King Offa - did he have the right idea?

At last I have a free weekend and the sun was shining on Saturday. A quick call to Lindsay, and we were offa to Knighton on the Shropshire/Powys border. I decided to plot a route on my new Garmin 390 - directly on the unit itself instead of using Tyre or Basecamp. We took a route via Much Wenlock/Craven Arms/ and headed toward Welshpool/Newtown leaving the 390 to correct us until we curved back through Clun and down to Knighton. Saw a few other bikes out today, one group in hi-viz jackets were really on it, could only just catch up with them before losing them later in a cloud of dust.

With the EU Referendum debate raging on about us restricting migration, and all the other good reasons to come out of the EU, my thoughts turned to King Offa, who is reported to have had a similar idea in the 8th Century while trying to protect 'Mercia' from invaders coming from the West. He built a great mound of earth across the border between what is now England and Wales.    

Find out more about King Offa and his Dyke here Offas Dyke

We had a bite to eat in an odd but very pleasant bookshop/cafe I only wish I had taken the name of. 

[ update .. Here's a pic of the tea room from Google streetview. Thanks Lindsay ] 

It seemed to us the waiter was a night club bouncer and most of the staff helping out were his customers. Definitely recommend it's in the high street. Nice chap doing the cooking . South African I think. 

Cheer up Lindsay ! He looks more like King (F)Offa in this pose !!

Really pleased with the new Garmin 390LM, the trac-back, where have I been feature good for tracking your past routes and saving back for later !

Good day out, and pleased to get on the twisties of the Welsh Marches again.

La comida ... er ... el chorizo ?

As my thoughts turn to riding the Spanish Pico's with Lindsay last year, I can't wait to get on the GS as soon as the weather warms again.

Can't beat the Spanish diet either a MASSIVE pizza, some Tapas or a Paella for one. 

Happy Days !!   

Exhaust Flap - Clean and Adjust

Last year I had a sticky exhaust flap on the GS where the symptoms were a squeak from the central pivot as it was seizing up and struggling to operate . This happened when the ignition switch was turned on, I was worried the flap would close shut - thus blocking exhaust while in Spain. BMW (Blade Motorrad of Bromsgrove) wanted near £300 for a new flap fitted with labour so I decided to have a go at freeing it up myself first.

I took the flap off by removing the silencer via the clamp bolt then unscrewed the other clamp bolt to remove the flap by slackening off the Bowden cables. I took care in noting the position (angle) of the flap unit relative to the cables so as to ensure I didn't re-assemble and put extra strain on the cables by not having them in the optimal location.  Also noted which cable went where (front and back - or push and pull) before I unhooked them from the inner wheel.

Once removed, it was obviously 'stiff' and the butterfly valve required a good deal of force to close and then open. The valve is spring loaded and the spring was having no effect in opening the valve as it was too seized. The valve was seized in the open position so it may not have been an immediate problem - but better to try and fix I thought.

I used Mr Muscle to clean off most of the carbon, and then suspended the whole flap unit in a bowl of petrol overnight. Afterwards I was then able to close easily, and it only required a slight bit of pressure applied to 'flip' the flap open again.

I then re-fitted using the following instructions (click on the image to zoom to original size):

If the above doesn't work there is a 'blanking' tube available from Nippy Normans here. This is intended to in-fill the space the flap takes up. The flap is only required for noise control at lower revs. As I understand the additional noise is negligible. Instructions come with the tube explaining how to remove the associated solenoid unit too (the bit that drives the cables).

Jurassic World

With my GS recently serviced at 18k ( 3 yrs ownership and still lovin' it), new rear brake pads I planned a fun weekend riding around Wiltshire and Dorset with Mark. I finally got to visit Stonehenge en-route and ride the Jurassic Coast, had a good few beers (some not so good) a good curry and introduced Mark to the best Rock, pebbles and sand in the world LOL.

For pictures, write up and ride video - See Here

Upcoming Dorset Ride and Beer Festival

Accommodation sorted now, myself and Brayf' are getting ready for a weekend ride to Weymouth, taking in Corfe Castle, the Jurassic Coast, Chesil Beach, Cerne Abbas, and Stonhenge.

really looking forward to he Weymouth Oktoberfest beer festival:

Ride Blog to follow.

