I haven’t posted for a while despite several local rides since our Northumberland and Borders trip. It’s been a busy few months and we were lucky enough to get a trip away to Madeira in August - what great decision! A ‘green’ list country perfect for us with great restaurants, wonderful friendly people and the opportunity to get up into the mountains with some off road driving into the wilderness. On our return some family events allowing us to all get together again at last and to top it all two fantastic nights out at long awaited gigs we had tickets for pre-Covid to see Genesis on ‘the last Domino?’ followed a few days later with the wonderful Paloma Faith. I really do believe, though cautiously, we have ‘turned a corner’ with Covid now.
Last Sunday myself and Mark met at ‘Dom’s Bike Stop Cafe’ in Leominster and it was good to see full of bikes with mask free kindred spirits just enjoying the early Autumn sunshine back to having a bikers ‘brekky’ and chat again. While waiting for Mark I had a light breakfast with Andy who’d just collected his brand new Yamaha Tenere 700 only the day before, having recently passed his bike test. It was good to feel his enthusiasm for the ride and hear his plans to get out and adventure. I’m really looking forward to getting across the water next year, since it’s been a few years now. I somehow think we’ll be seeing Andy again too and maybe meet up for some ride outs into Wales.
For this Sunday, Mark and I spent most of the day winding our way through Herefordshire picking up some back road country lanes and alternative roads out across the border into Wales and South West into the Wye Valley. A brief stop at Skenfrith Castle, I do enjoy riding those roads around Pontrilas and Abbeydore and eventually we came down almost as far as Chepstow before winding back up through Monmouth with a brief stop to take advantage of a queue-less petrol station and fill up while we can on these ‘panic’ buying days before passing Tintern Abbey and then taking the backroads to Hereford before peeling off towards Bromyard. A good selection of roads today, on a warm sunny afternoon, passing through some tiny villages and having some fun in between them along the twisties. A good days ride with Mark I must say, to set my appetite up nicely for my home made Cassoulet later. Hopefully, weather permitting, we’ll get a few more in before Winter too.
A few great days was spent touring Northumberland and the Scottish Borders with Mark recently. We both agreed on a four day, long weekend trip up North so I started researching a few routes found in ABR and the Simon Weir Biking Britain book and decided to meet up on the Thursday night at the very friendly Redwell Inn in Barnard Castle. I was first to arrive with an afternoon spent riding through the Peak District, stopping just past Bakewell en-route. Mark arrived about 8.15 following a fast route up via Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales. It was a hot days ride for both of us, however a few beers while waiting for him then a few more afterwards saw us grab a Pizza and more drinks to follow in the bar chatting to the bar staff. The following morning after a hearty breakfast we took the pre-planned route up through the North Pennines, Kielder Forest and on to the Otterburn ranges through the Northumberland National Park to Alnwick and up to Berwick upon Tweed for the second night stopover.
A visit to Hadrians Wall was a must, so we met the A69 near Haltwhistle following the Wall to a stop and view at Steel Rigg to get up close to a section with some magnificent views as it winds its way over the hillside. On the way we linked up with a few other GS riders and tagged on to their convoy before leaving them at a junction to wave and go our separate ways.
Our next intended route was to take in the Kielder Forest Trail, a gravel 12 mile section through the forest that was fun. It's not too challenging, mostly gravel chippings but following Mark, myself and my GS were soon covered in a fine powdery dust. The scenery was spectacular and the ride to and from the trail through the forest is a good fast road with quite a few twisties. I thoroughly recommend the trail, it is a toll route costing a few quid but well worth it.
Alnwick was our next stop after riding along the Otterburn Ranges out to the picturesque village of Elsdon. I seem to recall us following some scenic moorland too before stopping at the Castle, otherwise known as Hogwarts School from the Harry Potter movies.
Later in the afternoon we took the steady coastal road up through the seaside town of Seahouses with the wonderful Bamburgh Castle on the horizon looking magnificent overlooking the sea from up high. Another short stop and walk out across the cricket pitch took us to the beach. Excellent sand and a great stretch of coast too.
At Berwick we stayed at the very nice Kings Arms Hotel. Ideal for bikes with an alleyway around to a convenient parking spot just outside the main doors. A quick wash and brush up and we were soon out for an evening meal seated outside in the sun at Limoncello, a really popular Italian Restaurant for some Mediterranean Fayre and Cocktails. A few more beers later and we ended up spending the rest of the night drinking Newcastle Brown Ale in a local night club watching the locals having their fun and games on the dance floor before getting back to the Kings Arms around 3 am knowing full well we would both pay for it in the morning!
Another Full Breakfast and much in fear of putting back on the three stone I'd lost over last Autumn/Winter we took a slight southerly route across to Holy Island, otherwise known as Lindisfarne riding the bikes over the tidal causeway. There’s a window of opportunity before being closed off from the mainland at around 1.30pm so we changed into shorts and ditched the bike gear to take a quick hike up near the monastery for a view out to sea before leaving the island crossing the border into Scotland and taking the mountain route across Dumfries and Galloway.
An afternoon stop near St Mary's Loch at this Reservoir we found one of the largest man made dams in the UK and quite impressive. A few people were wild camped on the shore and later as we rode through the amazing Border country scenery we saw whole families wild camped along the rivers edge, caravans, tents an motor homes galore. You could tell lock down rules had just been lifted that weekend and with the good weather they had all hit the road with the free to wild camp rules in mind as is permissible in Scotland.
