Gerontious

Mostly getting ready for tomorrows storm. I dont fancy the idea of coming home tomorrow night to find the bikes been blown over.. so, its been put in the most shelterd spot. right up against a wall, cover on and that fixed in place with bungees. About as safe as i can make it. forecast here is 60mph winds.. which is fairly bad. Just have to keep fingers crossed till i get home at 10pm

Much as I would like to be able to afford them, trousers for £800+ are way too much. I would pay up to £200 I paid a little more than that.. but not much more. https://tinyurl.com/tmoq8na I tend to snap up bargains as and when they appear.. especially if the bargain is due to a change of style. which with Rukka happens every few years. Was a thread only recently about heavily discounted gear. £800 is top of the range.. and fine if you can justify that amount. But, even their bottom of the range is a lot better than some of their comparably priced competitors. buy once - cry once. but anyway.. a few things i now insist on. Goretex. D30 armour. outlast. YKK zips.its more than a pain if you buy expensive gear and they cut corners using cheap zips.

I've a 36" inside leg and got tired of wearing badly fitting gear especially trousers. How much are you prepared to pay? Rukka do 3 leg lengths. look for C3 in any description. (or long) for best prices look at second hand or from non official sellers. or from the EU. you can also look at Halvarssons, Lindstrands, Klim. Dane. Sportsbikeshop have LONG as a filter when searching for trousers. which is very useful.

Always call them.. to maximise their profits they rely on people being lazy and going with the auto-renewal. And plenty of people do. because its easier than putting down Facebook and using their phone to make a call. All insurers operate a similar business model. You should always call when the new quote arrives. They're hoping you dont.

I have them on the Africa Twin.. And they don't quite say that. I was as cautious with them as any new tyre... Until I became used to how they behave once up to temperature.

Without ploughing through the documentation, I have just one question.. The same question I've asked about every iteration of the GoPro. Can it be directly powered or is it battery only.

Are you considering an upgrade?

In the 1990s Motorex was only usually seen in Triumph dealerships.. rarely anywhere else. Its never been a cheap product.. made in Switzerland.

And zero stars for proofreading

Easy enough if you want band new.. have a look at sportsbikeshop. see what is on offer at the moment.

Tease it out with a bit of corned beef.

That's mostly because people pack too much stuff. They do silly things like take a winter ready sleeping bag for a weekend away in August. Pack clothes they never wear. Take food they don't cook. And on and on and on.. Multiple bundles will always take up more space. If you limit your capacity by using a fixed volume of bag or luggage. Have a bit of discipline... Leave behind stuff that you won't use. Pick up stuff as you travel.. It's a lot easier.

This is what happens when you become complacent and take things for granted.. Expecting things that normally happen to go on happening in the same way.. Which most of the time they do. Until they don't.

whatever time your routing method gives you for a particular pass. take that time and double it. And if its a popular road.. and you are going during the holiday season. doubling the time might easily be over-optimistic especially if there are no vehicular restrictions on that particular pass. What region of the Alps are you heading for?

Not really.. The next step will be to book the channel tunnel crossing, which will means it's set in stone and the other guys can then follow suit as and when is right for them... That can be any time between now and the end of July. I usually do that this month, maybe next. Just a one way ticket. Because we are going to be away for a fortnight, I think it's a bad idea to set our return in stone. That we will return on such and such a day at such and such a time. I think it's a much better idea to buy an open return, which is more expensive, but means we can turn up at the tunnel at any time on any day and just get on the next available train. That will be my strategy and it's up to the other guys to decide theirs. In theory we will be returning on the Saturday, so if they want to book a crossing on that day then they can. Or not.. and instead maybe book a Ferry the day before. Which might be cheaper. Personally I think we should look at the open return through the tunnel as an insurance policy. If anyone needs to come home in a hurry.. For any reason at all. They can do so without any extra stress. And the rest of us don't need to worry about being at the tunnel in time to catch a specific train... It can be any. An open return is a fixed price so it doesn't matter when you buy it. In fact you can buy a crossing 'on the day' for about the same price I think. I've done a few routes on basecamp ready to go on the sat nav. Looking at sub 200 mile days for the most part, anything longer will include a chunk of autobahn.. To get from a to b a bit quicker, we will need to buy a 10 day toll sticker for Austria, not expensive at €5 but will save us a lot of time where we can use the autobahn as a bypass round larger towns, it also includes passage through some (but not all) tunnels.. Also means if there is ever a delay we can get back to our base quickly, that's important. We definitely don't want to be riding in the mountains after dark. There will be a fair few tolls to pay. For instance, from Zell am See there are only 3 ways to get south, in a direct way. Over the Grossglockner or under, using the Felbertauern Tunnel. The Third way is loading the bikes onto a train and then using that to get south. Other than this it's a long way round. We may use the Felbertauern if we relocate south.. It's €10 one way though.. Which is very steep. £20 for a return trip is pretty horrible by any standards, the train is worse. Have too se how it pans out. Other tolls are much cheaper and are for the scenic routes.. The tolls pay for maintenance so these roads are generally of a stunning quality. The Silvretta. Nockalm and Ziller are examples, so is the Timmelsjoch pass. But, none of these are particularly expensive... Compared to the Grossglockner anyway. We camped 3 years ago, when we went to the Vercors, in the French pre-Alps, so, most of the guys know what to expect. Shouldn't be any nasty surprises. German and Austrian campsites tend to be a very high standard compared with the surrounding countries. Both places I intend staying at in Austria are handy for supermarkets. One has a Shell petrol station just over the road.. Which couldn't be more convenient. Usual bakeries a short walk away. My bike will probably need a minor service before we go.. And possibly the rear tyre replaced. I also need to fit a 12v power socket, the bike came with one as standard but it's only rated at 2A.. Which is only good for charging a phone. And no good at all for my tyre pump which needs 12A So, that to be fitted as and when, there's an ideal place, very close to the battery. Was looking at my camping gear the other day and all I need is a kettle, my last one got crushed when I accidentally stepped on it.

