My first motorcycle trip – 2008 four nights in Germany

Monday 28th July 2008 Day 0 Cambridge to Harwich: Mileage on day 1: 68.7

A trace of the whole trip (plus some stray routes in the UK)
Just about to leave

After months of planning I finally sail from Harwich tonight over to the Hook of Holland and then the rest of the week biking in Germany around the Mosel area. I have spare lightbulbs, bandages and a folded triangle that sticks out the back of my luggage. Accommodation is booked and the daily rides are not ambitious – the first day is about 350k though and rain is forecast for tomorrow. I also have a Garmin GPS which I tried out on holiday in Spain last week and I have learnt that it can really help in situations where you are totally lost – though it did give a few odd directions, like the wrong way down a one way street. So baring breakdowns (I have Cover) and accidents things should go well. With a good book – Austerlitz by Sebald (in English) which I have lost – and a pack of Camel, this should be enjoyable.

At the last moment I bought a rain suit from Cambridge Motorcycles as a talisman that might stop it raining while I carry this around. Surprisingly it fits, rolled up, into the minimalist luggage I own. I leave the house at about 6.30pm and already my GPS is trying to send me on some bizarre route out of Cambridge and I ignore it for the first time on the holiday. I am headed for the 11.45pm ferry at Harwich. I have my trusty new Triumph tank bag and, strapped onto the passenger seat, my old two-story tank bag with my clothes, spare bulbs, padlock in case I ever want to leave my helmet with the bike and even the hazard triangle it seems you are meant to carry in Europe squeezed into it. I have a pair of Crocs and some food and water as well as documents in the front.

I started planning this short trip months ago. The first challenge was buying a bike that would not be a strain to ride at speed all day. Even driving down to London on the M11 and back on my old Bandit 600 left me with painful wrists as I tried to hold on against the raging Essex wind. After four months of investigating and looking on Ebay I bought this Triumph Sprint ST 955i with 3000 miles on the clock. Luggage was more challenging – or rather more expensive than I could afford, so hard luggage will have to wait. Instead I invested in a Garmin GPS as I realised without someone with a map on their lap in the passenger seat next to me, finding anywhere would involve endless stops by the curb and a huge amount of wasted time.

The ride takes me out of Cambridge over the Gog Magog hills, via Haverhill, where I fill up with £15 of petrol, and beautiful winding country roads down to the A12 at Colchester then on to Harwich to catch the Stenna ferry to the Hook of Holland. It’s a beautiful sunny evening and still light when I arrive at Harwich to check in behind a German couple on an old BMW.

We chat later about their holiday in the UK. I also talk to another couple who live in Amsterdam on an older Honda with 16000 miles. He’s American and she is an English concert pianist. Also friendly is a Dutchman on a bright red Honda CBR who though young is a veteran of channel crossings as I find out later. He says he has ridden more miles on the left side of the road than the right. Three other young guys arrive on brand new but miniscule 125s and are photographed presumably it’s a jaunt for some biking magazine. I try to get in the background.

Eventually, after waiting for 72 cyclists, we are beckoned to drive up the spiral ramp and on to the boat. The Dutchman has taken his bike on this ferry many times and has his own equipment for lashing it down. I am completely hopeless at it and can’t even work the ratchet on the ties, so I get generous amounts of help and advice on this i.e. tie the bike down by its handle bars being careful not to damage any of the cables. If the handlers insist on tying the bike down over its seat, trap your gloves under the tie first to avoid damaging the seat.

I can’t believe that this is the same ferry that I was sick on every summer as a boy going to Germany for our family holidays. You barely realise that you are on something moving at all so vast and smooth is this vessel.

KTM 790 Adv mods so far

Why do we spend so much time, money and thought on modifications for these machines? Maybe one reason is that we are aware that they are mass produced tangles of metal and plastic and we want them to feel more like our own unique thing. However, if beauty is in the beholder’s eye then our new bike might already arrive with that quality of gladdening the heart just by looking at it in the garage – until that feeling evaporates next to a newer more desirable model. After my first trip on the KTM I made a list – a long list – of things I wanted to change or add to the bike to improve the riding experience.

