to be dirty on your bike are cleaner than the bits that are supposed to be clean on mine ?

Yes i read it on the above post very good keep it up ?? ?

Thanks Pedro ? to be honest i was amazed how good it was only 3 bearings fooked but changed 4 as their in pairs. In total there are 10 bearings in the rear suspension swing arm and shock, i was expecting to be changing the lot, I've owned this bike for 10 years and this is the first time I've been in there so not sure when anyone was in there last so quite pleased

See no like button so i got to keep typing and i'm getting pished so it may go downhill lol

Don't think so Ahh yes i can now ?

Yes on everyone else's posts but not Pete's

? Why don't you have the like feature on your posts

Decided to lake the back end off the bike to tidy it up looking quite rusty under there. When taking the indicators off i had to undo a load of insulation tape around the wires. When investigating why the tape was on there i found for some bizarre reason a previous owner had cut the wires off the indicators and soldered them onto the the opposite one using orange cable to extend them and couldn't even get that right, they had the live going to earth the reason the fuse didn't blow is because the brackets the indicators bolt onto are rubber mounted and are isolated from the frame anyhow i swapped them back the way they were supposed to be minus all the slack that was there I also made this exhaust deflector plate, i got the scott oiler touring kit and noticed when taking things apart it was being melted by the hot exhaust gasses you can see the bow in the number plate where it was catching the exhaust gasses and deflecting them behind the number plate getting everything hot there. This wouldn't happen with the standard exhaust but the venom exhaust is a lot shorter than the standard one This is the back end painted up its not in the best condition hopefully this will preserve it until i strip the whole bike and get it all done properly That was my bank holiday and last weeks evenings taken care of next week is the front end, oil and filter change and i'm going to flush the cooling system no time to get bored here ?

Bob that little reciprocating saw was great at cutting the swing arm bolt off a scrap XR400 frame i bought years ago. I hammered a large screwdriver between the swingarm and frame which gave me enough gap to get the saw blade in, it took a few hours and a couple of blades but it done the job

The rest of the suspension parts were waiting for me when i got home from work last Wednesday thought i'd get it all together that night but forgot i need a new chain slider for the swing arm ordered a genuine one from rugged roads so waiting for that before i put the swing arm on The new bolt i got to replace the one i cut off is a bit awkward to put in as you need to take off the centre stand and to get that off you need to take off the exhaust but i managed to do it by removing the one sleeve on the side the bolt goes in from. Which was a pain to put back in with the springs attached but really didn't want to take the exhaust off or the centre stand springs While waiting for the parts to arrive i made this bracket to stiffen up the back end as it bounces about with the weight of the scottoiler touring reservoir on there. The threaded holes were already in the frame not sure what they were for but were perfect to mount this

The bearing and seal insertion tool i made worked great Bearings pushed in equally each side And now for the seal Everything has now been painted waiting for it to dry and once the collars and bolt arrive from Honda i can reassemble everything

I tried the beating the shit out of it approach first but it was seized to the inner bearing collar, after i cut it all out i tried sledging the bolt out of the collar to see how stuck it was but no movement at all

That unfortunately is not my thing, i try but get bored so easily ?

So to kill some more time i made a tool to press the new bearings and seal back in when they arrive,made from a large bolt. I screwed the nut half way up the bolt and welded in place then cut the head off the bolt, I should have taken the photo before i started All finished the right side is to push the bearing in, the step in the larger diameter is to make sure the bearing is pushed in the correct depth to allow the space for the seal to fit, the left side is to push the seal in flush after the bearing, well that's the theory anyway lol

I've been meaning to strip the rear end off this bike since i bought it in 2010 but only now getting around to it. No play at all in the linkage but not long after i bought the bike i noticed the rear end creaking when getting on and off the bike then it stopped and i forgot about it. As i suspected one of the bearings is seized along with the bolt and another badly corroded bearing. As usual its the most difficult bolt to get at that has seized. Had to strip the swing arm off to get at it and the centre stand has to come off to take the bolt out if it hadn't seized which is a bit of a problem as that's whats holding the bike up but since i'm cutting the bolt it can stay on for now First job is to drill the head off the bolt luckily i had some long cobalt drill bits i bought for a different job a few years ago and long they need to be I started with a small bit and worked my way up to 10mm as that is what diameter the bolt is Didn't take long and the head is off, i had to put a maul grip on the thread the other end to stop the bolt from turning once the head came off so i could drill a bit deeper on the bolt shaft Next was to cut the thread off this would have been a real problem if it wasn't for this little air powered reciprocating saw fitted with a cut down cobalt hacksaw blade, i bought it years ago to cut the swing arm spindle off a scrap XR400 i bought for spares. It took a while but it went through OK Once all cut i used a tyre lever to pry the linkage out And shes out I was quite surprised how good the condition of the rest of the bolts were for a 26 year old bike So the bike was left like this while waiting for parts to arrive

Nothing wrong with that Bob drowning my XR on Salisbury plain cost us about an hour and half to get it going again and me a lot of money to rebuild it afterwards

Nice ride ? but onions with chicken does not compute in my head, i love chicken and i love onions but for some reason eating them together feels like i'll be breaking the law or something ?