MB & Snod Blatters Alpine adventure.. Slovenia and beyond... Part 2

motobiker's post:

weds to friday

Wednesday and the weather improved hugely, any rain overnight - and I'm not sure if it rained or not was dried up and gone by morning, just a bit of cloud - but by 9am it was already warm, the tent was packed away bone dry. Kids were spilling into the athletics track and we were off. heading south for Grenoble, back over the Rhone within an hour we were on the bypass and just a few miles later turned off to join the route Napoleon. but first we dived into Lidl to buy dinner (and booze) - Snod has already put up some pics of that place - it had a view to die for from the car park. Anyway.. within the hour we were climbing the first part of the RN, which goes up a mountainside and eventually into a long valley with a lake and ahead our first sight of the higher mountains with snow.

and soon afterwards we had blue skies... and it grew warm. very warm. On the other side of that small mountain range the RN dropped down to the valley floor and for the next 20-30 miles was largely dual carriageway following a river.

For all I know we had left the RN - I have an admission to make, the route I used was copied from a mad dutchmans website. he called it 'Route Napoleon' - but as it went on. there were a few surprises in store. Anyway that day involved a lot of riding south - I was keen to leave all threat of rain as far behind as possible and so no photos. we simply sped through the landscape until the route lifted us back into the mountains. then a surprise. the sat nav told me to turn off the RN.. and thinking 'how exciting' I did. And Snod had his first taste of a 'proper' mountain road - with no barriers and precipitous drops. scary? no not really - we had the road almost completely to ourselves. by this time it was after 6pm. a couple of cars parked up for its entire 14 mile length. The D20. marvellous road and all to ourselves, bliss.

http://goo.gl/maps/9EMdB

From there it was just a few miles to the village of Barrême - which declared itself as being within Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur - whoop.

A few clicks and a campsite.. .3 of a mile away called (Originally) Camping Napoleon. we turned in, paid. pitched the tent.. ate our Lidl dinner.. got a bit tipsy and after dark went for a wobbly walk through the deserted village. past a house that had bicycles as a fence - odd. and N85 (road) signs every foot or so... no wonder we were lost. the bagel had nicked all the road signs!!

back to the tent and collapsed in a pre-formed heap. woke up the next morning to realise. a. it was bloody cold. b. the tent had froze. so therefore c. we were fairly high up. sat nav said a smidge over 2,000 feet. anyway.. before long the sun had thawed everything out. the tent dried in minutes.. and we were showered and off again. heading south towards Castellane to leave the RN and have a bimble round the Gorges du Verdon.  breakfast on the square in an odd little restaurant with a motorbike over the door. served by 'thai wives' all smiles and smart phone. Then followed a handy sign to the Gorges... the gorgeous Gorges.  I loved the place. (it was hot too)

To be fair any photos cannot give an idea of the scale of the place... if you've been to cheddar gorge. multiply that by a factor of 5. it was huge... very deep with the river at the bottom the strangest blue. a colour we were to grow used to. we followed the road that skirts the top of the gorge until it was time to get fuel. sat nav pointed us in the direction of the closest station - and as we approached it i spotted a sign that said 'Route des cretes'!!

Still a bit disappointed by missing out on the other route des cretes in the Vosges.. i mentioned this to Snod at the petrol station and it was a simple matter to retrace our steps and follow the sign. That road was the ride of the day. talk about  up and down and round and round.. again. cliffs  with no barriers. drops that seemed a mile deep. but.. despite all that it was lovely. the only fly in the ointment was keeping an eye out for rocks that had tumbled down into the road.. there were a few 'tyre shredders' by the look of them. But.. very soon a nice surprise... we had our first glimpse of the sea... Snods very first view of the Mediterranean. I was thrilled.

anyway..

Don't look DOWN!!!

