A guide to fitting Cartridge Emulators (particularly to a TRX850 4NX)

The forks on the TRX have been ruining my enjoyment of the beast since I got it, crashing over bumps and generally doing a terrible job of pushing the front wheel into the ground. I was seriously considering fitting a front end from something else with functioning forks but the trouble of losing the speedo drive, swapping steering stems, finding forks long enough to not have the bike falling forward all the time and the trouble with lockstops come MOT time left me looking for an alternative. Then I was pointed towards these valves that take over the job of compression (riding-over-things) damping and are supposed to be generally excellent while allowing the use of the original forks. I was sold! Here is what I had to do, some things are 4NX specific but hopefully the overall direction will help others if they decide to try this mod.

Firstly, get yer bike on some stands, the front has to come off.

Remove the front wheel, if this is already beyond you then perhaps ask someone else to fit these things. KAIS in Manchester quoted me £360 for emulators, seals, oil and labour which is an excellent price now I know what is involved. Racetech valves and springs are £250 alone..

Undo the tops of the forks at least a bit, it's much easier with the stanchion (shiny bit) clamped in place. Let off the preload as far as you can for maximum ease.

 With the top off pick out the washer, spacer, washer and spring, and then pour the oil into something you can fill with about a litre of oil. This left me with this horrible sight:

That is the top of the damper rod, which is what we really need to get to. It is bolted into the bottom of the fork with a large-ish allen bolt coming up from the bottom, but in order to undo that bolt you have to stop the damper rod from spinning. Some people manage this by sticking in the end of a broom handle, but since I have a garage of "really useful things" at my disposal it was time to make a special tool to fit those serrations (at the sides of the 3 slots round the hole in the centre).

The old 2 nuts tightened onto each other trick works again, all of this is ancient imperial stuff but it fits okay. Lowered down into the top of the rod it was successfully stopped from turning and, after removing the dust seal with the help of a screwdriver (as per the manual!) and the clip below it holding the oil seal in, some serious pulling on the stanchion pulls it out along with the top bush, its washer and the oil seal. I'll explain this better come reassembly, I was so excited to get them into bits I forgot to take pics. This leaves us with all of these gubbins:

And, in particular, the damper rod of doom. And expense. And waiting, depending on who you get to modify it. You can see the serrations around the top where the Special Tool was fitted, some weird plastic clip which no one can tell me what it does exactly (oil flow control, centring the rod, no real idea), the rebound spring (when the fork is fully extended this spring stops it gently) and the weird white plastic bush thing which is now in the wrong place, but I did not know because these forks are quite different to what is shown in the TRX manual. Bloody imports!

With the disassembly complete (try and keep the two lots separate if you can) it's time for the farkle. I was going to use Racetech Gold Valves and their springs like everyone else does, but it turns out Racetech stuff is basically unavailable in the UK. Racetech serve their American customers first and their warehouse is a slow operation, and the only people currently supplying Racetech gubbins are PDQ somewhere near London but they don't buy much in at a time. I was looking at [i]at least[/i] a 4 week wait to get my hands on the stuff, and even then it might not have been in sent that order. Some searching for alternatives suggested that the PD Valves from the competing company YSS were both available and much cheaper than the Racetech valves (£93 from [url=http://www.kamarmotorsport.co.uk/]Kamar Motorsport[/url] vs £150) and with the money saved I could buy the slightly more expensive Ohlins springs (£115 vs £100) which are also fairly easy to get hold of. Plus you get to fit [i]that[/i] sticker.

After waiting a few weeks for the springs to arrive from an ebay seller in France (d'oh, it wasn't that much faster) I had everything in my grubby mitts. The reason I didn't use the original springs is that they are a little soft even for me at 68kg and the valve sitting on top of the damper rod means the spring or the spacer needs to be shorter, 14mm to be precise. YSS recommend just slicing some off the spacer but what stickers do you get for that? The Ohlins 08608-85 were my springs of choice, these would normally replace the spring [i]and[/i] spacer in a Euro spec TRX with a longer damper rod/shorter spacer, but my crazy import rods are around 2cm shorter, 21.6cm if anyone here cares. With the valve in place this means the 08608s are just about perfect, it couldn't be easier!

