Grace (BikeHedonia)

5 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

According to Ed Marsh vloggers need to make their Moto vids "toilet length" so short n frequent could be good  

You know you posted 2. 12 already.. need more sleep or less caffeine?  

haha thanks for the heads up... maybe less caffeine, more sleep and less of the dried fruit of which I just ate my bodyweight? Or maybe more. I dunno. Here's 2.13 in case anyone's killing time right now.

P.S. I feel like that is a length of time which varies from person to person and according to the quality of the region's drinking water...
 

On 22/04/2022 at 18:25, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Great stuff Grace. Had a fair bit to catch up on (speaker wasn't working on laptop) and its was all enjoyable stuff. Can't believe the bikes whole structural integrity hangs on two plastic spacers, mental. 

You look like your handling it all with aplomb, even the slippery stuff look forward to hearing how your first official tour job goes. 

Never heard of the coconut crab, looked it up, that is one fearsome crab "can eat chickens, kittens and birds but mainly prefers coconuts"

 

Thank you, so glad you enjoyed the video catch up...  Am experimenting with making more frequent vids, will see if people get excited about the trip or get bored ("yeah yeah we get it, you rode somewhere again" lol). 

Yeah, it is super interesting how the whole 690 basically bolts together with two (rather small bolts) and two (rather large spacers). The thinking behind bolting everything straight into the fuel tank is because it obviates the need for any actual subframe at all, thus saving weight. I appreciate this (when it works haha).

Can eat kittens but prefers coconuts... thank goodness for small mercies...

12 hours ago, XTreme said:

Excellent Grace!

Don't you get physically tired doing all this stuff.......cos most of us here would need medical assistance after the first day?

I do get tired, absolutely! After three or four days riding like this, I usually just want to curl up for a day and rest. You can't just keep going day after day... body and mind needs quiet recovery time from the physical exertion and mental stimulation. If you try to push on and on, things go pear shaped sooner or later...

8 hours ago, boboneleg said:

Unfortunately that's a common fault on 690's, I think Rally Raid do a modified part for it.

The tank bolts and spacers have already been upgraded on my bike 90,000km ago. I don't know what brand they are though, maybe Perun

Well Cambodia is a bunch of fun. One of the few countries in south east Asia where more roads are dirt than are bitumen. There's a lot of off road happiness to be had.

I've been exploring the Cardamom Mountains, dodging storms and nihilistic road users; blessed with good luck for the Khmer New Year by way of being soaked with water and smeared with talcum powder by roadside gangs of revellers. (Actually, the talc has made the lining of my helmet smell a lot better than it did before.)

I had to abort mission briefly when my bike nearly fell in two due to the failure of tank bolt bushings, but soon sorted that out and got back on the road again.

I got a little tired for a moment there... but took a rest and now I'm all good again.

Unbelievably I've already been here three weeks! Only one week left until I have to scoot back to Thailand to run a tour through the jungle - which will be great fun too.

6 hours ago, Sir Fallsalot said:

Did it start 

It did. It rattled back into life magnificently.

2 hours ago, XTreme said:

How long you there for Grace?

Cambodia until the end of the month

Cambodia, Phnom Penh: WE'RE BACK

19 hours ago, Mawsley said:

 

This is the song that's always in my head these days

18 hours ago, Catteeclan said:

Just found the clutch one too and I'm no wiser either.

Well the new clutch has already lasted longer than the first one. A friend tells me that he had the same problem with his klx 250, the first clutch lasted about five minutes. Why? Great mystery of life

Holiday in Cambodia in T-1...

Also discussion of air and fuel filtration. This is so important.

Woot! Guess who is booked and on a rescue mission? Yes, I'm going to Cambodia again! At last! Beastie, hold on, I'm coming for you....

On 20/03/2022 at 21:13, boboneleg said:

Miner ? 

Managing people who do mining and making sure they don't do stupid shit. Which is apparently important but difficult...

On 21/03/2022 at 14:03, Catteeclan said:

There she is,

Too awesome! Thanks mate! Woa it's real, I'm in print.  Unbelievable.

2 hours ago, XTreme said:

What work does he do in Mongolia?

Something to do with extracting minerals from the earth.

I'm looking forward to meeting up with a fellow rider tomorrow - he's on holidays here in Thailand (at last!) after spending the last few years in Mongolia where he rides dirtbikes across the steppes when not working. Seems like a nice bloke, love meeting up with other motorcycling people. Can't wait.

9 hours ago, Mawsley said:

"Vespa with anti tank gun"? 

Dammit, my 690 only has a machete. Outgunned again

My gorgeous people, exciting news!! I finally got published IN PRINT. For real! If you come across Bike Magazine UK's April edition, you'll find a six page spread in there, talking about all the shady things I did to get into Vietnam!

Woot! This is a serious milestone. If you lay eyes on a copy of the magazine, please post a magazine selfie here for me, for no better reason than that I would be absolutely stoked.

Hello my lovely people, I hope you're all having fun and maybe getting out on the bikes a bit again - it's spring, right? The seasons have changed here too, from winter to summer (our season are in a weird order, one minute it's cold and the next you're crisping up like a potato in an air fryer).

Tomorrow I'm heading to the other side of Pai to try a trail which is supposed to run along close to the Myanmar border. If we succeed we get to eat pizza in Pai, if we don't succeed we get to sleep on the mountain again. Should be good. KLX230 and CRF450RL. Here's hoping my clutch holds out this time - but we've got the two rope just in case 

18 hours ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

I think you did a great job there Grace

Thank you 

I found some old footage of my second real enduro ride, from a year ago! It was cool looking back and remembering how I got hung up on obstacles that wouldn't bother me today. It's been a steep learning curve and a looong looong way to go yet...

On 05/03/2022 at 02:21, boboneleg said:

I rode further around the perimeter road and then stopped by the Casterley vedette post to have a coffee from my flask...........

 

 

and then carried on further keeping a good eye on the red flags so as not to stray anywhere I wasn't allowed to be...........

 

 

As I got down to the Bustard Inn I saw that I couldn't enter that area but then I spotted a couple of byways on the GPS that I hadn't done before.  This one I shall call  'Pete's Lane ' as I know he'd just love to splash his way through those puddles ........... 

 

 

@Pedro   check out the road tyres in the shitty conditions  .................. 

 

 

and then all too soon it came to an end, I could go no further along here ...............

 

 

So I turned around and more or less followed my way back where I had come from .  I did stop here to check out this building for any DBM's looking for @XTreme  but they wern't there and as didn't fancy getting a mortar flying between my ears I left

 

 

 

From the perspective of an Australian child raised and educated on English literature, I can't shake the feeling that you all live in a story book when you talk about riding around on Salisbury Plain and places called things like Scudamore...

Exceedingly excited to say that I now have my own website (instead of the wordpress hosted free site thing which kept running out of space for photos). Yay! It's (predictably) www.bikehedonia.com . I've even managed to put the subscribe functionality on the new website so that you can elect to be spammed with every new blog post.

And (wait, there's more!) I even made BikeHedonia shirts in case anyone needs a hoodie: https://bikehedonia.creator-spring.com/

Yes, I have been hard at work getting over my horror at self-promotion, and may I please humbly thank you all here for giving me a safe space to work on this without being called a total nob. 

But, seriously, feedback is invited. Let me know if I messed up the website, if you don't like the shirt, if something misses the mark. Thanks - your community is appreciated.

On 03/03/2022 at 02:16, Catteeclan said:

That's a lot of machining for $10.

Thailand!