One sleep to go ....

A slightly manic few days as time moves ever forwards and the months of planning become a distant memory, to be replaced by a sort of calm inevitability coupled with episides of blind panic!

What have I been doing on my last full day in the UK?

It started with a nice bit of methodical packing, a place for everything and everything in its place, that sort of thing. Sarge would be proud ;-)

Then I decided to cut the grass, followed closely by fitting a new set of brake pads that had just arrived to the Tiger, the old ones being wrapped in tin foil & added to the spares box in pannier 2.

Then it was back to packing, tank bag this time, with pride of place going to the lovely leather bound journal that my better half had presented me with - for when the technology breaks down or just doesnt cut the mustard.

Next on the list was putting some mirrors that we had brought back with us from Asia up on the walls, such a varied last day this has been!

Finally as darkness fell, we sat down for a lovely fish supper and then settled in front of the TV to watch 'The Kings Speech'.

What do you have to drink when you are just about to set off riding 21000km to Thailand? ... That's easy...

Cheers!

 

A mini adventure with Trailquest

I had taken quite a few short excursions off road on my Bonneville whilst on day or week trips in Thailand, but the Bonnie is a low, easily managable bike and I was always travelling very light.   The big trip will present much bigger challenges with a bigger bike & lots of lugggage. Time for some training to learn some of the basic skills for handling a big heavy bike on rough terrain.

There are a few organisations around in the UK that do this, I picked Trailquest, based near Hereford on the welsh borders.  They use Triumph Tigers for the training, so spot on the mark in my case.

I did an inital one day course with them in April enjoyed it immensley & found it very helpful. Most of the day was on one of their bikes, but the last hour was on mine, so I got a feel for the difference of a loaded bike as I had my panniers on.

I booked a second day, a 'mini adventure', in the hills & woodland near Leominster, to consolidate the learning, take it on a bit further and test my final bike setup. That day was today and I decided to do it all on my own bike, fully loaded.

So yesterday I packed my gear and headed off to spend a night camping under the stars, on a nice little site near Mortimers Cross.

This particular site had a few resident cute animals who managed to wake me up a few times in the night with their munching!


 

The training day itself was great fun and again very instructive - Richard & his team there run a very professional operation.

The format is basically to look at a particular challenge along the route, discuss how to tackle it, follow him doing it, then repeat alone until confident.

Once the different sections have been mastered then its time to do the full course with the trainer following to pick up the pieces.

I had a few hairy moments on wet grass/muddy ruts which would have made Torvill & Dean proud, but managed to stay on the bike throughout.

At the end of the day I was pretty wacked, but in a good way & rode the 2 hours home with a renewed confidence in my & my trusty steed's capabilities.

Job done!

Experiential Learning!

One of the things that had been playing on my mind was having to deal with punctures in the middle of nowhere.  So I decided that I should practice changing a set of tyres in the relative comfort of my own garage to see if I could actually do it!

I was also shortly to go on my second off road training day, and learning from last time, I needed to fit some more suitable tyres. Kill 2 birds with one stone, I thought - how hard can it be, after all? I was about to find out ....

Starting with the 'easier' front thre and removing the wheel, my confidence was high.

Getting the old tyre off was not too bad, but it was quite a struggle getting the new one fitted, the sidewalls were stiffer than I expected ... First inklings that the rear might be a problem emerged ...

Anyway, front refitted I proceeded to remove the rear wheel - a bit more tricky this one, due to sprockets, chains etc but before too long it was off.

My first attempt at removing the front was using the zip tie method that looks so simple on you tube - didnt work for me, I found it easier to take it off the normal way with tyre irons.

So i started the back tyre the same way, but couldnt get the second side over the lip, then I tried using the zip ties to reduce the diameter, but that didnt really help. Much lubricating, shoving and heaving later it finally came off the traditional way.

So all that remained was to fit the new tyre.  

Although the sidewalls were very stiff I got the first side on relatively easily and tube in OK.  Try as I might, however,  I just couldnt get the second side over the rim. The absence of photos of this part are due to my growing frustration, several cuts & bruises and focus on the job .....

After 2 hours I finally gave up, jumped in the car with the half fitted wheel & popped into the local tyre shop to have it put on with their machine!  Somewhat dejectidly, I came back home & refitted the wheel, chain, brakes & abs all ok.

So what I have I learned?   I can remove, repair & refit a font tyre on the side of the road if necessary.  The rear I can remove & repair but not refit .... Bit of an issue if I get a rear puncture in somewhere remote .... No immediate solution, but at least I know now.

Experiental learning complete!

Time out for a world record!

Sunday 19th was Staffordshire bike show, arranged and sponsored by the guys at Staffordshire Triumph (a great dealership by the way).  Apart from the many events on at the show, they had arranged a Guinness World Record attempt - to have the most Triumph motorcycles in a parade!

So I met up with my brother in law Mick (who also rides a Tiger) and we set off for the Britannia Stadium at 7:30 am on a Sunday- in heavy rain of course :-( .... who say's we're not dedicated!

It looked like most of the 450+ who applied had turned up.  So at 9am, to the resounding cacophony of 400 growling tigers, off we all went ... luckily just as the sun started to break through.

It will be another few weeks before Guinness have verified the record from all the video footage, but fingers crossed.