Soon it was time to leave.. so, just followed our noses until the road peaked then began to drop down the other side and presented us with another amazing aquamarine lake... called: Lac de saint-croix.

here. http://goo.gl/maps/RTXG9

we rode down to the Lake and had lunch in a restaurant in the village of Les Salles sur Verdon.  and afterwards.. we were off again heading for the Coast. through the mountains and down to the Sea... following signs for Saint-Tropez.

which.. was crazy. so an inland diversion and we headed for Monaco. I was really hoping for a sign.. but there wasn't one. suddenly there we were... riding on the Grand prix track...  Monaco is by any standards a totally insane place. We saw literally 1,000s of bikes (mainly - but not exclusively scooters) parked up. and none of them 'secured'. All kinds of cars... from little urban runabouts to Aston martins and ferraris.  My route was to the Casino.. I wanted a photo. but, horror - i took a wrong turn.. and suddenly. police everywhere and a charming policewoman in front of me saying. NON!! - my response...'awwwww' and she let us through!!!!

onto 'Billionaires row' - OH MY GOD!! suddenly blacked out limousines.. everywhere. Hermes shop. Van cleef and arpels shop. prada. gucci. chanel. kwik save.. (ok maybe not) - this road.. was IT!!. we were surrounded by the super rich.. US!! I managed to take two pictures... fortunately - in the wrong direction!! had I faced the other way - its likely the camera would have been seized. the police weren't there to stop crime - they were there to stop the paparrazi taking pictures or announcing to the world who was seen going into the Casino. This road had the 'real entrance' on it.. not the main facade thats on the tourist trail.  A copper spotted me taking these two photos and ran at us. i apologised and we were off again. I have to admit being on that road was incredible.. its a road that nobody gets to see. and Ive been there. amazing.

back onto the race track... mental. I saw on my sat nav the beach.. so headed for it. and once on a quiet road... to the 'Monaco beach Hotel' - no less stopped.

Snod managed to smile for the camera and then started shouting at me.. ok, he didn't really shout (too excited) but.. he was DISMAYED. on our ride round the track I had taken a wrong turn.. and missed out the TUNNEL.

what tunnel?

THE TUNNEL.

I had no idea.. Im not really interested in Grand prix. but.. it was IMPORTANT. so.. after a quick rest back into the craziness of pre race Monaco and through the tunnel.. i want impressed... but Snod was practically jumping up and down. (bless him)

through the tunnel.. and a quick stop for pics.. to prove we had been there.

another wrong turn and we got caught up in a one way.. which by happy coincidence took us BACK THROUGH the tunnel.. in the other direction.. Snod was practically jumping up and down on his bike...

After all that.. it was out of the insanity and find a campsite. soon at one. again we got drunk and were shouted at for talking after 10:30 by the remarkably miserable owner.

ho hum.

next day... into Italy!!

My post:

That is fairly comprehensive..!

Just after (or during?) our first taste of real mountains we stopped at a real French boulangerie for real French tropezienne cakes. There was even a real French Gendarme milling about outside, armed with something nasty in a holster!

Camping Napoleon, so nice to be warm and dry!

 MB at the Gorges Du Verdon.. The pictures really fail to convey the proportions of the place.

The Route Des Cretes was fabulous and deserted as it doesn't go anywhere. It also had rather scary tunnels with no lights in so you are plunged into darkness for ~10 seconds, no time for your eyes to adjust - only thing to do is head for the exit. What is health and safety anyway? Lac de saint-croix was our first real sight of the weird blue water they have all the way down there, it is more blue than the sky so not a reflection. It's still baffling now..