The original setup is on the left, the new stuff on the right. These Ohlins springs are miles long, very strange. The only thing I wasn't sure on is how much the Ohlins should be crushed when the tops go back on, I could have ended up with too much preload as the original stuff springs out when the top of the fork is removed. Happily though it all turned out alright. It would be nice if Ohlins could give at least some instructions with their products, mind. Again, if anyone here really cares the springs that came out of my forks are 39.5cm long, and the whole washer/spacer/spring combo is 53cm. The Ohlins 08608 springs are 51cm, plus the 14mm tall valve and a 2mm thick spacer makes it all about right as long as the Ohlins springs need to be squashed as much as the original springs.

**Removing the rebound adjustment**

TRX850 forks come with a rebound adjuster, this is the thing with 3 rectangles and a hole in the centre sitting in the top of the damper rod. We can't keep this because the thing in the top of the rod gets in the way of the valves we're going to fit, so it has to be removed. With the damper rods in hand, remove the clip holding in the adjuster at the top and then drift out the adjuster from the bottom. If you don't do this in a jar or some kind of container the detent ball (that makes it click round) in the side of the adjuster will be launched away by its spring never to be seen again. I immediately lost both. This rebound stuff is now defunct, put it to one side or use it as a keyring. All this disassembly will leave you with a couple of bare damper rods, like so:

All these holes at the top are for the rebound adjuster and need to be filled or blocked. If you don't have any rebound adjustment on your forks it will make the mod quite a lot easier as it can normally be left alone.

**Back to the normal compression stuff**

These are the compression holes, oil is forced up here but not too quickly because of these holes restricting flow. This is the crux of the problem, oil flowing through holes is easy at low speed (so the forks dive under braking, wallow at low speed and just generally have little damping when the forks aren't being squashed quickly) and difficult at high speed (so the forks crash over big bumps or even small bumps at high speed when the oil can't move fast enough through these holes). At super high speed such as hitting a pothole o even a harsh speed bump the oil speed can be so fast and the holes so limiting to flow that the oil effectively hits hydraulic lock and that's when it gets really uncomfortable. What we are doing is removing the restriction of the holes and getting a valve to allow oil flow instead - at low oil speed the oil flows through a small hole (less dive, less wallowing) but at high speed the oil can push through the valve so the fork "gives in" and as a rider you see the suspension absorb a bump rather than roll over it.

I took my rods to a motocross specialist called SPS as the suspension guy there is a properly trained Racetech fellow, one of hardly any in the country. He was full of advice but it took three weeks for them to modify my rods and he didn't know much about the modifications I had to make, it seems a lot depends on the particular bike. Personally I wouldn't bother going to a suspension specialist to get this done again, just go to an engineering shop and tell them what you want. You have to know, though! Three weeks, some ignored phone calls and a few wasted trips later the rods were done, £61 including a litre of 15w fork oil. Quite expensive but in the end it was a good job.

**Removing the rebound adjustment**

Many people braze up the rebound holes but he didn't seem keen, reckoning that the heat required could warp the top of the rod. Since a good seal is important between the top rim of the rod and the valves we're going to use, this seemed bad. I mentioned that some people fit a sleeve inside to cover the holes and he seemed much more enthusiastic about that, so that was what happened. Unfortunately getting the sleeve to be a good interference fit was also what took up all the time, ah well!

The sleeve:

The holes, nicely blocked:

Since we've now removed all the rebound holes, we kind of need some way of getting the oil back down the fork, so we must add a single rebound hole in the lower part of the rod. The European forks already have this hole, but the 4NX ones do not. a 2mm hole was added:

Honestly I don't really understand why this is necessary but it's part of the Racetech instructions for the TRX so it got done.

**Normal compression mods**

To stop the holes being restrictive, you can either enlarge them or add more holes. Since the rods take the whole weight of the front of the bike (via the spring on the top) making two massive holes is bad because it doesn't leave much supporting metal. Instead, the two existing 7.5mm holes (rather than the existing 6mm holes found in Euro spec forks, if anyone has a fetish for TRX trivia!) are enlarged to 8mm and four more 8mm holes are added, allowing oil to slosh in and out as it pleases.

