TET: Great Western Trail: Day 2. Mini Epic!

 We woke to a soggy morning. The woodland canopy above was still dripping its big blobs of rain drops onto the tents and bikes. The cloud was still at our feet and everything was damp and soggy.

We packed up fairly quickly. No reason to hang about after all. After the initial puddle strewn trails, we traversed a few minor tarmac roads, through sleepy villages and across deep brown rivers. Lots of horse riders around this morning. It is Sunday after all, but so many were in their finest riding kit, so clearly plenty of events going on today. 

Our first ford of the day, we bypassed as it was flowing very fast on a concrete base. There was a perfectly god bridge, so it got used. Then came some great little single track trails winding through arches of Willow branches. At our second ford, we stopped to debate it as it looked deep, with dirty brown water flowing fairly fast again. Three local bikes turned up and headed straight through, so after we'd seen the depth and the bikes get through with only a little sideways action, we set off. I got through with a good bit of sideways slide on the rear end, the water catching my panniers and the slippy ford floor doing the rest. 

I looked back to see if I could take a picture of Gareth coming through the ford, only to see him off his bike and the bike being lifted back out of the water! 

By the time I'd gotten off my bike and headed back to him, the bike had been down a second time. This time Gareth's feet had been washed out from under him and the bike drowned more thoroughly this time as the engine was revving higher at the time. 

We pulled the bike out of the river and leaned it up against the bank. Once we'd both caught our breathe, we chatted through the drowned bike procedure for these kind of bikes and then set to it. 

1. Lift the bike onto its back wheel, drain the exhaust. Not much came out
2. Take off the saddle, side panel, coil pack and remove spark plug.
3. Rock the bike back and forth in gear to expel the water
4. Dry the spark plugs, refit the coil pack, see if she'll start

No luck with the starting at all. The bike seemed dead. So we hooked up my bike with a set of mini jumper leads to try to jump start the battery, no joy, the bike stayed dead. After a lot of faffing, some disagreements and quick ride out by myself to see how hard it was to exit this lane to tarmac, it was decided to take the longer but easier exit along the lane. I'll tow Gareth to the village, where we either got recovery or he phoned his partner to come get him. 

After a couple of false starts though, my bike decided to spit its dummy and wouldn't start. Something had drained the battery too low. So now we had two dead bikes and a long way to tarmac. Hey ho. A passing bikers on his brand new BMW 900 stopped for a gossip, we then had an audience of a couple of youngsters walking their dogs as we began pushing these dead weights towards the village. In the meantime, Gareth had called his partner and she was on her way with a jumper pack. 

The day ended, with my bike running again after a jump start. Gareth's bike in the back of the van and all of us back at Gareth's place for the night. We'd pushed the bikes some 1200 metres from drowning to tarmac, which had three hills in it and a lot of mud. There is no way either one of us could have done that without the other with these bikes, they are just too heavy!

So, a trip to KTM the next day saw the 690 heading into the workshop, possibly with bent valves or maybe something more serious, and me heading home.

Yet another biking adventure for the pub! 

 

TET: Great Western Trail: Day 1

 After a long 7 hour drive south in the truck to avoid the heavy rain sweeping across the UK. I arrived at Gareth's place in the early evening. That night was filled with fish n chips, red wine and whiskey mixed interspersed with a lot of catch up gossip about bikes, kit, the state of the UK and anything else we could think of. 

Early Saturday morning, we were both up. The dogs were walked, the bikes loaded and we set off onto the local trails roughly aiming to be somewhere the other side of Salisbury Plain by days end.

Within 10 minutes, the bikes changed colour. All of the rain for the last four months is pooling on the ground, running down the rivers and generally everywhere. The English countryside looks like a drowned rat at the moment. That said, because lots of the lanes surfaces are chalk across this area, the surface water can drain quickly. This sometimes gave us dry surfaces to razz across, usually through an arched canopy of beautiful woodland. 

Every now and then, we were forced to detour around fallen trees. Sometimes, this was a straight forward weave, others involved climbing banks into field edges and dropping back onto the trail further on. Always fun with 20+kg of luggage. Still, these KTM 690's are a capable bike, with a lot of low down grunt, so, once you get the hang of the weight, they will do this kind of thing all day. 

We passed the marker stone for Geoffrey de'Havilland at Seven Barrows, which is where he flew his home made plane for the first time. There are also some beautiful buildings along this stretch of route, from the thatched cottages made of chalk and brick through to the larger and more imposing looking building like the double round tower in the picture above. 