One or two items on this list were in the rational box but most were in a box with a more complicated label on it. At the risk of stating the obvious the label on the non-rational box includes something about enjoying identifying with a hardcore life without actually necessarily living it. ‘Aspirational’ would maybe be a simple way to think of it. Nearly everything on both lists is done now – along with some that were not on it at all.

The really practical things, honestly: cruise control and heated grips – the former an expensive dealership item, the second a do-it-at-home event.

Look no hands or cold hands

Then the possibly practical: One finger lighter action clutch: another home fitment. The stock was not awful but its the gentler biting point of this set up that makes the difference. A slightly longer lever is such a simple idea.

The main engineering challenge would have been the limited range of movement behind the fuel tanks.

Then in the appearance category is Barkbuster handguards. The existing ones were fine but these look better and add to visibility.

Look – they stand out

Some more items from the orangery: the high front fender I bought when I bought the bike (I’m not sure how practical it really will be), some lower wider footpegs from Rade Garage and some radiator protection at the front from R&G who did not reply to my query about fitting these guards. You have to bend the lower part to fit – though the instructions don’t mention this. Also down there but not too visible is a larger brake pedal from Touratech and a larger side stand foot also from the German company.

motorcycle with orange bits

Then there is the new exhaust from Italian company SC Project. I’d watched some Youtubers fit this and then remove the baffle to produce an amazing exhaust note. However, I’ve not yet been able to pull out that part and wonder if I’ve bought a new non-removable design. So apart from losing some weight, this did not quite deliver on expectations. I haven’t given up yet though…

2 and 1/2 Ks. Now how much did the original weigh?

I nearly forgot: the first things I did when I got the bike into my garage was to install my faithful PDM60 electrical unit that I’d used on two previous bikes and removed and then dismantle the front to make a kind of temporary mounting and connection for a new GPS Garmin unit. (Temporary until the Aurora rally kit)

KTM showing wiring under seat

There’s never enough room under the seat for this kind of addition

The other first thing was to fit a Perun luggage rack. This was a well made piece that fitted perfectly – and looks great. Fitting this enabled my first trip away on the bike.

Perun rack – nicely built. I took off the original grab handles to fit my soft luggage

Most recently I replaced the ugly and hard to adjust mirrors with Double Take mirrors from the US via Adventure Spec. These arrived quickly at a not too high price and were super easy to fit. Apart from wanting to join the club and their looks my main reason for fitting these was not the fear that I might break the originals on a fall on the trails but that they will be easier to adjust on the road.

Nice look but they seem eminently stealable.

Coming some time soon fromGreek company Aurora is their rally kit which will completely replace the slightly ugly front of this machine – once I have risen to the major challenge of installing it. Then I think I will call it a day, well apart from maybe a nicer seat…. and some…

Sony RX100Va first thoughts

For the last year I’ve been updating the contents of my bags and pockets for future trips near and far. This time its the travel camera that I take. When I downloaded the photos I took of my last trip up to Yorkshire I was a little shocked at the poor quality that my Lumix Panasonic DMC-TZ30 caught. Fewer seemed to be sharp and many suffered badly from glare (it turned out that there was a smear of something on the lens). That camera has been a great lightweight and pretty cheap companion on may trips though it has two limitations. One is the image quality – on close scrutiny everything seems to be made of putty – especially human skin. The second is how difficult it is to take photos with settings that you chose. Changing aperture, shutter speed and ISO is not straightforward and I’ve ended up just setting it to automatic and hoping for the best. Blurring the background is not something that that camera excels at for example.

I had two candidates to chose from: Fujifilm X100v or the Sony that I eventually bought. I think the Fujifilm is a more capable camera and would be more fun to use but in the end I chose the Sony for some sensible reasons: I already have a Sony helmet camera and a collection of batteries and a charger and I don’t want to have to carry around yet another set of batteries that I need to keep charged on the move – always one more thing to be on top of; the Sony is quite a lot smaller and will easily fit in a motorcycle jacket pocket; it has a wider angle lens (24mm equiv compared to 35mm on the Fuji). I also had to decide between an up to date model with a longer zoom or the one I bought (24-70mm equiv) with a f1.8 lens. I looked back at my photographs from my travels and nearly all were taken at the wide angle end. So it was decided.