Monaco was almost like a dream, it was so strange. We went through the border (sort of, if there is one) and the roads stayed the same as France, no immediate change is surface like you get in Luxembourg. Prices were similar too, at least for petrol. We were riding through the centre and suddenly I could see red and white rumble strip.. I KNOW WHERE WE ARE! I've raced round this hairpin and the one below thousands of times in games (for those that know past the start finish, up the hill, left and right.. that hairpin there). Then the next one, then the one at the bottom of the hill, down we go, tunnel to the right.. Come on MB you must know, come on, why are you indicating left it's the teacaking Monaco Tunnel oh no no no.. We finally parked up at the beach, only to be followed in by more Brits on Harleys - we were to find that Brits really get about. After trying to convey the importance of the Tunnel to MB we had to slog our way back through weirdest backstreet Monaco, but to me it was worth it. MB probably still has no idea though. The first run through was subdued because we weren't even sure if we were allowed to be there, the track was getting ready for the F1 race and lots of the track were cordoned off. Escaping back the other way was rather more enthusiastic though!

I am not sure what happened after that, my recollection is we went straight into Italy for delicious pizza (with real roasted garlic), MB saw a lemon tree which pleased him greatly because it means we were somewhere exotic and warm and then somehow we ended up in France again, facing epic hill starts of the "Do I smell clutch?" variety and queues of traffic. We ended up in a rather nice place with an English speaking owner..

 Or at least it was nice until the owner told us to pipe down at 22:30 as he could hear us from his bedroom. We then realised we were sitting maybe 10 metres from his bedroom with the window open.. What a miserable Frenchman. Later a random English guy gave us a couple of small cans of beer to try and be friendly but MBs deafness struck again and he was fobbed off. Left the beer though? It wasn't there for long

MB & Snod Blatters Alpine adventure. 11/5/14 - 26/5/15 Part 1

motobiker's post:

In which Snod discovers the joys of camping.

The day had come at last, we were ready and we were off. As is traditional we met up at leicester forest east services for the ride down to Ashford. A stop-off at south mimms on the M25 and arrived at the Ashford travelodge without any problems, weather was just about perfect. Cool without being cold and dry all the way. A little windy going over the Dartford crossing just added a little excitement.
I asked the receptionist nicely for a ground floor room and they gave me one set up for 3. So partially unloaded the bikes (leaving only the panniers) freshened up and headed out for a bite to eat. In the end settling on the Chiquito mexican.. which was alright. Then retiring to the Beefeater for a pint or two.

Crossing was set for 08:50 so an early(ish) night and alarm set for 06:30.  While shod was in the shower I checked on the weather... sun/showers. heavy rain in the black forest and on into germany and Austria. the only good weather to be seen was south of grenoble - where it was 'glorious'. This was little changed from the night before.. or indeed the few days leading up to the off. Original ideas and routes were scrapped aside from the first stop.

400 miles to camping du lac. here: http://goo.gl/maps/Vgtvn

A nice easy run... weather was pretty much perfect. No rain, cool. little or no wind. occasional sun. If there was rain about it was avoiding us. We followed the usual 'free' route used to the Eifel as its both quicker and a lot cheaper than the toll route. cheaper on petrol too and we know it well, until we turned south from lux and entered france.. this was all new. but.. not bad. However as we approached the end the weather decided it had had enough of playing ball and it started to drizzle this was off and on for perhaps the last 40 miles. not awful. but certainly not good. On the final climb to the Lake the clouds descended.. with more drizzle. We arrived at the campsite without any problems and after checking in started to put the tent up. This was Snods first time. And then it started to rain.. which rapidly turned to Hail. the wind picked up and we had a bit of a fight on our hands. obviously both a bit tired... it was a struggle. but.. we got there. got the tent up.. the camp beds inflated - sleeping bags in. And then we legged it into the restaurant. The owner turned up the heating - we ordered Veal steak and fries with salad. a beer and settled in, warming up.

Bit of a baptism of fire (or ice) for Snod, he was shivering and probably just a tad traumatised, wondering what he had let himself in for. fortunately the hail had finished - it was still quite cold with just a light drizzle by the time we had thoroughly warmed up. eaten and lubricated ourselves with a few litres of cheap french beer. so... dived into the tent and very quickly asleep. so ended day 1.

