Before I do that I want to show you the state of the rear wheel bearing that was taken out a few weeks ago, sorry it is slightly out of focus, however all the covers had gone, given that it was meant to be a sealed bearing that is fairly fundamental. Also 4 of the balls were missing, on the reverse side there are a couple of bits of metal, that are the remains of at least a couple of them. From this you should be able to see how close this bearing was to seizing, if it had I doubt I would be writing this now.
One of the reasons why there has been a large gap between rides is the fact I ‘blew’ my rear shock last time out. It was therefore a major task to find a replacement, Well!! Thereby hangs a tale in itself. As the genuine Honda part is a sealed unit, it cannot be rebuilt. I looked on eBay for a replacement, a few were listed at a ‘Buy it now Price’ of £60-70 and one greedy idiot had one listed at £125, get real, why would I buy a 10 Year old part without any guarantee when I could go to Hagon and buy a new one for £275 that has a warranty. That may sound crazy but The Rear Shock is one of the most fundamental parts of your bikes.
However I had a drop of luck a few weeks before when I found out that a previous company I had worked for had made a mistake concerning my pension contributions and owed me some money. I therefore decided it was time to splash out on something decent, rather than a second hand part from eBay. I therefore had 4 options, a Genuine Honda part, which although alright, it was designed for the bike so should be. The second was to go one small step further and try one of the new Hagon shocks with remote pre-load, but again for the cost it doesn’t give me a massive improvement in performance and this is at a list price of over £400.
The next option was White Power and I was seriously interested in one of these as the Rolls Royce solution was seriously expensive.
I decided to write to each of the last 3 contenders, cap in hand and see what could be done. White Power came back very quickly with bad news they had actually stopped manufacturing the part for my bike, as the Honda Africa Twin had gone out of production 6 years ago.
I have still to hear from Hagon and finally after a couple of phone calls, I got a response from the UK importer of the Rolls Royce of shock absorbers Harris Performance came up with a deal to die for, I could not believe my luck. These guys are genuine diamonds. I left a message for Steve Harris, which he did return, unfortunately my calls coincided with the IOM TT so no wonder it took him a while. I did speak with one of the other Directors Steve Bayford, what a saint. He then put me in touch with one of his Sales guys, Mark to look after me.
All I can say is I have now got an Ohlins high performance rear shock, with a custom spring build to my specifications and requirements. They also donated a number of specialist oils, brake and fork when they heard the rest of my rebuild plans.
I went over to collect the shock and came away with far more than I had ever dreamed of. As far as equipment and part sponsors are concerned Harris Performance deserve the greatest credit for their contribution as the biggest to my maintenance is the biggest to date, apart from the blood sweat and tears of West Wales Motorcycles.
Given one of the donations from Harris was some Ohlins Fork oil, I decided I was going to do the front end as well, as it had become a bit ‘spongy’ to say the least. I didn’t realise how much until I had carried out the work.
Finally I bought a set of HEL, race brake lines from eBay, the almost 10 year old rubber ones must have been well past their best, so having steel braided ones must be better given I paid less than £40 for them. And while doing that it was a case of changing the Brake fluid and Brake seals.
Finally, finally given the fact I had to remove the Tank Set to get at the all the parts I needed, I decided it was time to check the air filter, given this is a K&N it meant it can be serviced and I had the cleaner and oil to do that.
I also took the opportunity to adjust my headlights as riding home on the last outing the last 100 miles was in the dark and I noticed that one of them was somewhat high, no wonder some car drivers weren’t happy with me, however they should also note that when I am behind you my headlights are probably 2 ft higher off the ground than a normal car headlight so they will appear brighter in your mirrors, that and they are ‘Ice Blue’ bulbs which are also designed to be 15% brighter. The picture below shows her in a state on undress on the ‘bike-lift’.
So almost a month after finishing the last section it was time to rebuild the bike. Now I haven’t been slacking, I’ve got a major garden to look after but to be frank it is a mess, what was more important was sorting out ME, I have had a number of injections in my legs for various reasons. A problem around the Hamstring in my right leg, however they are a long standing problem of Varicose Veins, now before you say anything, it is not a pregnant or old women’s problem. If you are like me, it is hereditary, my Grandfather had it, my Mother had it, I have it. Unfortunately the NHS do not recognise it as a problem, (IDIOTS they have never suffered) I have been described by the consultant treating me as a freak. As I am the only person he knows that has gained PCT funding to get his Veins treated.
The secret has been persistence, not going away and keep pushing, to give you a brief idea. I have now had 2 operations and 2 injection procedures to treat them, the first op being almost 30 years ago. But in each and every case they have fiddled with whilst Rome has burned rather than sorting the problem properly. Hopefully the last session has now sorted me out, I hope so as the pain from the bruising is not pleasant and I know I am going to be in for some grief as I set off for my next leg, which includes Northern Ireland, compliments of Norfolk Line. So I am taking a few days off going up on Friday to see my Father then taking the night ferry from Birkenhead to Belfast, then coming back on Sunday night on the overnight ferry, I’ll then look to head up the coast of Lancashire before heading back on Tuesday morning, first thing.
I would really like to pass my thanks on to Martina McCotter of Norfolk line for all her help arranging this for me, in return I will be writing a special report that Norfolk Line are more than welcome to use if they find it good enough.
This brings me on to one of the biggest challenges and that is writing up my notes after each part of the ride and to be quite frank it can take me longer than actually doing the ride itself, since setting out for the last long weekend which included 4 days of riding and then this particular post I have written nearly 24,000 words, if you then consider it is also 96 pages of A4 pictures and prose. If that is then averaged out over all of the posts I have put up so far it is 600 pages and 140,000 words. I am only just getting this post up before heading off to start again.
The thought of getting someone to edit all of this properly, cleaning up some of my grammar and spelling to turn it into a book, is not such an outlandish idea as I first thought.
After completing all my rebuild work and giving her a decent clean and polish, it was time for a quick ride down the lane to test out the brakes and suspension. WOW! Is all I can say, everything is so much ‘tighter’ the brakes appear to be far more direct and effective, The suspension is an absolute revelation particularly the front forks, I fitted a set of Touratech Progressive springs a few years ago and changed the oil, I had never realised how bad that oil had become, the Ohlins fork oil, means the front end no longer dives and comes back without any bounce whatsoever, brilliant.
The new Rear Shock again means the bike stands proud and no wallowing anymore she is tight and really nice and planted, the most noticeable fact about this is I need to stand on my tip toes once again to move her around, the saddle is at least 3ins higher then I can ever remember so that is one thing I will have to get used to all over again.
After all this work, I also took a relaxing walk to take in the sunset from my place. At this time of the year I am extremely lucky, I posted some pictures of the snow that had me blocked in earlier in the year, this is totally the other side of the story.
Take care and as Mick says ‘You don’t stop riding when you get old; you stop to build a new bike!.
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