So far I’ve changed some of the settings, with the advice from one of the camera’s Youtube champions and taken a few dozen photos mostly in the study but some on the streets outside.

Exported from Lightroom

What I like: the camera can save in RAW or RAW plus JPEG which the Panasonic couldn’t.

It has a little electronic viewfinder (fiddly to pull out):

The image quality is quite good but its best not to think of my Nikon D810 – which is an unfair comparison.

I like the wide aperture lens both for low light and for blurring a background. The Panasonic was f4.5 – 6.3 so you could never do that.

Adaptability of settings; aperture priority and auto ISO seems to work and its relatively easy to change the aperture – result.

What I’m disappointed with: wifi connection to iPhone – just doesn’t seem to work…. update. For some reason, this Youtuber’s instructions seemed to work. This is a big breakthrough – for sharing photos while travelling. The camera transfers JPGs not RAWs. Here’s the JPG quality from an image transferred to the phone and then to the computer:

JPEG size 1.7Mb ISO2000

The other thing I don’t like is the flip side of its main attraction and this is it is too small to handle comfortably. It just does not fit nicely into the hand – as DSLR’s do, despite their weight. There are grips available which I will try but I don’t want to permanently stick something onto its beautifully designed and engineered body. Perhaps there is a removable option.

Nevertheless, this camera will definitely improve the records of future travels and lead to some slightly more thoughtful photography on the road.

Here it is

First experience of Klim Carlsbad suit

Its a real achievement – at last I have some motorcycle gear that fits properly. I think I have been getting skinnier in recent years so I had one more reason to sell my BMW Rally 3 suit, bought in the first flush of excitement at GS ownership but now slightly flappy and ahem… inappropriately branded. I began to think that it had a quasi-military look with its yellow flashes and BMW roundels on the arms. I wouldn’t feel comfortable spending the evening in the pub wearing it as motorcycling magazines are fond of saying – both because of its huge armour and the style just mentioned. It has been a great combo and has seen me through very many miles of riding in hot weather and in cold (Norway snow), well designed and well made – no complaints and a moment of sadness to see it go. But I really wanted to reinvent my riding and something more understated was definitely desired. There’s no shortage of stuff to be purchased of course but always a sucker for branding and endorsements from Youtube riders, I aimed at something made by Klim, though perhaps I should have spent more time researching less popular brands.

Nevertheless, Klim Carlsbad jacket – size Small and the trousers – 30″ waist which are really difficult to find but as a stroke of immense good fortune Adventure bike shop in Suffolk had some returned by a customer who could not squeeze himself into them – result. They fit perfectly and are black, like the jacket. I wore them on the train up to collect my bike and did not feel conspicuous or uncomfortable, just noisy as I walked. Swish swish. I’ve just worn them for the first time on a ride from Cambridge down to London.

Pluses: they are a great weight, have two good cargo type pockets which will be where I put keys, they are the only trousers that I don’t get my toes stuck somewhere invisible trying to get into them so another result. They accommodate big boots really well. The knee and hip armour is not huge.

Not so goods: they have a kind of webbing across the inside of the crotch behind the zipper which I presume helps their waterproofness – but it makes it awkward to wee and not so easy to do discretely in those lay-by standing behind the bike pretending to look at a map moments of urgency. The flaps at the end of the legs have nice zips and press studs in three tightnesses – but they are toward the back of the legs instead of at the side so awkward to reach.

Wonder what the clenched fist is about

The jacket: Is also good.

Pluses: a good weight – it was 12 degrees c when riding from Cambridge to London in November and my chest was a little cold with all the vents closed so it promises to be good in hot weather on trips to warmer climes; the armour, like the trousers is not huge so will not take up so much room on the floor of my minimalist tent where lying down room is at a premium; lots of pockets both inside and out – on the road developing a muscle memory about where to reach for particular things saves anxiety and energy. And there is a small pocket on the front for an SOS device inviting the purchase of one more piece of kit. Clearly there’s lots of ventilation available – I can’t wait till summer to try.

So, how do you pronounce Klim? I wish it was with a short i – but I think its meant to sound like ‘climb’. which is strange. Their stuff is made in Vietnam (one time enemy of the US) like Mosko Moto’s stuff. All I can say is that they have strong needles in Vietnam. And that they are pretty good at needle work.