The next morning - it was still very damp but at least not raining. but.. my heart sank. the clouds hadn't lifted. The tent was packed away while Snod had his shower and got himself ready. I made coffee on my stove to get us going and we were off... following a route to the grand ballon. the highest point in the Vosges. (the road as high as Ben Nevis) after a few miles we had climbed to 3,700 feet and i pulled over. And asked Snod if he wanted to carry on. The cloud was all around us... visibility not very good at all. his answer was instant. 'No'.

So... that was that. we headed down out of the mountains towards the plain below and south. I told the sat nav to take us to grenoble by the fastest route avoiding Tolls and we were off. Once out of the mountains the weather suddenly improved. yes.. it remained largely overcast, but there were occasional breaks with some sun. it warmed up a fair bit and we sped south towards the Jura Mountains that border switzerland and france. A nice mixture of roads... 250 miles until we reached the Rhone and crossed it, following its east bank south until we reached a bridge at a place called Groslee. About 40 miles from Grenoble. south of us a storm we had been following (it never actually rained on us - though it was clear we weren't far behind its edge) looked grim. Another wet night was out of the question - west of us the skies were blue and the sun was shining. So.. west we went, from under the cloud and into the sunlight. After a couple of miles I pulled over and said to Snod. we'll make a beeline for a campsite now. few button presses and voila a campsite less than a mile from us. Turned out to be a 'municipal' in the small town of Morestel. cheap and cheerful. a couple of camper vans and us. right next to an athletics track. tent up and we were asleep pretty early that night.

So, my third attempt at the Vosges defeated by the weather (for the third time) a shame.. but after that things really started to improve. certainly the weather got a lot better as we headed south. warmer and drier. soon the freezing cold hail and rain in the vosges was a distant memory.

Municipal campsites tend to be fairly basic in france and this one was no exception. but, it was cheap and very quiet. The toilets left a lot to be desired so next morning meant a beeline to the nearest MacDonalds to use theirs. and have some breakfast.

The storm had cleared away.. the skies were blue. it was very warm. and we headed south to join the Route Napoleon just south of Grenoble. this would (in theory) take us all the way to the Med coast near Cannes. With a diversion on the way up into and around the Gorges du Verdon. i thought it best to do this part over two days... a wise choice as it turned out. reducing the distances ridden.. with more stops. to ooh and aah. and as it turned out there was a lot of that.

which can wait until the next episode.

I should add that because we were away for two weeks. eating was divided almost equally between 'out' and al fresco. out was either roadside. campsite restaurants or macdonalds. Al fresco meant a trip to Lidl or Aldi. (i have the location of every Lidl in western europe on my sat nav) To buy mostly. bread, cheese and beer. - what more do you need? though we sometimes added salad. chocolate and cake. The differences between the Lidls in various countries was remarkable.. and all of them put ours here in the UK to shame. really. Its no wonder the Mighty Tesco gave up on germany (for instance). And also.. as an aside. The Germans seem to cope quite well with sunday being an 'everywhere is closed' day. funny that they can in a country thats so... industrious.

90c for a can of very nice extra strong German beer. and in the south of Germany - so wonderful. 26c for a bottle of cloudy wheat beer. No wonder everyone seemed so chilled. 15c for bread rolls. the choices of cheese was truly extraordinary. And then having all that for 'dinner' in the evening under a clear sky in air so clean you could almost drink it. pure heaven.

A photo that should have been added to the (mon-weds) post.

this taken not long after we had dropped down into the plain south of the Vosges.. with the foothills behind.

