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Posts tagged bike
CADAM Weekend to Bourgogne – A Pillions Perspective
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After rising early we left home with the bike loaded to meet the rest of the group at services before the Euro Tunnel. As we hit the M25 the traffic became very heavy over the Dartford Bridge and we filtered our way into Kent. We arrived at the services a few minutes late to heads shaking and people getting ready to go, whoops, after a smile and wave from one of the other WAGs I felt better and we topped up with petrol and were on our way to the Euro Tunnel. We got on a train earlier and went straight round to the lanes to board and after a few minutes got on the train. We had to squeeze on and park bikes close together to get the roller door to shut. we were on our way!
The train journey went quickly with time for a quick chat and toilet break. We got off the train straight on to the bright autoroute south and kept going until the first petrol stopped. It was a welcome stop to stretch legs and get the feeling back into the lower half of my body! We had time to grab a coffee and a pastry and look over the onwards route.
Back on to the autoroute we continued south-east towards our lunch stop the weather getting sunnier the further we went. We reached Peronne for lunch and sat outside a cafe enjoying a break and good food. We looked over where we were in a road map and a projection of the rest of the journey. As we got back on the bikes anticipation of riding the local roads, no longer on the autoroute, and finding the hotel set the scene for a good afternoons ride.
The scenery was spectacular, beautiful villages, fields of sunflowers and then we travelled through the Champagne region and saw the lines of vines on the hillsides. At this point, tired from a long day on the bike, sleep took hold and I had a snooze. I awoke as the bike came to a halt and found out there had not been a marker for a quite a while – we had lost the rest of the group in front, just two bikes and four of us remained. We located where we were and how to get to the hotel, about an hour away, let the lead bike know, and set off for the hotel.
We arrived at Hotel Sylvie in Chatillion-sur seine about 7pm and were shown first to the garage and then to our rooms. The hotel was very pleasant with beautiful gardens and simple but comfortable rooms. After a quick shower and change we awaited the rest of the group in the garden with a glass of wine. We had a table booked at a close by restaurant and went as a group to get our dinner. This was a rustic looking building by the river self described as a grill house. Unfortunately they had no mixed grills left, nor did they do crepes, we were too late for these apparently! Regardless we enjoyed copious food and drink and returned to the hotel to meet again at 8am for breakfast.
Breakfast was a continental feast of fruit, yoghurt, breads, jams, teas and coffee, held upstairs in a now closed in veranda. Discussing the days plan ahead and where rides were going to, I had no plans to whizz around France – but instead had looked up the local markets and intended to a bit of shopping and reading, see how the day took me! After breakfast I saw off the bikes, had my handbag ready and walked into town with another WAG. Walking into town the weather was warm but cloudy, we made our way into town having a look in shops on our way, buying things as they took our fancy. We found the market and got a couple of bits. As were we looking around a clothes stall laughing at the lurid clothes an English women came over and agreed, but saying they were all a bit Essex?! Outraged we did not disclose where we had travelled from but rather laughed and walked on by.
Tiring of walking around we went and got a coffee in the main square and chatted as the day brightened up. Starting to feel hungry we went back towards the hotel and popped into the local supermarket on the way to get lunch. We returned to the bright sunny gardens of the hotel and ate lunch before ordering several bottles of the local sparkling wine, Cremant de Bourgogne and enjoying the sun.
We heard the roar as the bikes returned back, their riders looking rather warm and ready for a drink. We caught up with where they had been and what they had all seen before getting ready to go out for dinner, to a restaurant in the town square. We made our way in smaller groups to the restaurant this time meeting there and enjoyed another good meal together.
The following morning we got up for another 8am breakfast on the veranda and enjoyed the same feast of food and drink to help us all wake up. Several smaller groups planned to go out for varying ride distances, but a few did not go out at all, preferring to explore the local area and enjoy a day of rest. Visiting a picturesque local river and walking through the towns narrow streets we stopped again for lunch at the main square before heading back to the hotel for a lazy afternoon.