thats normal.. it stays there until its read.

Up your budget a little and consider British made evotech. £115 a pair. short or folding.

Plenty of people, including people I have toured with use soft luggage with no problems at all. Sometimes because of cost. Sometimes because it suits them. It's a very British thing to worry about security. But security for what? A few changes of clothing and toiletries. Your not going to be storing your passport or cash in your panniers. Soft luggage is fine once you get over the paranoia. If you can't get past that then up your game to hard cases.

Nothing wrong with him owning a bike.. but he cant ride it on public roads.

the original seat on the Africa Twin was very comfortable to start.. I thought: this is great as I rode out of the dealership and when you watch reviews they almost never mention the seat beyond a comment about its slightly different shape compared to the 16-17 bikes. But this great feeling goes away rapidly when I get near 200 miles and getting off the bike only provides temporary relief as the pain comes back with a vengeance very quickly. Not good. I tried an air-seat and it worked up to a point, but I didn't like the semi-detached feeling the cushion of air gives. I still have the sheepskin I used on the GS and thought to used that for longer trips. However an American made Sargent appeared for sale on the AT forum. Second hand but perfect. And despite coming from Finland was £150+ cheaper all-in than ordering one from the UK agent. It's only when you try a seat that's been designed from scratch that you realise just how bad a lot of OE seats are. Not all of them but that's perhaps because the bad design isn't noticed due to other ergonomic reasons. I see all the time people saying there bikes are only comfy for 100 miles or so which might not be due to the seat but being folded in three to actually ride the thing. They might have other pain to deal with that masks the pain from the seat. The things we put ourselves through. It's wrong thinking to directly compare a bicycle saddle with a motorbike seat, it's a false equivalence. With a bicycle seat you are pedalling most of the time which means the blood is flowing through your lower body at a fair old rate and you are constantly moving position with your weight being shifted from one side to the other, pressure points are being relieved all the time, the blood gets to these points and they are not oxygen starved - which is the source of the pain. Cyclists who take their sport seriously will buy a saddle that's off the shelf, but might as well have been made to measure. The variety and choice is absolutely massive. Motorcycle riders have nothing like this level of choice because their needs are completely different. We have 3 ways to fix the problem. Either have the seat rebuilt and trust that the person doing this knows what he is doing... And most of the specialists do. They will use a higher grade of foam that spreads the load more evenly, adjust the shape so there is a reduced chance of pressure points developing. Some will even ask to see you on the bike so they can fine tune the rebuild especially to your needs. The second was is to add a layer that has a similar effect of spreading the load. An air seat. Gel pad. Sheepskin. Even wearing cycling shorts... They all do the same sort of thing. The third is to swap the seat completely.. Though this is often the most expensive route. I don't think there are any seat makers in the UK. You're mainly looking at American brands. Corbin, Sargent. Or the German brand Kahedo, who make seats for high end BMWs and Touratech etc. Or smaller, less obvious brands like Bagster. And a few Italian makers. But with all of these, some proper design has gone into them... So a "one size fits all" seat... Actually might.

there is a major difference between riding a motorbike and a bicycle that means there is very little if any direct correlation between the two and I'm rather surprised this even needs pointing out. There is also a good reason why motorcycle seats stopped looking like bicycle seats 60 years ago. The primary reason the average motorcycle seat is uncomfortable is that there was very little thought that went into them.. they are made on the cheap to look the part in the showroom and be comfortable enough for the average time a test ride takes. you might be lucky.. some bikes have better seats than others.. or you might not be, the most comfortable OE seat might be agony for you.. but it takes 3hrs to reach that point.

Laptops, tablets, phones etc none of which are problematic. A laptop doesn't stop working as it should when an update arrives that it cannot cope with, it just means new features cannot be added. Same for a tablet. or a phone. everything will still work as it did before. With a sat nav... if you want it to carry on performing as it did when you bought it then you must update the maps at least every year. otherwise it becomes unreliable in the way it routes. it cannot tell you about a new road or junction layout that it doesn't know exists or has been altered.

No. If someone gave me a TomTom, Bought me one as a present, then i wouldn't turn it down. But I wouldn't buy one. Why would anyone spend a few hundred quid on a device that can be declared obsolete.. effectively on a whim. The Zumo mickly linked to...the 340LM is a 5 year old satnav. that means it would already be halfway through its life if it were a TomTom. i don't think thats a very good advert for the brand.

Looks fine. Have a read of the reviews.