April 2007

Not much to report since the last entry, the weather is improving and thoughts turn to some more journeying. However, I have decided to do try and do something that I've been putting off for years and that's move home. This is likely to disrupt any serious journey's this year.

The only things of note since the last entry are that I went to the BMW Motorrad dealership in Dorchester (CW) on 11th March, for a book signing by Ted Simon.

For those who have never heard of Ted, back in the early seventies, Ted set off around the world on a Triumph. The journey took four years with plenty of "living" along the way. His account of those years is titled 'Jupiters Travels' and is rightly considered to be one of the best of its genre (probably the gold-standard).

"Jupiter" has kicked-off more dreams of two-wheeled travel than can be counted, among them it was the inspiration for Long Way Round. Ted even joined Ewan and Charlie on their journey at one stage.

Nearing the age of seventy, Ted decided to reprise his previous trip to see what changes had occurred in the places he had last ridden to, thirty years earlier.

This time, Ted used an R80GS, modified and prepared by CW and the resultant book is called Dreaming of Jupiter (you need to read the original to see why the title is there).

CW were hosting Ted for a book-signing and his bike was on display.

It was a pleasant early English Spring day and once past the 'boring' dual-carriageway parts of the A38 and A30, a good day for a ride.

I used my new iPod for the first time on the bike. Routed through the Autocom and the sound boosted by the Amplirider mini-amplifier ( http://www.electric-avenues.com/amplirider.html ) the improvement over my old Sony CD Walkman is impressive.

Another new piece of kit is another BMW Rallye II jacket. I succumbed to the new colour schemes and bought a black one from my local dealership, Ocean BMW Motorrad in Plymouth.

The improvements over the last version are small but worthwhile; the poachers-pocket is now minus the two small (and frankly pretty useless) side pockets making it less bulky. The clear removable pocket on the back of the jacket has been deleted (it was pretty much redundant if you didn't have a competition number to put in it) and the separate Gore-Tex pouch has gone, instead one of the outer pockets has a second inner one.

It's still not a particularly warm jacket but because of the cut it allows the use of lots of base layers, or not, as need demands. The venting system is great, so it will get more summer use.

There is still the fundamental failing with this type of jacket/suit that relies on a removable Gore-Tex lining for water-proofing, namely that removing the lining in hot weather leaves you without any protection from rain. Stopping and re-inserting the lining isn't really an option, taking off the jacket to re-insert the lining means you'd be soaked anyway!

The bulk of the jacket means putting on an over-suit in such conditions is either not possible or it's a real struggle. To be honest, I never removed the lining from my first Rallye II jacket in all the time I had it, I did take the liner out of the trousers and got soaked in Spain.

The other drawback with the trousers is that the only waistband adjustment is two small plastic ratchets, one on each side. They are not enough on their own to keep the trousers from slipping when it's not zipped to the jacket. The result is either constantly hitching them up or wearing braces (suspenders for American readers).

As all BMW suits can be zipped to other BMW ones, I can wear the Atlantis trousers, the BMW Summer ones or the Tourance trousers that I have. Each of course can be zipped to the Atlantis jacket. With the Atlantis jacket, I can wear either my one-piece over-suit for added warmth/weather protection or the two-piece lightweight BMW Airflow over-suit depending on the need.

 

In short, if you are considering a Rallye II, don't bother with the trousers. There are more practical offerings from BMW that will work with the jacket.

After wearing the Atlantis jacket, it is noticeable how much more the Rallye II is affected by the air flow. It catches in the air stream more. This can add to fatigue on long journeys.

I arrived at CW Motorrad, Dorchester, mid-morning after a really enjoyable ride. There was quite a gathering. Ted was ensconced behind a table near his bike, signing books.

As there was bit of a queue, I stopped and chatted with 'Cookie' and 'PikeyDave' from UKGSer, both of whom had come on their R100GSPD's (I still hanker after a PD having wanted one when I had R100GS's but the plastic fuel-tank wasn't legal in the UK at the time).

Once the queue had disappeared I bought a copy of 'Dreaming of Jupiter' and Ted dedicated it for me. At this point I realised that had I brought my rather dog-eared copy of Jupiters Travels, Ted would happily have signed that too..... Doh!!!

I wanted to stop and chat with Ted and as there was no longer a press to get books signed, I could have done so but I was struck by the fact that he's probably been asked the same questions a thousand times by now. I just didn't feel able to repeat what had been probably been asked and see the understandable, "oh here we go again" flash across Ted's face.

Coffee in hand, I was outside in time to see 'Steve B' (another UKGSer and star of this Blog - see July 2006) and his wife arrive. I hadn't seen Steve since the "Hograost" last year, so it was good to catch-up (plus Steve helpfully took the photo's of Ted and his bike. I'd picked-up my camera but hadn't thought to check the state of the batteries!).

Generally the time was spent in the sun outside CW, drinking coffee and chatting.

Ted's R80 was worth a close look at.

On the outside of the panniers is an enlarged photo of the Craven panniers fitted to the Triumph of the original journey....

A nice touch!

I noticed that when Ted started out the bike was sporting a Touratech top-box, now it has an Al Jesse one fitted (well covered with place-name stickers).

If you look close, you can make out the handle of Ted's umbrella under the top-box and just to the left of the right-hand pannier.

It was Ted's use of an umbrella back in the seventies that inspired me to adapt the idea, something that I've never regretted.

Video........