With the rods done it is time for reassembly! As mentioned, I have no manual for these forks (although I now know those fitted to a mid nineties ZZR600 are incredibly similar) so I was "flying blind" as an old boss once liked to put it.

**SUPER FUN EXTRA BONUS ROUND**

Slide your lovely new seals (you got new seals, right?) and slide them down the shiny stanchion, like so:

The oil seals are 41x53x8/9.5, nice NOK items are readily available, I'm not sure what the dust seals are but they're both the same size as all other TRXs just like I was promised by a couple of members here.

Get your empty leg (the big, non-shiny bit) and the matching stanchion (shiny bit, previously mentioned) and slide it in. Then slide the top bush down and struggle to knock it down into place. Around 20 minutes tapping by hand with a tiny drift worked for me. From this:

To this:

Slide down the big washer:

Then slide down the fork oil seal. This can either be driven in with a piece of PVC pipe, a proper seal driver hammery thing or knocked in bit by bit with a drift but that's a last resort. My Dad started helping at this point and found a big piece of metal to slide down and knock the seal into place, very handy. Also cover the seal and the hole with red rubber grease, it helps. Remember during disassembly when the stanchion was used to knock out the bush and seal? I hope this explaisn how that happens - the little grey collar around the very bottom of the stanchion can't get past the bush so the bush, big washer and oil seal are pushed out along with it. Makes it easier to remove the seal at least.

Fit the clip over the seal:

And now it's time to fit the damper rod, complete with red plastic ring, rebound spring and bush.

Experienced hands will already know what's up, but as I say I was flying blind with no manual and that white plastic bush seemed very happy to sit right there. When the forks were disassembled it all just kind of fell to bits so I didn't know where it came from exactly..

The Special Tool at work again!

As an aside I would recommend using new copper washers to seal the oil into the bottom of the fork where the big allen bolt goes into it from underneath, but I just annealed (seriously heated) the old ones and they sealed just fine.

At this point we hit a snag - the damper rod would not go far enough down the inside of the stanchion to be reachable by the bolt. Closer inspection of the still disassembled fork #2 learned me the error of my ways..

The white plastic bush would not go past this ring, whatever it does. This is because the white plastic bush doesn't live on the bottom of the rod like that, oh no, where does it live..? At the very bottom of the stanchion, underneath the Ring Of Terror.

Disassemble the mostly-assembled fork and put the white plastic bush in the bottom of the stanchion, then build it all back up.

**END OF SUPER FUN EXTRA BONUS ROUND**

Now that the bottom of the forks are built properly, it's time to start fitting the snazzy farkle. We start by filling the forks with oil - I put ~250ml in each fork and left them overnight to see if any leaking happened. Thankfully the reused copper washers work and there was no seepage. Next up is to compress the forks as much as possible so that we can fill them with the rest of the oil:

They need to be compressed because this is how the air gap is measured - no springs, no valves, just compressed forks. I made a super technical 14cm dipstick and filled the forks at the angle given by the yokes until the fluid was just about touching the [s]paper[/s] dipstick. Straight up this might be a 14,5cm air gap. Standard for the TRX with valves seems to be 13-14cm but I'm looking for a plush ride rather than a harsh trackday setup, so more air is good. This used about 900-950ml. The dipstick:

Finally we get to fit the valves. These are the YSS PD Valves, 33.5mm OD is a perfect fit for the tops of the TRX's rods. If you're fitting Racetech Gold Valves then the equivalent are S4101s.

You can see that the thread of the long bolt sticks out the bottom, that is why the rebound adjuster had to be removed. I set the bolt to having two turns of preload on the little spring as is the recommended default according to YSS - with so few people having any tips on how to set these YSS valves up I wasn't about to set them to anything else. Bye bye my expensive little buddies!