Ahh .... those Rolling Hills

Rolling Hills Ride Out

It was great to join up with the Rolling Hills at the OK Diner, Leominster on Saturday with Mark! A good days ride I must say.

Actually, purely coincidental that we were at the Diner just as they ride in. Quite funny considering I was a member a few years ago before I was nearly thrown out for coming up against the committee during a club 'move' period. That's all history now, since then I bought the GS and the days of endless processions are gone. Just fun rides, at a pace I enjoy, to places I choose to go now. But it was good to see them, I had a lot of fun with them back then, some very nice people, I wish them well. Couldn't resist looking up their club website only to find a photo including me on their ride report. Never thought I would end up on their ride report section again - LOL.

Good ride with Mark, who led the way most of the afternoon down to Crossgates then back up to Knighton on the sublime A483. This last week has been a difficult week, discovered an old mate from long ago (Gary Peplow) died in Spain while touring near Segovia. I credit him and his brother Dean with inspiring me into buying a Motorcycle all those years ago (1982 Suzuki GP 100) when I used to live in Bewdley - and I'm really glad they did. Getting up early on Sunday mornings going for a blast around Rock with Dean and and admiring Gary's success at Trials. Sadly, Dean also lost his life in a bike accident in Little Hereford 10 years ago, and it was fairly recently I saw Gary with his dad Graham (on his Ariel) and James his son at the Aviator in Shobden for the first time for a while, and they seemed to be coming to terms with losing Dean, even restoring Graham's Ariel in tribute to him as was explained an unfinished project of Deans.So, I cannot begin to imagine how devastating this must be for his parents Graham and Noreen and his own family.
My thoughts are with them all, I wish them well.

Kind of ironic, that while contemplating the wonderful times I have had riding Motorcycles, and if I should continue with the risk, bringing back with memories of Paul's fatal biking accident, the Rolling Hills should turn up to remind of the fun I have had over the years riding, the people I have met and the places I have been on bikes.

Thanks to Mark for leading the way, great to see him, and looking forward to a trip out with him again soon. Ride Safe.

RIP Gary and Dean.

Brecon Loop

Last Friday I received  an E-Mail from Lindsay suggesting a ride out one day over the weekend, the weather looking better for Saturday, though this changed throughout the weekend but the decision was made to meet up on Saturday at 9:00 am at Great Whitley. So early Saturday I downloaded a Ride mag route featured in AA Best Biker Routes of Britain called 'Brecon Loop'.

 After a short delay waiting for Lindsay to turn up (evidently been downloading the ride route to his GPS via PC), we set off for Shobden Airfield and  a Full English breakfast in the popular Hotspur Cafe. It was really busy today,usually we make a visit on a Sunday, but it seems Saturday is full of flight activity. Just managed to get a table and from where I sat could see the odd micro-light take off, and  a few private plane flights too. A couple of nice Triumph Tiger 800XCX (Adventure) models were parked outside, if I wasn't so hooked on my GS I reckon I would be visiting a Triumph dealer and taking one for a test ride, very nice looking bike I have to say - right up my street.

After breakfast and a few mugs of teas we headed out toward Prestiegne and Kington to begin riding the Brecon Loop. I re-arranged the route direction to start further north in a reverse direction, the idea being to get to the Beacons first in case of bad weather, and I wasn't sure of Lindsay's plans for the day (he often returns home early to build another shed!).

It's been a while since I have ridden on wet roads, and on this early Autumn morning our route out was quite wet, but mild enough apart from cool on the hands, steady riding taking care on the bends. We had our intercoms connected and commented on the crops ready for harvest i.e. Apple orchards and Hops as we headed out via Painscastle, Erwood and Three Cocks. The GPS route took us right into the centre of Talgarth, a bit confusing but remembering we were running the route in reverse it all made sense in the end, obviously this AA route was designed to stop for lunch there - no good to us while still digesting that huge breakfast (burp!).

A clear view of the Brecons as we briefly took the A479 from Talgarth, this road is twisty enough but couldn't do it full justice in damper conditions, before leaving the 479 onto the B4560. We twisted around Llangorse Lake, coming off the main road for a while through wonderful scenery, before taking the B45760 on to the Heads of the Valleys road toward Merthyr - the TomTom taking us via a housing estate, for some reason there was a Waypoint in the middle of a place called Rassau, the lesson here is to check the way-points - even if the route is downloaded from Ride or the AA !!

