What did you do to your bike today ??

[D6Nutz]

Sorted the insurance for another year.

Found out my shed is classified as secure and it has an alarm so that made the insurance company happy. They dropped the renewal by £100 to just over £200 fully comp, so decided to check a multi bike policy to include the KTM. Nearly fell off my chair when it was only £30 more for both fully comp. Happy days.

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[Kwacky]

I took the angry hornet out for a spin. The usual route of Quatt and the Old Ludlow road. I've not ridden the MV for a while so I wanted familiar roads while we got reacquainted.

Blind overtaking by cars seemed to be very popular today.

[Kwacky]

A nice run out with Cookie around Craven Arms.

Saw a very lucky biker take a head shot from a pheasant. He managed to stay on. We pulled over to check he was ok. Shaken with a sore neck was the extent of his injuries.

[C00kiemonster]

A nice run out with Cookie around Craven Arms.

Saw a very lucky biker take a head shot from a pheasant. He managed to stay on. We pulled over to check he was ok. Shaken with a sore neck was the extent of his injuries.

He was a nice bloke. He will have sore neck tomorrow imo.

[StMarks]

A nice run out with Cookie around Craven Arms.

Saw a very lucky biker take a head shot from a pheasant. He managed to stay on. We pulled over to check he was ok. Shaken with a sore neck was the extent of his injuries.

I remember reading a couple of years back about a rider who was killed by a pheasant. Went out for a summer ride, and never came home. When they found the bike crash scene, apparently there was the remains of a pheasant embedded into his visor.!

I've never hit one myself, thank goodness. However living where I do I have had to duck a few times for flying creatures, have hit a rabbit/hare mid corner (nearly took me out, they make one hell of an impact for such a small animal ) but my primary nemesis is all the deer.
The close calls I have had from deer are too many to recall, I'm fairly convinced one will catch me eventually.

[kiwikrasher]

Jesus! A pheasant!! He’s lucky to get away with that!

[kiwikrasher]

Not today but on the weekend..

With all the stress life is throwing my way I thought a couple hour blast on the Thruxton was in order. It’s been about 4 months since I took it out.

Seemed really slow to start, heaps of battery and cranked fine but didn’t want to fire. Finally got it going and headed of down the mountain. Was about half full so 10 km in topped the tank up.

5 mins to get the thing to fire again. Every stop I did it stalled out. Started ok most times. Decided to head back home. Any full throttle was causing it to mis and splutter. Got worse and worse and barely made it home.

Haven’t touched it yet to work out what’s going on and unfortunately the whole episode put me in a worse mental state.

So finally over COVID, I decided to crack on and find out what the issue was. Bit of research and a known issue with these bikes is the spark plug caps arching out onto the engine. There has been a superseded cap that sorts this issue. Sure enough, mine are the old type and found them both to be arching out!

Unfortunately no stock in Australia and Triumph Australia said 6-8 weeks lead time Found them available through World of Triumph in the UK, 1/3 of the price I was quoted by Triumph Australia, and here in 2 weeks

Incidentally found the cooling fan wiring mis-routed and melting on the exhaust balance pipe. Luckily it had only melted the outer insulation sheath and the wire insulation was still fine. Tested the fan direct off the battery and runs fine.

Hopefully all back and running 100% in a couple of weeks!

[Kwacky]

Booked the MV in for its MOT.

[Kwacky]

Took the MV out for a few hours, playing around Leominster, Ledbury, Bromyard areas.

[D6Nutz]

I got fed up with feeling crap, so after an afternoon snooze, took the KTM out for a pootle.

There's one byway near us which is 2km long, so decided to use that as a quick test to get used to the bike off road. It does feel a little strange turning off the tarmac, but it is fun.

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[Kwacky]

I took the sx out, over Warwickshire way. Far too many roads have been dropped to 40mph and plenty have loose gravel on them. Not the best ride but it was good to get out.

[D6Nutz]

Prepped the KTM for a closed track Enduro day tomorrow. First time, so this should be interesting.

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[StMarks]

Prepped the KTM for a closed track Enduro day tomorrow. First time, so this should be interesting.

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Feeling better then Jon, that's good news.

[D6Nutz]

Prepped the KTM for a closed track Enduro day tomorrow. First time, so this should be interesting.

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Feeling better then Jon, that's good news.

Yes thank you, still on antibiotics but they have worked their magic.

The enduro day was ace, bloody hard work and I have a few aching muscles this morning. They had an "easy" loop which was about 2 miles long, with optional hard sections. I stuck to the rest loop. It was a good mix of open field sections, then big hills up into tight and twisty wooded sections, before dropping back down into the fields.

Great to get some time on the bike and I learned a lot about it. Especially that the 2 stroke power band is quite a thing on a 250, more so on bumpy hills when it loves to power wheelie.
I may or may not have power wheelied of the track, through a gorse bush and dropped it the other side lol.

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[Kwacky]

The MV failed the MOT. A headlight bulb had gone. Silly me didn't think to check them as I only replaced the bulbs a couple of years ago. So I'm going back today. The weather forecast is thunderstorms. Great.

[D6Nutz]

Need to sort the KTM out today.

Meeting up with a small group tomorrow to sample some of the local byways for the first time.

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[Kwacky]

It rained. At least it passed the MOT.

Washed the MV this afternoon, in-between the rain

[Stonesie]

I gave it a good dose of looking at, checking it over before I take it to Spain next week and fitted the fridge box after modifying the fridge to improve the air flow over the cooler by channelling more air to the cooling fan and blocking some vents to channel the air out of the exhaust vents without it just swirling and getting hotter and hotter.

Then adapted the wiring to the EZcan and plugged in the laptop to set the current limit on that output. The diagnostic's on that helped me to pinpoint an issue I had in France last year so part's are on order to prevent that from happening again.

When I start the bike the fridge battery tries to help, back feeding as much current as the wiring will allow... 23 Amps on wiring I intended for about 5, 10 max as the fridge draws 2A. I have a 10A rated diode on the way, it's a 1 way valve for electricity.
That issue nearly cut last years Euro adventure short on day 3, I ended up ripping the fuse holder apart and just joining the wires together without a fuse at all as it was popping 15A fuses.

[D6Nutz]

Took the KTM out and met up with a couple of locals to try out trail riding.

What a laugh. It does feel a little odd turning off a main tarmacked road onto a dirt track, but you soon get used to it. Covered about 55 miles in total and had a grin on my face for pretty much all of them.

Except maybe for a short tarmac stretch 5 mins from the end of the ride. I hadn't spotted how wet and slippery it was, and definitely didn't spot the wet moss.. I managed a good close-up of the road no damage to bike or rider, just a few bruises to both body and ego.

Put the GoPro on, so I'll have a look at the footage and see if there's anything worth posting.

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[kiwikrasher]

Finally changed the plug caps, repaired the fan wiring and put the Thruxton R all together.

Quick test ride after a full warm up and it didn’t skip a beat.