It's very difficult to tell if the valves have sunk properly into the tops of the rods, but both springs ended up at the same height and lots of poking, jiggling, shaking and bouncing the springs up and down didn't make anything sink any lower. The springs come up to here with the fork fully extended:

And of course a washer has to go on as well to spread the load of the fork top, particularly the preload adjuster as that is what presses down first. These are two of the original washers, nothing fancy.

**Removing the rebound adjustment**

The final part of this is to cut off the rods from the fork tops that turn the rebound adjuster. Not only are they not needed anymore thanks to the adjuster no longer being present, the rod will hit the tall allen bolt in the valve. A hacksaw will do the trick, though it feels destructive.

**Back to normal**

Fit the fork tops and it's all done. The springs being so long means the sag is about right for me with no extra preload, though it looks strange with the adjusters sticking all the way up like that.

Initial impressions are favourable. The forks seem very hard and un-wallowy compared to stock, yet they ride through bumps instead of crashing over them. It's really quite impressive over big bumps and deliciously controlled over speed bumps. The rebound is possibly a little slow (thinner oil can fix this) and the spring at 85N/mm is perhaps a little hard despite being exactly what the Racetech site recommends for my weight - I think Racetech's site errs on the harder side, when what I want is a lazy, compliant setup. This may explain why 85 is the hardest 08608 that Ohlins sell. It is possible that the preload is right on the point of being too much for my weight too, loaded sag is around 25mm without gear - so much for the plush, lazy, compliant ride I was looking for. However, it's instantly good enough to show the rear suspension up as rubbish, gliding over imperfections that have the rear bouncing. I'd do it again.

Dragon Rally 7/2/2015 - 8/2/2015

Check in at Conway!

Unpacking in surprisingly pleasant conditions, wondering where Frowne was..

A hint at the incredible number of outfits that turned up, I wonder where they all hide the other 363 days of the year??

Things got too hazy for pictures after this, there was a lot of talking to a bloke who is on the K100 forum who used to do bike reviews for the comics in the 80s, some more drinking, some bacon somewhere, more drinking, a load of shoving each other around and singing along in front of the live bands (and Frowne flinging my glasses onto the floor where they got semi crushed, a lucky escape..), some drinking.. Errrr... The airbed deflating in the middle of the night and the ground sucking the heat out of me through my trusty Snugpak.. And then the morning! It was frosty. It made my fingers hurt. More bacon happened.

And after all our bikes started on the button (many batteries didn't survive the night) we went home in the freezing fog. All in all it was ridiculous but somehow thoroughly enjoyable, I'd certainly contemplate the idea of thinking about maybe doing it again at some point. Definitely buy the beer in England first though, I was expecting to survive on Tramp Juice but a 4 pack of Tennents Super was £10 and Special Brew £10.69! They must charge by the unit in Wales..

MB & Snod Blatters Alpine adventure.. Slovenia and beyond... Part 7

motobiker's post:

The last day in Germany was pretty remarkable for a lot of reasons. Sunny and warm to start we were up quite early. showered, packed and away by 10. It was then just a 60 mile run across to Triberg in the central black forest - but took a little longer than expected.
Within 10 miles we were stopped by the polizei - a roadblock in the middle of nowhere while a group of bikers passed by. This group of bikers just got bigger and bigger. I have no idea how many came out of this little side road but it wasn't far short of a 1000 - it could quite easily have been bigger. there was a fair number of Polizei escorting them and they just kept on coming. more and more.. and more. with Polizei every couple of minutes all sorts of bikes (and one scooter) at one point a Ducati rider popped out and took a different turn.. he waited eyes peeled until another Ducati appeared. seems they got caught up by this parade and this was their chance to make an escape. The traffic was building up in both directions and the bikes kept on coming. What started of being a little remarkable soon became jaw droppingly amazing. Was every bike in Germany on this run? People were getting out of their cars to watch. They kept coming.. more and more. a gap.... no bikes. the copper chatting away on his radio.. then more bikes appeared. and more and more. how many?
we were there for a good half hour. the traffic was queuing behind us out of sight.. and another huge queue ahead - suddenly it was over.. a group of tail end charlie coppers popped out and they all swept off into the distance to cause havoc elsewhere. We took our turn and soon came upon the queue of traffic that was waiting the other way and people lining the roads in the next village who had obviously been watching it all enfold.
Never did find out what it was all about.