My post:

There were so many days I doubt I remember them in the right order, MB is the one with the record of our routes and the knowledge of everywhere ever! The first night of camping was fairly miserable, we could see the rain heading our way from coming over the hills where it had to climb up and get properly cold.. But the hail was a shock. The tent was already unravelled and it couldn't be abandoned as the wet would find its way inside, so we persevered while being battered on the head (and ears!) by ice pellets. After the grenoulle (?) steak and delicious draft Heineken I went for a walk around, took some pics and hid from the next rain shower next to an abandoned lakeside eatery with a load of pedalos outside, it probably only opens in the summer.  Come 9PM it was dark, and by 9:15PM we were back in the tent hiding from the weather. "Look Jack, I didn't come all this way to sit in a tent" says MB in a serious tone.. But it was okay. It still showered on and off the next morning but it was better and not quite as cold, off we went to find a toilet with toilet paper - McDonalds to the rescue!

Camping Du Lac and where the rain slowly came over from:

You can see the hail piled up next to the building, this fell in about 3 minutes as I remember:

The ride to the Grand Ballon was not really any fun, we were soon in the wet and cold grasp of cloud and the roads were slippery and broken, tar snakes and bad repairs everywhere. We climbed a bit but it only got worse and the small water droplets stick to my visor (and glasses) making it hard to see. There would be nothing to see at the top except the innards of more cloud, so back down we went.. Sorry MB, maybe next time.

The rest of the day going to Grenoble (or not) was a lot nicer, despite being constantly tailgated by mad French people and the K starting to shake its head under the strain - a couple of themes that were to continue. I had the mad head shake up the hill round the corner which I posted about not long after, and that night at the municipal campsite in Morestel checked out the steering head bearings (which were fine) and clicked the preload on the rear shock to maximum, which helped a lot though the shakes never went away, coming back with a vengeance on the B500.. But that's a story for later. The Morestel campsite was nice but a bit weird, the gents toilets were still locked shut and it was very basic but nice in a relaxed, quiet sort of way. Plus the fact that it didn't rain until we got into the tent helped things a lot.

Morestel municipal:

The next day on the Route Napoleon was where the fun really started, mountains started to appear and the Route Des Cretes around the Gorges Du Verdon was a corker, up and down and round and round. Also we did out first bit of Alps, not sure which day that was but it was great though hard on the poor K's brakes. Things were looking up at this point

On the way to Grenoble the landscape started to change:

And smiles began to appear..

How to rebuild a Koni 7610 (Dial-A-Ride) shock

The Koni Rebuild Game began today. With the Hagons back in their rightful place, attempting to prop up the back of the CB, I have all the time I need to figure this out. The first hurdle is that I'm far too tight to spend the ludicrous amount demanded by everybody for motorcycle spring compressors - around £40 seems to be the going rate, and they look wimpy at that. For £7.50 delivered I bought a pair of "Marksman" car ones..

Hmm, they don't really fit. I can soon sort that.

There we go. I smell like a blacksmith but I've saved myself over half a day's wages and, most importantly, I haven't given in to paying extra for yet another inferior bike specific product. You have to compress the spring enough so that the top collar can be slid down to where the push rod is, and then it'll just slide out. Then you can pull the spring off the top, which is kind of easy, followed by the preload collar - it all lifts straight off the top.

The next step is to break into the cylinder by undoing the top, known as the "gland nut". For this you need a (very) decent pin spanner with 4mm pins, or a gland nut wrench but they are amazingly expensive.

After buying a Koni (must've been very old stock) seal kit off ebay for a mere £11.99, my enthusiasm for this was rekindled and I decided to just attack the gland nut with mole grips instead.

It was actually pretty easy to undo with these. It's not even marked very much, though of course the correct tool would be preferable. Undoing this lets me pull out the innards with all the damping gubbins within, and frees some oil:

At this point I was confused, everything I had read said there was a 12mm bolt at the bottom of this but there isn't, there's just a rivet.

So I emailed the long suffering Geoff at Ikon in Australia yet again, and the poor bloke sighed into his morning Castlemaine XXXX and typed a reply to my silly questions one more time, despite there not even being any money in it for him. His response was a long and very confusing piece of text, but the upshot was they are all riveted like that, sir, and that the tube comes off anyway. So.. Stick it in the vice:

You may notice it's a bit rusty - turns out shock absorber parts are not happy being in the open air for long. Can't be helped though. It also turns out that the tube comes away from the flying saucer thingy that has the fat O ring on top of it (if you have a Koni in front of you you'll know what this means!). Mine was just stuck with oil, nothing more.