That evening we waited for the group to congregate in the beautiful gardens enjoying a drink together before once again returning to the town for dinner. Enjoying another good meal we chatted about the journey home the following morning. We made our way back to the hotel agreeing to meet earlier for breakfast the next day to head off in good time.
We woke to another good breakfast before packing up the bikes. Noticing some bikes not quite ready a couple of us dashed over to the nearby supermarket for supplies (of Cremant de Bourgogne) to take home. We set off through the beautiful roads back through Champagne and we stopped in Troyes for lunch, but it had already shut so we ended up at a funny little Turkish cafe serving shish kebabs and paninis. Continuing our way we headed north to stop at Vimy Ridge the Canadian war memorial before heading for the train. The day was very hot, sunny and clear. We walked up to the giant structure and looked over the view ahead, feeling the anguish of souls lost far from home. Returning to the bikes we got on to the autoroute to take us back to Calais all with hopefully enough petrol to get us there.
As we got close by to Calais all the roads were blocked off, luckily for us the lead of our group knew an alternative route to the Euro Tunnel. Another alarming issue was lack of petrol and we spent a few miles hunting for a petrol station. Finally finding one our bike rolled in and we all filled up. Continuing our way to the train it seemed our bike had had enough and kept cutting out, stalling if the revs got too low. Revving our way through Calais town we eventually made it to the tunnel entrance and gratefully booked on to the next train. Though this was in an hour we knew we would head for the next train regardless. We passed through passport control rolling and revving our way. We then rode on to the next train check in and the lady in the box waved us through, not noticing we were not booked for another hour. Almost at the train we waited in line pleased with a good days riding. The green light came on so we made our way down to the train, sat in the hot sunshine for sometime until we boarded last. This time there was no chance of squeezing us on to the train until the roller door shut, we travelled with the roller door up and a train man came round with water for us. Half an hour later we agreed this was an excellent trip, said our goodbyes, and rode our separate ways home.
Berlin October 2011
0A few days visit to Berlin city, stayed at the magnificent Adlon hotel for a night then with a friend, got a push bike to get around and see the sights.
Euro Trip 2010 – The Video
0Trip to Italy by motorcycle, across France, Switzerland, the Alps, North Italy, a week spent at Lake Garda enjoying walks, a bike ride, lots of ice cream and day on the lake before returning through Austria, Germany, Belgium and back to Calais, France, to get home.
K1300 dented rim by pot hole
0After a lovely trip to Leeds castle in Kent, on the journey home I found a pot hole I’d rather have not of.
As we were coming off the A127, leading to the B186 to Brentwood, on the slip road as the road goes round to the right, in the centre of the road is a great big bloody hole that my front wheel found as we were lent over going at around 60 mph.
The tyre must have slipped on the edge of the pot hole, causing the wheel to fall down the hole, hitting the edge of the rim and denting it. The tyre didn’t blow out or lose any air. I only noticed after a ride out with a group the next day, when they pointed out the dent in the rim, a big failure in my part as I should have spotted this before the ride out.
I was worried that the damaged was to the tyre as well as the rim, and very expensive. The first phone call I made was to BMW parts to find out the price of a new rim in case mine couldn’t be repaired. I nearly had a heart attack when I was told the price would be £495 plus the cost of changing the tyre, sensors and discs.
I looked around on the interwebs to find somewhere that could repair the rim, most of the places I found were not local or only repaired car wheels. Then I came across a company in Maidstone, not a million miles away from me, Maidstone motoliner and I spoke to a really helpful guy there, he advised me that it would cost £70 to repair the rim including removing and reinstalling the discs and tyre and it would be ready the next day, as they already had 3 rims to repair that day.
I set off down there, to take the rim and see what the verdict would be, if the tyre needed replacing or if they could even repair it. When I arrived they said there was no problem fixing it, and the tyre would be fine – they even said they would repair it next so I could take it home that day! Two hours later it was all fixed and looked as good as new. This was a truly great service that I highly recommend if you ever need this done, but I hope not!