Another few miles and a diversion took us over some low hills along a fairly narrow road.. suddenly this huge tractor/trailer affair blocking the entire width of the road with a few cars crawling behind. we got to the front and bided our time.. after a few minutes we had a chance and took it - whizzing past this tractor and within a mile came to another identical tractor/trailer coming the other way!! what happened when they met? more havoc!! I think - looking at Snod in the mirror - he was laughing!

As if all this excitement wasn't enough.. just leaving a village a few miles further on a huge bird. an Eagle no less stooped on 'something' on the pavement just as we were passing. gave me a right turn it did. the thing really was huge and definitely an Eagle and came down within just a few feet. scared me to death.

Rottweil was full of Rottweilers so we didn't hang about.. not that there was much point. Germany closes down on Sundays.. and who messes with Rottweilers in Rottweil?
Eyes peeled i didn't see the other type.. odd.

Soon signs were announcing Schwartzwald this that and the other.. and bikes started to appear. and we were there!!
at first I hoped to pop to the top end of the town to get an eyeful of the cuckoo clock. its rather large. But.. there was something going on.. a festival of some sort so, being keen eyed I turned off and doubled back and we went to germanys other traditional eatery. a Turkish kebap shop. (and lovely it was too) sitting outside in the sun watching all these tough guy bikers heading off to challenge the B500. A lot of UK plate bikes went past too. quite amazing. they do get around.

Triberg is famous for cuckoo clocks.

The B500 is split into two parts.. the southern stretch ends at Triberg. you then have various roads north to rejoin the B500 near Freudenstadt.  we took one of the more minor roads.. and it turned out to be a peach. The L405/L404/L95 - truly wonderful. No traffic or villages to spoil the fun.. we chased a R1200RT for its entire length.. whooping as we went. people go on and on about the B500.. of good reason. But anyone who visits the Black Forest is failing big time if they ignore the lesser used side roads.. there are a lot of them and just like this run. tend to be very quiet with nothing to spoil the fun for mile after glorious mile. (its such a shame riding to the BF isn't comfortably doable in a day from Calais)

So.. as an 'intro' this route was pretty fantastic. but soon we were there.. and joined the B500. and I was OFF.... woosh.  I remember a few years ago Snod asking what was so special about the B500.  he found out!!

In parts its wider than the average UK dual carriageway, its FAST, with very few side roads, curves are wide and sweeping and the views.. when the road reaches its highest point.. truly stunning. You have no idea just how high up you are as the climb is very slight.. but you're higher than the Grampian mountains for much of its length. this only becomes obvious when you reach one of the viewing points... at the north end of the road.. at the end of its fastest stretch.

naughty I know.. but i left Snod behind and went for it!! for some odd reason bikes fell behind me all the way.. everything came together and the bike went over like it was going to sleep. I overtook everything!! laughing all the way. the looks on some of those sports bikers faces much have been wonderful.. being overtaken by an underpowered. overweight antique fully loaded with luggage.. oh the shame!!

Snod caught up... maybe he didn't lose me, i have no idea.. i doubt I ever looked in my mirrors for the entire run. we pulled off the road and admired the view.. a view that stretches all the way to the Vosges.. bathed in sunshine. and south.. to the Jura. so there before us the run we had taken south over the first two days. wonderful.

and compared chicken strips...

from there the road drops down quite rapidly to Baden Baden and very soon we were over the Rhine and in France..  a quick hop north west via the charmingly named town of Bitche. through the northern Vosges range and soon we were back in Germany galumphing west towards Luxembourg.  I originally intended to find a campsite in Bastogne.. but as it happened we found a quite excellent 'Municipal' on the outskirts of Namur. with the Luxembourg border with cheap petrol a mile away. Cheap campsite with a bar selling lovely belgian beer.. marvellous. a great end to a really nice day.

