Calne Bike Meet

Plenty of beards and chrome on display again at Calne bike meet last weekend. Had another nice chat with the wrinklies from Horizons Unlimited community (their nickname not ours!) and soaked up the atmosphere and a pint or two in the Sun.

The Morocco countdown keeps going down relentlessly fast, but it almost feels like we're getting things sorted. Still soo many things to do on the list though! This time next month it'll be getting seriously exciting.

Started getting some names down on our sponsorship forms already, which I reckon must be approaching the thick end of £500 total. Thank you very much to everyone who has donated, but can you all please leave out the comments about thinking we are mad or "rather you than me", "you're going to get robbed and trampled by camels" haha!

If you want to donate our website is hosted on the MS Society here:

http://beatms.mssociety.org.uk/netcommunity/Melksham2Marrakesh

As far as preparations - we got a few more adaptors and chargers (bloody technology!) and making sure all the paperwork is sorted, no thanks to Carol Nash that have been a nightmare messing up our insurance details and paperwork several times.

The only bike maintenance still to go is an oil change and front brake rebuild on the Transalp, which I've got all the bits for and will get done sometime soon. Then we'll be in the lap of the BMW and Honda reliability Gods...

- Mark

Grease Monkeys

	Was time for some DIY bike maintenance this week, with a box full of parts from the interweb, a Haynes manual, some spray paint and a mates empty garage available to invade we set about sorting out some of our final bike issues and Operation Blackfork was set into motion ..
	Paula highlighting the shoddy BMW flakey paint on her front forks. Clearly not spiffing at all. Time for a jolly good ol' bit of painting..

Ze forks get a few coats of Waffen SS black.
Time to give the Transalp some attention and re-solder my heated grip connections - obviously a completely crucial accessory for riding the Sahara desert!

Turning Robs immacualte garage into a make shift Messerschmitt hangar. We replaced the seal on the left fork, after the required brute force removal technique, re-sprayed the tubes satin black and re-assembled them with a total in-effeciency that the Luftwaffe would have scoffed at, but fuelled on tea, biscuits, BBQ and a British willpower to succeed against all odds we got the job done.

We also took the oportunity to upgrade the flacid black gunge that the last mechanics had filled the forks with for Rock-oil 10 weight oil, which instantly made a huge difference. A pair of £20 gaiters went on too, to finish off the job Jerry hadn't bothered to do back in Deutschland and the whole thing looked and felt a thousand times better.

Lots of thanks go to Rob for his duties above and beyond by cleaning the bike in our absense and refreshing the tyre paintwork. Also his family for putting up with our own little German invasion.



The final assembled black front end, complete with gaiters, stealth BMW logos, go faster chevrons, Puig touring screen and aluminium chainguard. Looking good!

My bikes flew through it's MoT on wednesday, with an advisory on siezing front brakes - which I already knew and had an effort at clearing a while back. So as far as the bikes are concerned it's just an oil change and front brake rebuild for the TA and we're ready to go! - Mark

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Oh my god, I just looked at our countdown calender and it says 55 YES I did say 55 days to go...AHHHHHAHHHAHAHHH!!!

Think were just about ready...

Passport - check
Insurance - check ( after three calls as the first quote was for £316 )   O.o   second said no bike repatriation from Morocco O.O  lol Mmmmam I supposed to carry the bike to the ferry? third time lucky and got a girl who could do her job :)
green card - check
bungees - check
NEW ALTBERG BOOTS! - check....wooowhhooooooo! I will never need another pair of boots with these being a bike boot and walking boot hybrid....so cosy...

just ordered a new camera bag - check....my lowepro slingshot is just too big to lug around so found a lovely smaller bag that doesn't scream camera bag steal kit here!

I'm sure there is also a pocket big enough for some choice snacks :)





Have been fundraising for the MS society this week and have managed to collect £300 worth of names so far so thank everyone! our page is to be found HERE if you fancy adding to that ;)

Mark has taken delivery of the bargain lid he won on EBay...I would post a picture but I wont bother because all you have to do is look at the post about mine....it's the same lid,,,so now we are the Sahara bobsled team..lol,lol,lol....that said they are good lids and he got his for £60 less than I payed for mine so happy days. So a wealth of goods to sort out and boots to stretch out things are coming on well...will start to post a few prep bits on the facebook pace soon to get that rolling before we roll..you will find that Here if that link doesn't work for any reason type ( 2 wheels to the Sahara ) in facebook and you will find us there. Next on the list.....Fork swap out (deep joy)...not!

 XP

Pit crew!

Well were pit crew in training...lol my wheel was easy to remove BUT tyre was a pain in the rear to get off and after much gnashing of teeth and bashed knuckles we took it to the garage before I ruined my rims totally! Nice to know I'm riding such a sturdy beast but I pray to the god of roadside maintenance I never have to do it on the move......

Great TT this year....hope to go sometime soon :)

New tubes

Good effort Guy Martin in the TT, great win John McGuinness, brilliant racing.

Attemted our first inner tube changes on the bikes today, since my valve bust off and Paula had her puncture. Back wheels off in a flash thanks to the wonders of center stands, nice neat 30mm nail pulled out, but the rear tyre on the F650 was a real ****er to get off the rim, so we resigned ourselves to being inept grease monkeys and gave up.

Moved onto the Transalp wheel and with a bit of swearing, grunting and carefully applied brute force we had the tube out and replaced with relatively little hassle. Back on the bike, inflated - sorted. Didn't even pinch the tube like a proper rookie should.

Does make me wonder what BMW are playing at by welding their tyres onto the rims .. oh no, I just figured it out - "please contact your nearest BMW dealer to change the inner tube". Yeah right. We did however, content with our 50% success rate, chuck it in the local - (non-BMW certified) - bike shop for pick up monday (since they were just shutting up shop).

Hopefully the recently purchased Ultraseal will do the trick and avoid the whole road-side puncture fixing drama anyway, but we'll see. Was good fun being out in the sun getting the hands greasy anyway .. note to self - Scottoiler needs some kind of shut off valve.

- Mark

All change please..

Spent a couple of hours at the local Bike Safe event at Castle Combe saturday, was a pleasant enough wander around chuckling at the stunt rider having a few glitches in his performance etc. Then we made the mistake of finding an Ultraseal vendor and had a discussion on the pros and cons of using it. I've pretty much made my mind up that I want to try it and make my own mind up, but decided not to buy on the day..

Sods law: The physical form of ironic bad luck in relation to ones actions or inaction.

.. so Paula got a rear puncture at some point. Bugger!

So with my knackered valve, that's both bikes in need of a tube change/repair now. I can feel a forced tyre removal practice session is on the cards this week then. No problems, I been watching the TT pitstops.. how long can it take?!

D-day -100 encounting..

Getting bleedin closer all the time now...