smallfrowne

lol

Ooh this all reminds me of a place in Portugal I went to, there were two options on the menu, 7 courses or 10. We went for 7 but they brought out surprise mid course bits anyway so it was a bit immense. I didn't even eat much of it, a lot of it was sea insects with shells and stuff - but they were bloody good hosts and did their best to accommodate my underdeveloped pallette. When they found out I'd struggled through a few courses of prawn things with ocean foam, seaweed soup cleansers and the like, but enjoyed the bread and butter course they tried to kill me with extra heaps of bread and butter - the best bread and butter. Anyway, it was pretty pretentious, my OH's hat was given its own velvet footstool for the duration. Wine pairing was a good idea, shellfish maybe not. I was quite ill by the morning and I dont think it was the wine, 2 others were very ill the next day too. Not sure if that works out for food poisoning or not. Still, 8/10 I'd go back just for the butter, but maybe just ask for a single course of that and a wine paring.

Meybes your average dipped between cameras - fingers crossed ey

Snodders, do you not have a compilation of the NAVII falling off?

Well it seems I missed out on the best stuff, basically missed Tuesday, half of Wednesdays and all of Fridays activities.. But still had a good laugh. I did have a brand new bike for a couple of days in the middle there to try out as well. After leaving the nc30 in the middle of an industrial estate at the Honda dealers I eventually found myself back on holiday But the real fun didn't start until Friday afternoon when the unmarked FedEx van turned up with some friction plates and a special tool.. The wrong tool. I now had the clutch but not the tool to fix it, needed a castellated socket to remove this.. Note the futile attempt at removing it using a screwdriver bit in a holder with 1/4" extension as makeshift punch and the wrong tool from the package as a hammer. I took some measurements with Snod's calipers he'd left for me and skipped away to the local hardware shop in an attempt to make the required tool. I tried to explain with pictures and gesticulations but ended up coming out with a standard socket of correct size but an unwillingness to make use of a grinder to make the part. Next stop: The Pub. "Hallo, do you have a grinder?" Confusion looked back at me. Eventually though the problem was explained and a few phone calls made. A bloke I'd met before turned up, before his night shift at Gilles Tooling (who some might know of as being manufacturers of rearsets and other bike bits). We discussed measurements and he'd called around and the part would be ready to pick up at 11pm that night. However Klaus turned up, a mechanic 9 days off retirement at the local airport. In no time we'd collected a hammer and a bunch of chisels, and a few whacks later it was off. In the time it took me to replace the plates he'd been back home to grind the burrs away and it was whacked back on to 85Nm. Cover back on and all just about in time to join the others for fish supper.

We can have a trip to Motorrad Kaufmann, he'll sort the chains out. Next to a big DIY/Tracktor shop as well, for all the agricultural oils and tools you might need.

Ha nice bit of tree that. Good thing about that tool is that you generally don't need to take one with you. Thanks again for waiting for me when the chain snapped. I must've been a bit flustered at the time, wasn't thinking about tea and the international rescue helpline was being useless. Then things got out of hand when I was whisked away by the denim man. Them bloody kebabs afterwards though, oof, always a welcome sight. Also Gerontium for the official records, make it noted that I made it home that night, didn't need to stop in Belge (all the hotels were booked out). Are we in Ashford yet? Not long now, might go out on the bike to celebrate.

... I could snap a chain

Oh shit. Just a week or so to go. I've hardly ridden. I'm not a biker anymore. I'm ready for some clean beer and a big kebab though. Looks like me and Snod are doing it 90s style on the trx and 400, which should be fun. I can barely remember the pain of the previous times. Hmm there's still a twinge of something though... Pins and needles... Back... Owww the back. Roll on the big bridge over the Thames to the holiday lands!

Depending on the state of the parts bike, it might be easier to just transfer the engine. I'd take the "broken" one out, put the spare one in, then open up the broken one to see what's wrong (at some point, it would probably go to the back of the garage). Of course, only worth it if you at least half trust the parts engine. Edit: But actually I don't know the engine or how hard it is to get to the gearbox! I'm still thinking about looking at my vfr400 gearbox, which is a bit of a bugger, you have to split the engine cases vertically, with the engine upside down.

Yeah a series one is the way to go, nicer on the stator too, it doesn't run it at full wack all the time. I have a FH012AA on my bike and I'm not sure if it's ever gotten hot, it's too tucked away. Barely got warm after idling for 10mins though, not that that's much to go on. If you've checked the voltage and you get about 14v then the R/R is likely fine so the problem is with the melty the main fuse, it might be that the fuse/fuse holder has a bit of corrosion on it, as mentioned, so resistance is high and it gets hot and melts (it is just melting and not blowing right?). I'd check if the fuse is getting warm. I've had it before where the connections have gotten warm, it's a sign of a bad connection/crimping, or that the connection type is over its limit. To solve it you will either need clean up the fuse holder and use a new fuse (could be dodgy terminals or dodgy crimping). Or replace the fuse holder, as it'll probably be a bugger to clean up any better than by just re-inserting a fuse a few times with some wd40 stuff, but that might just do the trick. Or take the fuse holder out of the equation and run a bit of fused cable direct from the +12v output of the R/R to the battery.

Oooh yeah those roads are geat. I remember going round le bourg d'oisans which is slightly east of that one I think, in the 205 up similar cliff hanger roads. Had to stop to adjust the distributor as it didn't like the steep hills and cheap petrol. Some of the pics didn't load for me either first time round, but normally after a refresh they did, sometimes not, but refresh again... and they worked. 21 days to go for us, this is wetting my appetite, getting me thinking. And france does seem expensive to drink out, but they do have some good biére artisanale, which normally don't go much below 8%.

Looks alright that does!

oooof.... that road looks fun. All looks fun. Can't wait to get on le continent

I think my only* ride was that one to the Eifel. Rob m, was that photo of the river the same place where we ordered the rustic meals? Where some nutter ordered a hessian bag of hot spuds? Good times indeed. http://i.imgur.com/OorOyhrl.jpg I don't have many photos to offer, and no scenic ones were taken, as the riding was relentless, no time! * Pretty much my only other ride was in January, when I broke a bit of bone.

Oh man, good laugh that. Some of the Facebook comments are a bit enlightening though, as to how much we bikers hurt their feelings by "lane splitting"