That night we booked our crossing for the next day.. using the "Norfolk lines' website.. the crossing cost £17. compare that to using the DFDS site.. £25!! for the same service.  The next morning.. no rush. a pretty gentle ride across to Calais.

Just as an aside.. i did find the lines of hopeful 'illegals' lining the road to the ferry really very disturbing.. these men.. and boys desperate to get to England willing to do anything including risking life and limb.

and an hour or so later...

My post:

Again that is pretty comprehensive so I'll just copy and paste something someone else anonymously wrote about the B500, probably so that they wouldn't be chased down for it..

The night before

"And then we'll end up at the B500 here" said The Tall Man. "See it's split into two because they never finished it". "And what makes it so special?" I asked. "Well it's just a normal road for the South of Germany really, you won't see much because it's surrounded by trees but it's a fast sweeping road that's popular with sportsbikes. We'll just bimble along it of course". I raised an eyebrow. "Bimble?" "Well, a bit.." came the reply.

The next day

The first half of the B500 eluded us, but we found some lovely twisty backroads instead which were perfectly surfaced despite being in the middle of nowhere. These were of course pleasant enough but we eventually found our way to the second section of the B500 and boy did we know it! The signs were innocuous but suddenly the road became almost doubly wide and there were many bikes around with riders looking to prove their mettle. The Tall Man was of course leading the way, followed by me and a couple of bikes behind, immediately behind me looked to be an R1100S or similar which looked to be needing to be learned. The Tall Man used the immediate grunt that his boxer has on tap and overtook the car in front in a flash, of course my K100 needed its V12 to be spun up before the power comes on tap so I was left behind. I think it's a V12 anyway, the engine is enormous and I haven't bothered to sit down and count all the cylinders. With the other bikes behind me I wasn't about to hold anyone up and changed down to second, right around 6K and comfortably into the power - the riders behind likely expected me to be some old codger well past it, we'll show them what's what. As soon as the road straightened and I could see ahead the K was screwed to the red and up into third, then kept near the red. This was now 90MPH and we were banked to the left, where the loaded up K on cheap crossply tyres of course started to shake its head and wriggle its way across most of the extra wide lane. A quick check in the mirrors showed no one behind, little wonder as the plot must've looked like the frame was breaking up. Eventually the road straightened out again and I could see The Tall Man a couple of corners away going up a hill, I really had my work cut out. The next few corners were a blur of second and third gear, a howling V10 (or whatever), milder head shakes and cars that were seen as mere obstacles like a level from Road Rash. There were still no bikes in my mirrors though I had overtaken a few chasing The Tall Man, they must have thought GB Bikers were a mental bunch. Eventually I caught The Tall Man just before an enormous downhill hairpin.. K100 and K75 readers will know that this is a nightmare scenario at 90MPH, I grabbed the front brake and slowed.. And slowed.. The lever coming ever nearer the bar. The plot eventually slowed to around 30MPH, helped no doubt from still being in third gear, but The Tall Man wished to stop just after this hairpin to take a picture to prove to a friend that we had "done" this famous road. I tried to stop behind him but there was nothing left, he had to shuffle forwards slightly no doubt wondering why I wasn't stopping. The K's brakes were cooked. My mind was cooked. We were never overtaken. The Tall Man took a photo and then came over to me with piercing blue eyes, overcome with speed and madness, and said "Do try to keep up! Ha!". He didn't know the hardship I had endured making my brick fly in such a manner, but it was pointless trying to explain. We had to get moving, out of the way of the heroes on this racetrack.

At the northern end there is a place where people can stop and stare at the scenery, to find out they are actually quite high up. This is akin to Matlock Bath except it is connected to the start of a racetrack I would consider only a couple of steps down from the Nurburgring, with no Polizei in sight. A glorious place. I was saddened by the fact that a friend, Bob N, never made it as far as this road because he would have loved it. In itself it is not an amazing road but the culture on that relatively short piece of tarmac is incredible. It is biking nirvana.

