Let the 'preppin' begin ....

With just 5 days to go before I set off, the time has come for some serious preparation to begin. I'm sure I was a lot earlier with this on the last trip, but maybe not.

So with a set of new tyres and brake pads delivered its 'off with them wheels' and a chance to see up close what riding through the British winter has done to the Tiger!

I knew those wooden blocks would come in handy

The last time I stripped the calipers and changed the brake pads was just before the trip to Thailand, when the bike was less than a year old with only 3000 miles of summer riding on the clock, needless to say all was clean & shiny.  

Now at 25,000 miles having ridden across the sands of central Asia, been submerged in a Thai flood and followed with 6 months of winter riding in the UK, things were looking a little different down there (oo-er Matron!)

The good news was the brake pads were only half worn - the advantage of long distance open road riding and not having to brake so often? Anyway they looked pretty 'manky' (a technical term) so I changed them anyway and set about cleaning the rest of the fittings.

That done it was time for the tyres ...

It was a similar story with the tyres, they actually did'nt need changing yet but wouldnt have made the planned 5000 miles and so best to do it now.

Incidentally for the 'tyre anorak's' among you the set being removed and the replacement are Continental TKC70's.  I put these on when I returned from Thailand (I used a combination of Mitas E07 & Continental TKC80 for that trip).  The TKC70's have been good tyres for my kind of riding and have done 6000 miles with probably still 1000 left on the rear and 3000 on the front.  The only issue has been the slightly uneven wear on the front knobbles, which is much talked about on t'internet but this hasn't affected performance at all.

Those of you who were tuned in for the last trip may recally I tried to fit tyres myself, in case I ever needed to do so in the road - fool! 

Now, older, wiser and with still vivid memories of the bruised knuckles, pulled muscles and swearing that accompanied that exercise, I opted instead for a trip to a local garage to give some cash to a man with a spinny, whizzy tyre changer thingy. I did initially feel quite satisfied to see two of them struggle to get the new tyres on, even machine assisted, but then remembered the little old Uzbek man who changed a tyre for me in Khiva at the side of the road with just his fingernails (or so it seemed) for about 50 pence and a smile!

Progress eh!