Llangorse Lake

The route now took us North-West up past Ponsticill and Talybont reservoirs. This was a fairly narrow B road, and was crowded with many runners coming in the other direction. It seemed we had chosen a road now in use for a Triathlon and had to take care, ride slow as they were coming down the valley on both sides of the road. With Lindsay following and on Intercom, I sensed a bit of frustration in his voice with the route I had chosen, the diversion around Rassau, and now these slow moving runners coming from all directions ahead of us.

After a nice twisty section through Talybont on Usk (following the River Usk), we stopped in Brecon Town, parking up on the path in the intersection before grabbing a drink at the Costa. Lindsay had quite an impressive 'Heart' placed in the froth on his coffee, perhaps the woman serving had a soft spot for him like the petrol station attendant in Leominster (more on that later).

Honddu River

Later we took a nice river valley route up through LLandefaelog following the river Honddu where Lindsay questioned the route and felt my TomTom was leading us in the wrong direction however, I was confident of it's purpose and pointed out the route on my tank-bag map was taking us through Lower Chapel and Upper Chapel to Buith Wells and back to Three Cocks and on to Leominster via Whitney on Wye. No worries I say, stay calm mate!

Lindsay - still not trusting the GPS route !

 The route home was only marred by a closed petrol station in Presteigne and my 50 mile warning flash up in Brecon. I banked on filling up in Builth or Prestiegne, but I guess settling for the latter was bad decision and Lindsay's comments were a clear sign he was getting irritated and stressed more than I about the situation, maybe because the mpg figures on his new V-Strom are superior to my GS, despite the GS giving a satisfactory 56 mpg.

I filled up in Leominster with a good 20 miles range, but unfortunately chose the first AND LAST ever  Morrisons supermarket petrol station I will ever use. I had heard of supermarkets expecting bikers to remove their helmets at the kiosk, but never experienced one before. I think this is intended as a security measure against robbers and thieves, but I object to being classed as a robber or thief just because I wear a helmet and ride a Motorcycle, ended up with a 'snotty' female attendant who rubbed me up the wrong way from the start, so until they make it an official Police state law to have me remove it, I will simply purchase my petrol elsewhere. I'm still kicking myself for not seeing their sign and jumping back on my bike and riding down to the old Bengry's garage near the traffic lights however I feared this would have upset Lindsay some more, so just as well I didn't as he didn't get accosted like I did for wearing a helmet. At least be consistent with your rules I say !

Bluetooth Intercom problem
While discussing over the BT Intercom headsets, Lindsay attempted an explanation of why when we travel faster, we start to lose comm's (or quality of comms is reduced). He came up with an explanation of why he thought this is the case where he felt that as we travelled faster, the signal could not reach each others headset in the same time-frame so we started getting drop-outs. I tried to explain that we communicate using a Bluetooth 'channel', where our voice is converted from Analogue signal to Digital signal and then applied to the 'channel' for transmission. The channel is kind of like a pipe (I used the hose-pipe analogy I was taught at Tech' College). This Pipe (Channel) would carry (by way of modulation) the voice data packets. Since we have a channel and modulation using radio frequency waves, both are travelling near the speed of light, and therefore our own travelling speed would not be the cause of the reduced quality. Here's a digram I drew in my head as an example of what I was trying to explain while on the move:

Bluetooth comms example

Even though our two chaps in the diagram are moving, the 'hosepipe' should remain connected regardless of our speed. So what is the explanation for the loss in signal quality ? I don't know the answer for sure, but my guess is Engine interference (electrical noise) as the speed increases on one or both bikes. There is a lot going on while riding a motorcycle subject to interference, one really quality weak area are the headsets themselves as they are Analogue - both prone to  interference feeding into the Analogue/Digital conversion process. Either way, an interesting conundrum nonetheless.

All in all, not a bad day out....just shy of 200 miles, though I do think my riding style does benefit these days from a more relaxed laid back mood.
Note to self: Try and avoid coming into contact with 'snotty/moody' people on a ride and all will be well with the world, ... oh and fill up when you can of course !!

Looking forward to seeking a ride out to another nature reserve soon!