For some time I have been toying with the idea of a video system of some sort. I'm acutely aware that time is against me. In the not too distant future I will reach a point where I'm unable or disinclined to travel far or often owing to age. It's one of the reasons for this blog, I want to have something more reliable than my memories in my dotage.

Having some moving images is only going to add to the ability to look back someday.

There is of course a more practical application too; it's hard to convey the sensation of riding through great scenery with just still images and having to stop to take pictures can be tiresome, especially from the bike and all that that entails; fishing out the camera, removing gloves etc. etc. What makes it worse is having gone through that process, then travelled around a few bends and finding an even better view! Frustrating to say the least. My experience is that you cannot ever afford to pass-up a photo opportunity. It's tempting to think that another chance will arise. The truth is that it won't. Short of retracing the route, the chance is lost.

Decent camcorders can capture good stills from the moving footage. Plus of course, there's the advantage of having some footage that captures the essence of motorcycling.

After looking into the various options of camcorder versus hard-drive recorders, I decided that a camcorder was the more practical option for my needs. With a camcorder I can also take footage away from the bike, I can use it just like any other tourist.

Mounting the camcorder was the next issue. I could mount it in several places but controlling the functions would be difficult plus of course it would be open to the elements and I don't want to restrict recording to fine weather only.

Bullet-cameras seemed the way to go. I could mount one on the bike and one on my helmet. This would give me the option to record either where the bike was pointing or where I look.

Doing some research, I found that there are plenty of suppliers of the necessary bits and pieces but that having the right camcorder was important inasmuch as it has to have certain input and output capabilities.

Not having owned a camcorder before, I was loath to rush out and buy one just to find that it wouldn't be compatible. There was also the issue of having all the correct leads etc. and ensuring that it all worked without conflict.

The obvious answer (but not the cheapest but then going for the cheaper option can be counter-productive) was to buy a complete package. After some more research and a few emails to discuss my needs, I settled on a package supplied by http://www.bikecameras.com

The package included everything that I would need, two water-proof bullet-cams, the camcorder (Sony HC42E) and all the leads/switches to be able to power it from the bike and to control the on/off, plus a switch to control which of the two bullet-cams was in use.

This is what it all looks like.....

The two bullet-cams are just to the right of the camcorder remote-control.

The camcorder will travel in the tank-bag and the leads pass out to the bullet-cam control and the LANC controller (that switches the system on and off). Also in the tank-bag sits my stills camera, my mobile-phone and my iPod.

I'd always intended to turn my tank-bag into a camera bag, so I bought some high density foam and set about making an insert for it.

Heating a sharp knife with the Calor stove made cutting and shaping very easy.The next step was to mark the positions for all of the items to be carried.
The top position is for the stills camera, top right is iPod, top left is the power socket from the beak power take-off and the camcorder at the bottom (nearest the bag opening).
With the camcorder view-screen reversed, I can check the play-back easily.

There is enough space left over, even after all the cables are routed under the foam to add one or two smaller pockets for other fragile items.

Of course this still leaves me the whole of the second layer of the tank bag to use if I need it but I have a pair of tank panniers that I bought late last year knowing that the tank bag space would be used-up for this sort of set-up.

When not in use, the camera is recharged from the bike.

I have 28 hours of video storage available (without using the edit facility on the camcorder) in Mini-DV tapes. The camera can also be used with memory sticks so that can extend the storage.

A week ago, I chucked it all on the bike and stuck one camera to the left of the tank and one on my helmet then set off for a trial run to see what the recoded footage looked like.

While I was out and about I met up with Greg ad his daughter, Helen, who were going for a ride on his R1100GS to Dartmouth so I tagged along, merrily playing with the video as I went (just recording I hasten to add).

We stopped at Dartmouth.

I used the camcorder to try it in 'tourist mode' and did a sweep of the estuary before Greg and Helen returned.
Just look at that! Typical! (Kids today have no respect!!!).

When I eventually got home and uploaded the footage, I set about playing around with some editing. I was surprised at how well it all turned out considering it wasn't really planned and I hadn't really given any thought to the camera positioning.

I gave less thought to the microphone! I just stuffed it in the rear pocket of the tank bag. It needs a foam baffle as it's quite sensitive, easily picking-up the sound of my jacket brushing against the tank bag every so often.

After editing, I have made a 40 min DVD with some added music to sections as an experiment for future use.

A couple of short sections, I have uploaded to YouTube (unfortunately their limits mean that the quality of the image suffers).

YouTube support embedding links in some blogs but unfortunately not TypePad yet it seems.

These links should take anyone interested to the two uploads....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilq-pCq8rXs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNMkQT6Y9Jc

This is all very much a work in progress. I'm sure my efforts will improve given a little more practice and some more thought with regard to the position of the cameras and the mic.

K75C.

My "little hack" K75 is still getting more use than the GS. I'm really surprised at just how much I enjoy riding it. It's great for getting to places, nipping into town etc. In fact, I really prefer riding it locally whereas if I take the GS I want to head off somewhere and not stop.

I'm busy buying-up spares from eBay at the moment. The 75 specific parts are ridiculously cheap. It seems that the 75 models are so disregarded that no-one is bothering (except a few of us)!

I used the 75 a couple of days ago when I rode to meet my nephew Ryan and his 'better-half' Milda, on the Devon-Dorset border (Ryan's F650 GS Dakar was in CW for a service).

They were given an R850R as a courtesy bike.

Ryan's first ride on a 'Boxer' (I think he'll be a convert before too long).

Edit: I have an Estate Agent calling next week to value my place, so maybe I can get the buying and selling done in time to leave room for a decent trip this year.