Amazing how their experiences mirror our own, innit? Definitely wasn't us though, far too grown up for that sort of thing. Also the ferry took 90 minutes instead of the ~30 minutes the tunnel takes but it was certainly an experience, they just put a ratchet strap over the seat (with padding under it) with the bike on its side stand and ratchet it down with the bike in gear. That's it. I wouldn't like to try it in stormy weather but that's the gamble!

After that just a quick run home, nothing exciting to report though MB did discover he can be physically menacing to people who don't know him. How can he not know?? He's enormous! And a hooligan

So that was that. Around seven months of flanning, many months of bike researching and looking at, eventually buying something pretty good, buying camping gear, looking at routes.. All finished. I was genuinely sad when it all came to an end. I saw it as training for the future though, I learnt a lot and took away an understanding that anyone can do this if they want to. Going somewhere where the people don't speak English is not a big deal, people will make an effort to understand you because they're either interested in what you have to say or they want your money. Either way it's easy. I will probably revisit all these places in the future, there's nothing to stop me. And for that I can thank MB!

MB & Snod Blatters Alpine adventure.. Slovenia and beyond... Part 6

motobiker's post:

"Now what?" is I rode the bike to what turned out to be the strangest of all campsites.. spent the rest of the day and that night umming and aahing then the next morning leapt into action. Phone Carole Nash. who then passed all the details over to the local organiser - who called BMW Kaprun - who promised they could fix it. Was taken there that morning and was back at the campsite later that day. all fixed.

easy.

shame I missed out on Snods bike falling over.. a photo of him trying to get it back upright, veins popping on neck - would have been quite entertaining. But.. excitement aside, he didn't hang about the campsite waiting for word from me.. he went off all on his ownsome.

The next morning.. we headed back into Italy for Cortina D'Ampezzo in the Dolomites. pitched the tent and went for a ride... 4 passes. pizza. the best coffee of the entire fortnight. and finally.. all good luck ran out and it started to rain. not just rain.. it bucketed.

but not before we had 'some' fun.

 a fair sample.. but, very sadly. it was dull and damp... and higher up. very cold. The snow was exceptionally deep.. though the roads had been cleared.

So, as I say after a couple of hours the skies opened.. fortunately we made it into the bar in a petrol station just in time.. and watched people come in for a pint and a fag to help recover from the price they had just paid for petrol..

eventually the rain stopped and we went back to the campsite.. and headed (inevitably) for the bar.. more pizza followed plus rather a lot of beer. I was a tad fed up... the main reason for visiting the Dolomites isn't just the roads are like spaghetti. or that its pass after pass after pass.. etc.

its the views. the terrain is breathtaking and we couldn't see a bloody thing with the clouds being so low.. (or were we high?) probably both.

next morning.. it was so different.

blue skies and sun.. but, we couldn't hang about.. we had to go.

a few photos on the road north...

Its a shame we didn't have more time.. but the wasted day due to the breakdown had put paid to that. still, Snod got more than an eyeful so maybe he'll get to go back some day.

After that we raced north.. through Austria and had a little diversion to Fussen. just so Snod could get an eyeful of the Chitty Chitty bang bang castle.. as well as a quick stop off at the Lidl. for cheap beer and munchies. cloudy wheat beer. 26c a bottle.. whats not to like?

Because the initial ideas for this trip had been scuppered by bad weather.. bad weather we missed out on (fortunately) aside from the very edge of it on day 1. Poor Snod never got to Liechtenstein.. though hopefully Monaco made up for that.. anyway. I had a cunning flan.

we went to Lichtenstein. (note spelling)

the back passage...

We were now deep in the heart of Swabia.. an area I knew nothing about.. still it was very pleasant. fairly high up rolling hills with the Black forest to the west.  We found a great campsite.. huge place. very german. got talking to a german chap who couldn't speak a word of english.. but he liked us because we were fascinated by his 3 wheeled scooter. (the first Ive seen up close)

i liked it.. and he liked us because we liked it.  

next day.. off to the Black forest.