Our route for the day wound its way across the edge of the South Downs, traversed to the North Downs, then dropped south towards Salisbury Plain. On main A roads, the route is about 2 hours. On trails we rode all day from 9am to 5.30pm with a late lunch stop at a burger bar somewhere near Larkhill. 

At one point, we passed the Hanging Gibbet, which is a big Y shaped piece of oak, sitting upright on the top of a hill. The trail here, traverses that hillside and has some great views. There are Black Kites hunting along the ridge lines in the area, so they are a constant companion as you ride. 

Traversing Salisbury Plain is always a great thing to do. Its one of the few places in the UK where there are so many trails to ride in such a small area. The trails are long, across chalky areas, boggy areas, through scrub and many other types of habitat. There are loads of people about usually and its very popular with horse riders. 

This brought us alongside Stonehenge, the famous standing stones. The green lane here was taken up with parked vans, as people who worship the Solstice and follow the old Celtic religion gathered and camped out to celebrate. The public used to be able to touch the stones and walk amongst them. But these days, English Heritage has closed off the access that close and folk can only get so far and only if paying! Still, even at a distance, they are imposing as a structure. 

We eventually found a small camping spot on a long trail, in a bit of woodland next to the trail. We were up in the clouds and the tree canopy was dripping big wet droplets of water all the time. We pitched the tents just as it got dark, so the cooker came out quickly for a hot drink and to cook up the pasta and Salmon we'd picked up earlier. Also the red wine came out and some foraging found us a fair bit of kindling and some damp logs. Gareth is a whizz at getting a fire started, so that made a great centre piece for the campsite!

Another great day of riding, lots of places visited and some lovely, happy people on the trails today. We stopped for a gossip with loads of people all day, which is always a good thing. Oh and Coventry beat Wolves in the football, something that will cause a great deal of glee in Coventry tonight! 

UK TET: Great Western Trail 2024

Well, the first trip for 2024 after a pretty rough winter of no riding whatsoever! 

Two of us are heading down to the south western corner of the UK to ride the Great Western Trail, which is part of the Trans Euro Trail. Both of us are on KTM 690 Enduro's and both of us have ridden those areas before, but never as a continuous loop. 

So it'll be a ride down to the south to meet up, then a loop around the peninsula before getting back home for Easter. 

The GWT was set up by a recently departed friend, Jimmy. He was the UK Linesman for the TET and greatly added miles and lanes to that GPX file. A lot of trail riders benefitted from his work and passion for trail riding and also a lot of rural businesses, (even though I doubt they know it). He was a lovely fella and I was privileged to both work and ride with him, so this trip is a bit of a homage to his life and a thankyou for this part of his legacy. 

Whilst on this trip, I get to play with some new kit. I've got a pair of the Adventure Spec Singletrack Pants, some POD knee braces, some new luggage bits, a phone based navigation system, some handlebar muffs and of course the sheepskin to try out. So plenty of new and/or adapted bits of kit to be tested. 

The rest of my kit will be the same as last year's longer TET trip to Spain, Portugal, Morocco and France, as that all worked well. I have removed the heated grips from my bike though as they kept draining the battery and I'll try out the basic bar muffs as they are cheap to buy, easy to fit and don't rely on electric. I will still use the battery powered heated gilet though! 

Also, the cheap zip I had fitted to my Linesman Jacket in Morocco last year failed at the end of summer, probably excess pressure from me getting too fat! ;-) So I've had to replace that with anther waterproof YKK one. That was a boring afternoon of sewing whilst sat next to the radiator listening to music! Still, much needed kit maintenance.

Tyres wise, I've gone for the 50/50 Mitas E09 on my bike. The rear is brilliant on everything on a 690, the front doesn't like soft mud and slides or skitters a bit, (which can be disconcerting). With all the motorway, fast  road and then the trails, these will do the job, but I have concerns with the front if I find some muddy tracks or a soft based river crossing. The C19 is a better tyre for that, but lots of vibration on fast tarmac. Hey ho, as always a compromise. 

Its bloody freezing in Cumbria at the moment with some heavy rain forecast for the remainder of this week, so I might be a bit soft and trailer my bike south rather than ride. I haven't decided yet as I have a couple more days before I set off. 