From here it's easy. At the end of the chrome rod there is the fabled 12mm bolt, undo it and all the stuff can be pulled off. So easy!

The picture above is of the gland nut and the seal. The seal in this one simply pushed out by hand, and the new seal pushed in - I think this is very strange and I will probably be back in there soon replacing this nut. The other non-leaking shock needed the seal pressing out with a socket in the vice, and the new one pressing in - this seems more like how it should be. I wonder how much a gland nut is though.. The first seal was so loose the rod pushed it out again as I was trying to put things back together, so I pushed it into the gland nut once it was all on the rod. All a bit strange.

Anyway, put it all back on the rod in the same order but with your new seals in place and tighten the 12mm bolt to 9Nm. Geoff suggested using 263 Loctite, I didn't bother. Slide the tube back on and now it's time to fill 'er up. Wielding the tube like He-Man is optional.

You now must fill the empty body with 80-85ml of SAE 5 oil, or if you don't have any (who does?) some "decent quality" 5w fork oil will do. I found just enough Putoline 5w in a bottle that must've been open for 20 years, I figured this was very high quality as it was immediately available. Ease the damping tube into the full-of-oil shock body, trying to to let any overflow out the top. I found it best to separate the flying saucer from the tube and let the tube fill with the oil, then it was easy.

Tighten the gland nut to 50Nm, 569 Loctite is recommended but I don't have any so didn't bother. Since I did it up with mole grips I also have no idea how close to 50Nm it was, but it's pretty damn tight.

Put the preload adjuster back on, slide the shock up inside the spring, stick the collar in and let off the spring compressors..

Job done innit? Now do it again, the next one will only take you an hour - promise! It's easy when you know how.

How to adapt Koni Dial-A-Rides to fit your CB250

The Hagons on the CB250 are a bit tired (knackered), with one leaking a lot but the other just about holding on. It's still quite controlled but it is sagging at the back, and high speed cornering is becoming a bit wallowy. So I bought myself some used Konis..

A leaky Hagon, a mere 5 years old and ~35K miles-ish. Rubbish for the amount they are trying to charge nowadays, in my opinion.

A new (to me) Koni Dial-A-Ride 7610-1282SP5. A pair of these from Ikon are about £320, I got these for £57.50. Unfortunately, they don't fit straight on - I had to buy some narrower rubber bushes, and some sleeves to make the eye holes smaller. These bits were an eye-watering £59.48 but hey, it's still a pair of Konis for under £120 - cheaper than new Hagons, and got to be better.

With a vice and a couple of sockets, press the old rubber out:

And with some soft jaws press the new rubber into place.

Use the two sockets to get the rubber near enough in the middle. Four hands are really required to make this job easy, but I managed it with half that. And bosh, on it goes!

Much merriment took place with the other side, the sleeve for the lower fitting wasn't drilled big enough so it had to be opened out. Cue much drilling, filing, drilling, filing, dremelling and then aggressive dremelling before it would fit. It was then slightly oval from being in the vice, so had to be viced into its new home in the lower rubber. Ugh. Anyway, it was eventually done!

I then took the Konis off again and fitted my new rubbers to the tops as well, as I couldn't stand doing half a job. They then fitted correctly, so it was time for a test!

Immediate impressions were very good, they are just the right side of hard and the way they have jacked the rear up so far has transformed the handling (and nearly stopped the stands from working..), it goes to show just how tired and saggy those Hagons have become. Unfortunately it seems the left one is also leaking a lot, despite the seller reckoning they're fine. I'm in too deep to just send them back, and they fit so damn well.. Ahh bugger. Wonder how much a rebuild is..