Hello tourers....and Alpacas!
Riding out through the somerset countryside on the way back from Chedda where we came across some sort of car show in the gorge looked like the British version of the Mille Miglia race in Italy, together with the hot sunshine fantastic roads my love by my side and having just spent a fantastic evening with friends I had a great weekend and now want to get back on the road as soon as possible....the riding was great and a good little taster of what is to come,bring on the Welsh tour!

Goodbye the beast..

Goodbye to the Firestorm which was finally sold yesterday. Many happy miles and memories on it, but it's nice to have some money to spend on getting the new bikes serviced and kitted out a bit now...

A few pics from the weekend.

  

Just a couple of photos of my newest obsession...

The last few day's...

It has been all go at secret cottage central!...every evening we've made the most of the cracking weather we've had and have stripped the bikes down done some basic tarting up of our machines :) it's really making a difference....Just to share something that made me smile the other day, came home to find the back garden had turned into our spray shop, bit's of motorcycle hanging from the trees and a grin as wide as the seven bridge (the new one) on Marks face....I love to see a happy face when I get home, especially when it's marks! .....I quickly joined in and the two of us have been greese monkey's every evening since :) bikes are about to look fantastic and looking forward to our first camping trip this weekend in somerset, not that far but going to a friends birthday so will have great fun meeting some new people and enjoying good time and food together right near chedda resivoir.

Restoration Begins..

Well the Transalp purchase all went very smoothly, the biggest glitch being that the guy I was buying off had a KTM and was heading to Africa in october, so we ended up chatting until it was sunset and I had to ride home in the dark.  Those heated hand grips were put to the test straight away (and passed admirably).

Turns out the seller was a bike mechanic, the bike hums very sweetly and comes with more paperwork and services than I've ever seen before, so happy days...  

Spent quite a bit of sunday dismantling it, taking off the parts I want to clean & respray.  Washing, lubricating or ACF-50'ing the rest.  Everything all looks good with only a couple of bolts around the exhaust being especially corroded.  Will see if Halfords can colour match the paint later and have a go at making the fairing scratches a bit prettier.

First impressions from the first 100 miles:  it rides great, very smooth, great gearbox and comfortable position.  Lights are excellent at night, Honda grips work well and Givi Maxia top box has already proved worth it's weight in gold.  Minor niggles: choke is a bit fiddly and it feels a bit harsh running the engine at 5000rpm @ 70mph.  Might think about replacing the rear sprocket with a couple less teeth.  Overall though I am very happy with it and feel like I've bought a great bike.  A full service at the end of the month will hopefully comfirm that!

P's beemer takes another scrub and a dose of ACF-50.

3rd Bike Lucky...

My iPhone has proved handy already, with a notification popping up last night that a Transalp I was watching on eBay was ending soon!  Nice.  A pea-green goldy metallic colour, 2000.  A little older than others I've been looking at, but with only 11,000 miles on the clock, excellent mechanical condition, apparently decent seller and with a big old scuff on the right side fairing keeping the bidding low, it looked interesting.  

Having not sold my bike yet I wasn't really looking to buy a bike yet, but with the potential to not have to use the full budget the opportunity presented itself and I won the bidding, well under budget, with one of those annoyingly evil last-20-seconds bids!  Hoorah!

Now at this point I become a strange mix of excited and bitterly sceptical.  With 2 previous failed attempts at giving my money away on previously won eBay Transalps, I find myself in a kind of limbo, unable to pass through to a higher plane of excitedness until I have finally got the bike home and it is sat next the P's yellow Beemer.  Will pick it up this week at some point, so only time will tell...

As you can see in the pic, comes with nice big Givi top box and engine crash bars.  Scuff is visible too from this angle.  

Communications Breakdown

We appear to have made several steps towards global touring domination this weekend with a flurry of deliveries appearing!   Arriving home thursday already buzzing in anticipation for the long Easter weekend, to find a pile of deliveries had (finally) arrived!  First off my O2 iPhone 3G that I plan to trial Sat Nav apps on and which will provide very handy weather, map and internet access.  Navigon looks to be the Sat Nav app of choice, with pre-stored Europe maps available and good reviews.  It would be nice to trial it before dishing out £42, but I'm still working on that..

Second was a pair of Cobra MT975 PMR radios with a max range of 12km, along with Pama KM100 helmet mic/headphones.  Disregarding the manuals we finally figured which buttons do what and proceeded to fulfil childhood dreams of walky-talky practice down to the garden!  With a little more composure and figuring out how to run the cables we headed out on sunday to trial them on a bimble to the south.  Once we sorted out the best PTT button location and that buffs tend to make you sound like your being suffocated in a cardboard box, they worked great.  We've not done any distance testing, but the ability to communicate is going to be invaluable.  (Will do a proper review once we've used for a bit).

Last but not least was a mysterious envelope all the way from California USA?!   Some surprise custom photoshopped bumper stickers for this years planned Cornwall Tour to whack on the panniers!   Why the USA?  No idea, ordered them online for decent price, so considering they already toured half the planet to get here, quite reasonable!  Maybe one day they will return home!  

ONE OUT ONE IN.....

Goodbye to the wonderful Doris, she has been a great fun friend for 3 years and there was a tear or two as she dissapeared down the road....I will miss the roar of all those cylinders and the sound of that lovely exhaust can...we did the wootten bassett run before she went though so happy days, hope she enjoys sunny newport! x

Hello to the yellowest bike I have ever seen.....bee the BMW f650GS! 2004, 13,000 on the clock, as new, heated grips...wind shield, man I dont know what's hit me....she was so cosy to ride the 100 miles home when I picked her up I wanted to turn round and keep going :) just as well as were going to do a lot of miles together.......need to get Marks bike sold and new one now while I ponder over larger windshields, handguards, what sort of paniers to fit...touratech, metal mule and Ard case all have great looking stuff, not sure if I can afford it though also how do you work out what will be best suited to your needs without trying it?...........I need a tour manager!....oh need a good crash helmet too as mine has been dropped once too often now....need a good lottery win I think, excited though, cant beliieve I own this bike yet!