Grace (BikeHedonia)

Unstable legend or legendarily unstable?

See, you're a legend. Doing stupid stuff keeps you both young and legendary. Us grasshoppers need role models to look up to

I heard a rumour that the median age in this group is not that low, well I have no sympathy. I just spend a day in the jungle with a bunch of old men who throw themselves up cliffs every sunday for fun. Compete I cannot. Oh hell no. Learn, I will. I was going to add a video but apparently that format's not supported so you're just going to have settle for a photo and use your imagination. Anyway these guys are masters, not just of trials but enduro too. I have realised that I need these skills if I want to ride enduro with people who are bigger, stronger and longer of leg than me. Learning from an Japanese guy who's nearly 70, well, that's the day I don't get to complain about how everyone is bigger and stronger than me. These guys are legends.

Although I remember being told a story of new two stroke imports being banned in NSW decades ago because the power to weight ratio on this particular model was too crazy and too many young men were obliterating themselves. The model was just referred to as 'the widow maker' by the story teller.... I would like to know what model that actually was and if the story is true

Why is this all memories? Are you guys still allowed to run two-strokes in the UK/europe as long as they're vintage? I realise they would heartily fail all emissions standards

I love smell of two stroke in the morning...

Yes indeed, two smokers all the way! I didn't know what I was missing

One and half... I should have bought an NSR the moment I arrived but I wasted about a year thinking that the pandemic would be over soon and I'd be back on the Kato in Cambodia. Haha well. We live and learn.

Knee deep in covid. Land borders still closed, Laos and Cambo still closed. Thailand "opened" to visitors by air as of today. I still can't get to my KTM so I'm playing with two strokes in the meantime...

Doing great, just riding motorbikes and hiding from covid in the Thai jungle. Not dead yet. Cheers mate

Come on, show me your two stroke road bikes. Does anyone still have one?? I just dropped $180 on an NSR150RR. It needs some TLC (read, total restoration) but it's going to be a cracker. Can I hit 180kph with $180? A question which remains to be answered. Anyway if you know anything about NSRs please say hi, I'm going to need to crowd source plenty of advice on this restoration journey...

What kind of things went wrong on your last trip?

Many enthusiastic people here in Cambodia, but not so many with the special plug to remap a 690 Enduro, I fear.

Yeah I think I'm the only peasant still running a stock exhaust. Would have loved to have been able to afford the weight reduction and heat reduction of an akro or wings but I don't have the spare cash. I keep asking people for information about decatting and they just tell me to spend money I don't have ? I'll check out that forum, thank you!

I know that Wings make a de-catted exhaust that doesn't require remapping. Do you have any idea what are they doing differently to compensate? And whether I might be able to emulate that with some modification?

I need to reduce the temperature of the exhaust system on my 2012 KTM 690 Enduro so that I can run rackless luggage. The 690 with stock exhaust generates an insane amount of heat which exceeds the specs of standard heat shields. So one option is to engineer a Mad Max style heavy duty heat shield. Another is option is to get an aftermarket exhaust, which I would have done a long time ago if I had the cash, but I don't. The final option I'm looking at is removing the catalytic converter from my stock exhaust - and that last option is what I'd appreciate input on. Has anyone removed the cat from a 690 enduro stock exhaust and actually run the bike after?? If so, I would love to hear from you, because what I really want to know is whether I'll need to remap. The bike is far, far away from a KTM dealer who can remap it for me, so if I pull out the catalytic converter and the bike doesn't run properly, I'm toast. So I'm seeking a definite answer rather than best guesses on this one. I found one guy who pulled the cat out of the stock exhaust but he then never ran the bike with that exhaust (this dude: http://690enduror.blogspot.com/2014/11/decatting-690-enduro-r-stock-exhaust.html ). I found another guy over on advrider in a posting from 2014, "dogday", who not only pulled the cat out but also did some further remodeling of the baffles etc, which muddies the waters somewhat (I don't know if he had to remap and he seems to have disappeared off the forum). If there's information out there that I've missed, please point me in the right direction! Thanks!

It's not so bad really. Being forced back to a place where I hold citizenship would be worse - I can only afford to ride motorbikes and live like a shiftless hobo in the developing world.

Yeah I think the supercharger was 100 baht, so just over $3. Why not indeed

I don't understand, KLR parts don't break??

Well coronavirus has definitely crashed the party for 2020 - most of us are facing various restrictions that are getting in the way of our epic ride plans ride now. But what about the people caught out in the middle of it - halfway through an epic ride you can't get home from? My friends over at Mad or Nomad have compiled the stories of a whole bunch of rtw travelers who've been caught out - where they are now, how they're managing. If you're stuck at home with a cup of tea, it's an interesting little read. https://www.madornomad.com/motorcycle-travellers-trapped-by-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR0EyKgX5nWSxlEiiMUj60VCm9HM8jFR0yYLh5pwpKL1nWBAdpLGrb6jHfw I found the different perspectives really interesting - we're all "adventurers" of some kind, but some people are more chill about this sort of thing others!

Thanks so much for the analysis, that's interesting. I will ask him how the low to mid range feels now. I was wondering on what basis he'd calculated the sprocket sizes and ratios - was wondering whether he was using math or guesswork, but my Thai is not so good. There's a lot of practical mechanical creativity here in Thailand but not so many people have the opportunity to access really good technical training to understand the principles behind it all, so you end up with a lot of trial and error. And some wild modifications! As you say, full marks for spunk.

Yes I'm frankly terrified of it. Do you see in the video how the chain shimmies as the revs drop? I made sure not to stand in front or behind the bike in case it goes flying off like a missile... My friend assures me he's going to put a proper cover on it...

Sure is.

What is the most off-the-hook modification you've ever made to a motorcycle? And DID IT WORK? I have been reflecting on this since I saw my friend's lockdown project. Business has been dead under covid19, so he's been using the spare time to solve the main problem he was having with his scooter - lack of power. First he put in a carb jet from a TZR, but something more was needed. A supercharger, perhaps? Um yes, that's a supercharger off a Subaru. See the red steel pipe? Well at first he used radiator hose but the suction created by the supercharger was so great that the radiator hose collapsed in on itself. No problem - just use steel. Nobody was harmed in the modification of this scooter (yet). Coming soon to a drag race on a Chiang Mai superhighway near you...

I remember someone asking him, "was racing Dakar hard?" and he laughed and said no - because all he had to do was ride. In fact, it was the only race event where he actually put ON weight (from all the Argentine barbecues he would stop at between the end of the stage and the bivouac point). The thing that made it easy was having a support team to do the maintenance and logistics. "No, Dakar wasn't hard," he said. "Not compared to all those years racing small enduro eventus in New Zealand every weekend - you'd drive down on Friday night, race Saturday and Sunday, work on the bikes on Saturday night, and drive back on Sunday night, and then get up on Monday morning and go and do your real job. That was hard." So, kudos to him for having put in the hard yards to get to a place where he gets to ride motorbikes for a living, and for being a nice bloke too.