With the nav tower, I have added an Orcas wireless charging carrier to carry a phone and keep it charged. It charges magnetically through the carrier plate and this is hard wired to the bike. Thus removing the plug in cable, which I found vibrated and damaged the charging port on a phone. I've added a Blackview BV9500 to this with some nav apps on it. I've also sourced a BV6600 as a backup, which has been well tested by a mate of mine on his KTM 500.

The Blackview phones aren't as slick as the Samsung ones I'm used to. The software is a bit clunky, they use a lot of Google Apps to do basic stuff like photo storage, messages etc. Both models are also heavy, but the battery on the 9500 is a 10ah one and lasts for 2 weeks in normal use or all day with GPS in full use. The 6600 last about a week apparently. They are also waterproof, (IP67 or IP69) shockproof etc, so time will tell if they are Steve proof! They both use the same charging lead and similar computer software linking styles. The final part to them is they take Micro SD cards and are both Dual Sim, so once abroad I can add in a foreign local sim card and also store relevant parts manuals, vehicle docs etc.

I've installed OsmAnd, Organic Maps & offline Google maps onto the 9500 as software. I need to spend more time with the OsmAnd nav app after last year and finding it really frustrating. All my friends tell me its great, so it must be something I'm doing whilst using it, so I'll try again. I think I still prefer my Garmin to nav by, but as last year's trip proved, I need a backup for when electronics fail and so I'll see how this set up goes. 

So, that's about it for this post. I'll try to update things as I go next week and I will give some feedback on the various bits of kit once the trip is complete and my bike is clean again!

Motocoverz Sheepskin Saddle Cover Anyone?

Last year, when I went to Morocco for a spell, I wanted to try out the idea of riding using a sheepskin saddle cover. As luck would have it, a neighbour had an old sheepskin he wanted a new home for, so I told him how I was going to use it and he gave it to me. I then cut it in half, added some straps to it and added it to my bike.

The whole thing worked perfectly. The sheepskin added warmth when it was cold, was cool when it was warm and made riding much nicer on these saddles, allowing me to ride for longer each day. The draw back was when it rained or heavy frost. Once wet, these take days to dry, once frozen, they are hard to manage. Indeed this one cracked over the ride and split. I took to storing it in a plastic bag during rain and overnight, it went into my tent!

To be fair, the failure of this sheepskin was a mix of age, lack of being cured for this kind of thing and then wrapping it around a saddle which adds all kinds of stresses to the material. Once back in the UK I binned the poor thing as it had become unusable. For me, it was a successful piece of kit, now I just needed to find a good replacement.

Enter 2024! I responded to a discussion on Facebook asking questions about using sheepskins and Matt from Motocoverz got in touch to ask if I was interested in a pilot test of his product for adventure bikes. He was looking for design feedback for adventure bike fitment and I was looking for a replacement sheepskin, so we chatted and now I have a full saddle sheepskin to try out. :-)

The first trip out on this is the end of March 2024, riding 8 days around the Great Western Trail with a mate. Its looking like a 1600 mile round trip. I'll write up some feedback once its complete. 

Some info about the Motocoverz sheepskin. Matt offers a choice of sheepskins, short hair and long hair, then a variety of colours, sizes, shapes etc. I chose long hair & white. White was just being vain, it matched the bike colour! ;-) Long hair was because it added warmth, air flow and a greater level of plushness for my bony backside.

Matt has traditionally focused on road bikes, which make sense as its a big market place. They are cut to shape, a soft suede like finish on the back and some elasticated straps are stitched into place to hold the cover around the saddle. 

With road bikes, the elastic option is fine as people sit on a road bike and don't move around too much. For adventure bikes, folk stand or sit, they get dirty, muddy, wet and fuelling can be an odd one, (ie not from a pump, but from plastic bottles and/or jerry cans). 

What does this have to do with sheepskins you ask?

Well, spillage of petrol onto elastic, (which is a petroleum based material), makes it warp and stretch quickly. Constantly sitting/standing moves the sheepskin around, which in turn stretches the elastic and shortens its life. Adding soft luggage creates extra stresses as it is designed to flex & move which in turn does the same to the sheepskin. When you add all of these factors together, you get a recipe for the elastic to stretch, this in turn leads to the seat cover being able to move around, maybe bunch up. This could lead to a distraction whilst riding. So after a few discussions, we've decided to try the elastic first and if it becomes a problem, Matt has offered to change the straps to static nylon webbing which attaches to the bike frame. This was how I fitted my sheepskin last year and after 7k miles, I know it works well. 

So proof will be in the pudding as they say, watch this space.