My post:

 I (we?) forgot to mention that while travelling across Austria on Flappy-Clutch-Lever-Wednesday a lot of people seemed to be off work or rather off school as there were a lot of yoofs driving around in their modified cars, mostly VW Golfs. The number of these cars intensified until we reached a crossroads where they were congregating, all comparing notes and some strange dark lines had appeared on the road though there were no Polizei about to put an end to their fun. They were all nice enough though, clearly there for the love of the machines rather than to make trouble. MB nipped past a slightly Max Power-esque (i.e. deafening) Golf R32 (that's a 3.2L 250BHP 4WD cage for those wonder) which the owner seemed to be surprised about. He maybe recognised what my bike was in his mirrors and decided to show what his car could do.. I pulled out to overtake in second gear and he matched me all the way to the redline, as much a surprise to me as it was for him to see us so evenly matched. I pulled back in behind and gave him a big thumbs up which seemed to go down well, big laughs all round. Got him in the end though! That night was spent tutting at how BMW build their bikes and wondering what to do, but that's pretty well documented by now.

Thursday morning was spent getting sunburnt while talking to other residents of the campsite and watching the poor rescue people try and squeeze MB's grossly overgrown bike into their van:

And then the afternoon was spent going round in circles along the side of a mountain (including stumbling across Assling), having lunch at a very cheap backerei and then stumbling across what looked like a nice easy to follow loop over a mountains, through Italy and back round into Austria right near the campsite. It started off well:

 Though the Sun was beating down so hard my concentration was fading in and out at times - a roadside sign said 33C but it actually felt like more. I followed that road through half-tunnels (one side is half missing in slots) and started to climb the mountain.. Up into the cool, this was going to be good! But then it was closed with road repairs and I had to turn around, scuppering the whole flan. On the way down I stopped to take a picture and the K fell over. This is right after I picked up back up, thanking the powers that be that it hadn't rolled down the side of the mountain!

I picked up the pieces of mirror, had a rest and tried to tell a couple of Italians to turn back as the road was closed but they didn't believe me and carried on anyway. Back the way I'd come, back to the Hofer (Aldi) in Lienz and a few minutes after I'd parked up and was trying to figure out why the pieces of mirror wouldn't fit together MB pulled into the car park! I truly didn't expect to see him for another 24 hours at least, utterly amazing. We got back to find a crazy German kid who was cycling his way through the countries along the outside of Germany, much cake and beer was had.

Friday and time was starting to get a little tight but not tight enough to stop us going to see the Dolomites, MB's most favouritest place and I can see why. It started well with Cortina D'Ampezzo feeling very, err, Italian somehow. Beautiful and no one was in a rush.

 The campsite was found, the tent was put up (and some idiot left it slightly open in the rain ) and then we left again to go see some Dolomites. Some of these are really high up, we saw ~2200m and were well into the snow but somehow it didn't feel nearly as majestic as the Grossglockner at 2500m, perhaps because the cloud didn't let us see how high it was. Then it was time for some pizza!

The base was ridiculously thin and crispy, it was just generally delicious. The same couldn't be said for the alcohol free beer which tasted like alcohol free homebrew but hey ho, the coffee afterwards helped us cope. The barmaid watched us all the time we were eating the pizzas, it is possible that one is meant for two people and she was disgusted by our gluttony but whatever. A group of bikers and the manager/owner of the place also formed a group around my bike, Ks are rare on the continent for some reason and they seemed interested in it. I just wished the mirror was still intact..

After that it was back down and sadly into the rain. When MB says we stopped at a petrol station with a bar he is not joking, people were (probably) knocking off work on a Friday and off to the bar for a few drinks. But the bar also happens to be a petrol station. Once the rain subsided it was back to the campsite in case we got caught in rain like that again and the roads were already wet, not a whole lot of fun when they're so twisty. The night consisted of wheat beer, salad, pizza and Atlas branded paint stripper high strength lager.

The next day was the first of the run home, a sad feeling. MB has covered about as much as I can remember off hand, though the German campsite that night was memorable because 1) The Bavarian beer on tap is as delicious and tangy as people say and 2) My goulash had an enormous chilli in it that turned out to be really burning hot. It was delicious otherwise though, from what I could taste. Still, onwards!