We stayed the night at the Rivendell B&B in Dumfries, another excellent place with bike safe parking. Nice spacious rooms followed by a walk down in to Dumfries town to try and find a decent Indian Restaurant. The one we did find was ok, but mad crazy service, not the best Jalfreizi but a few pints of Cobra after a stint in the local Weatherspoons hit the spot. Our chosen route was through Alston just past Scotch Corner into the Dales stopping briefly at the car park above with a little thought and strategy on how we could avoid the number plate recognition camera on the way out as we realised we had been there longer than the 20 minute grace period and could be charged £100 fine. Before cutting South East across to ride that twisty Helmsley run and on to Beverley we stopped for a great lunch at an Italian Cafe 'Uno Memneto' in Stokesley where I was served an amazing cheese omelette with some amazing chips. The chips are off my diet these days so I did wonder if they just tasted great because I hadn't had any for a while, but no they were really that good. If you are in Stokesley you must visit the Cafe. Great part of the world but today seemed busy on the road with plenty of tractors in the 23 degree heat meant by the time we got to the Holiday Inn in Hull via the road work diversions I was well tired but after a shower I was back in action ready for us to meet Alex for another good night on the town to include a Gin bar and real ale pubs with burger in the Weatherspoons. Good to meet Alex, and a fun night out.
The following morning after a ride down to Barton upon Humber we both grabbed another Full Breakfast at the nature reserve and discovery centre right on the banks of the Humber overlooking the estuary we tracked south across the wonderful Lincolnshire Wolds to a lunch stop in Grantham before heading down to Melton Mowbray. Unfortunately the ride home wasn't that good, being a Monday it was congested with tractors and trucks and my dash showing a temperature of 26 degrees at times it was quite arduous and I was pleased to arrive home tired and well cooked at around 6pm. However, all in all this was a great trip and really do recommend the North East, Northumberland for roads and scenery is sublime. The Border country of D&G is often ignored while racing to get to the Highlands so this trip was great to explore some more and get some long overdue touring adventure riding in too.
So recently the relay went faulty on my SW Motech Evo fog/running lights. I bought the LED lights with integral relay switch and wiring loom for my twin cam GS back in 2014 and since then transferred them to both LC GS’s. The relay was firing off the back of the accessory socket on the LC GS’s, this is at the front of the bike near the TFT and since the bike was under warranty meant I couldn’t get the relay positioned under the seat without cutting into the bikes wiring loom. Instead, back then I opted to tuck the relay under the ‘beak’ and use a clamp connector on the nearby accessory socket.
Unfortunately, despite going to great lengths to wrap the relay in plastic some water still penetrated over time and the relay developed a current leak that drained the battery. A cheap fix would have been to rewire the light loom and replace with a new relay, but it still meant I had to cut into the bikes CanBUS system somewhere and risk invalidating the warranty. The most expensive solution for this would be to just go out and buy the BMW OEM fog lights and replace everything, but at £500 fitted by the dealer and knowing my lights worked perfectly well I started looking at other alternatives that allowed me to reuse the Evo lights and keep the Denali aftermarket light bar mount too.
The solution I chose in the end was to buy the Hex ezCAN device from Nippy Normans (£160). This small water resistant device not much bigger than an old style USB pen drive has four 10A output circuits designed for a variety of accessories and couples into the bikes CanBUS system without the need to cut cables and invalidate the bikes warranty. On the GS the coupling is via the RDC unit .. the Tyre pressure monitoring system under the pillion seat. Basically, you plug the ezCAN into the RDC unit and the original RDC plug connects to the ezCAN putting the device in series. Therefore, the CanBUS system has now been extended. You use software loaded onto a laptop to plug in via a micro USB connection to control and set each of the circuits to include the software ‘fuse’ ratings. By calculating the current draw from the lights total Watt value using ohms law I set up the red circuit for the lights. My lights are 15W each so, 30W / 12v = 2.5A. You need to add about 30% to allow initial spike in current at switch on so I chose to round up to a 3A limit. The unit can handle current spikes for the first second so this was adequate and works really well. I cut the relay and the handle bar switch out of the SW Motech wiring loom altogether, and extended the loom a little back to the ezCAN unit under the pillion seat by soldering additional wire on and sealing up with heat shrink sleeving. I retained the SW Motech waterproof connectors for the lights yet no longer need the handlebar switch to turn the lights on or off (as explained later) so no need to run cables around the handlebar anymore. The whole wiring exercise is much neater now with better weather protection.
I’m really impressed with the ezCAN unit, and CANBus itself. The lights can be programmed via the software to dim down at night and have two separate brightness levels, one for daylight running and nighttime. They are no longer simply on full for each. To switch current on or off the unit is programmed to use different existing switches on the bike e.g. for the red circuit I used for the lights the indicator switch cancel operation is reused so when pressed and held for 3 seconds toggles the lights on or off. Obviously there is no visual clue when riding (the indicator switch doesn’t light up) but the unit remembers the last state when the ignition is switched off so most of the time I ride with running lights on anyway. One simple option for the future would be to add a 10k resistor with small LED into the wiring loom as a visual clue near the front beak so I could look in and see if the circuit is live. It’s also possible to program the circuit to pulse when the horn is pushed causing the lights to flash as the horn sounds. Another programming option is to turn off the running lights when indicating in order to make the indicator light more visible to other road users.
A great product that works really well and made in the UK. I’m now looking to connect up other accessories e.g. wire my GoPro power, Phone and maybe buy a Denali Sound Bomb horn too