BMW K1300s So Far After 10000miles
0The bike has now done just over 9000 miles and I’m, over all, happy with it, it’s comfy 2 up and there’s still plenty of power I’ve never used.
So far I’m on my third set of tyres, the first pair were the factory fitted Metzler M3 that lasted just over 4000k miles and became very squared off, they still had a few more miles left, but as we were going on a trip around Europe I thought fresh rubber would be needed. The next set where Mezlter M5 in the hope they would last a little longer, only to find out they only lasted the same and squared off just the same. At 8k I’ve just changed over to the new Michelin road pilot 3 which have a nice tread pattern for the wet and have had very good reviews so I’m hoping to get around 6k out these as tyres as are costing me a fortune.
The bike it’s self has been fine apart from using a little more then expected oil between services, and another thing, that has actually really wound me up, is a problem with the starter switch. In august 2010 it failed to start a couple of times, the dealer replaced the starter switch so I thought that be the end of it and then in March 2011, while in Belgium of all places, it happened again and with a lot of inconvenience had to be recovered back the the UK. After another trip to the dealers they have now replaced the starter button with the complete cluster so I’m really hoping this is the end of it – otherwise the bike will be sold!
Disaster trip to France with CADAM
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This trip was planned by the CADAM group to visit St Omer in France for a taster weekend, the plan was to visit a few nice towns, cemeteries, first world war trenches and monuments.
Our trip ended early as we got just over the Belgium border, we had only travelled about 50 miles and got to a small town named Poperinge on the N308. When coming out of a corner, at no more then 20mph, the bike just cut out, it rolled to a
stop just outside the local bus/train station car park. I tried to restart the bike but as I hit the starter buttonnothing was happening, no starter motor, no clicking, nothing. All the lights on the display seemed normal, but it just wouldn’t start. As I was trying everything I could think of Gary and Mick pulled over to see what was up. We tried a few things checking the stand switch and gears, even tried bump starting it, all with no joy, so I told the guys to carry on and that I would phone for help and hopefully catch them up later on. I have BMW Assist on the bike, which is lucky, as this was the 3rd time I’ve had to use them - this wasn’t the first time the bike wouldn’t start.
Last August the bike had the starter switch replaced due to the same sort of issue, but it seemed to be more due to heat, if the bike was moved into the shade it would start after a while. Though this wasn’t the case on this occasion, but I did move the bike into the shade just in case! After a phone call to the BMW helpline, and trying to explain where we were, they advised that as it was a Saturday, and just after 12pm, that all the BWM dealers were shut and would not open again until monday. They told me the bike couldn’t be repaired, and as we had told them we was returning on sunday, the only option was to be recovered back home. I wasn’t pleased, but then I also didn’t want to be stuck in Belgium, they did offer to find a hotel for the night or to take us to St Omer but I figured we still wouldn’t be able to get back to the Euro Tunnel, that it would be best to get back, we were lucky we didn’t get stuck somewhere a lot more remote.
After a few phone calls from BMW to find out what the best way of returning us back was, it was decided that we needed to get to Dunkirk and pay for a ferry back to Dover. Due to good old health and safety we weren’t allowed to push the bike onto, or off of the ferry, so the only way was for the recovery vehicle to take the bike onto the ferry, unload it and drive off, then at Dover the recovery vehicle to meet us on the ferry, load the bike up, and get us home, simple, yes…? Aahhhhh, noooo…
After 1&1/2 hours or so a Belgium recovery vehicle arrived to take us to Dunkirk. This was a small van with two seats and two recovery people. They immediately began to check the battery over before noticing there were two of us and then having loud shouting conversation in French between themselves and saying they were not told there two of us to recover.
They had a trailer with them and said they would take us to the Port. I had to push and steer the bike on to the trailer up a steep narrow ramp. The recover guy yelled at me not to step on the trailer, then yelled at me to get on the trailer whilst he and Alexa pushed it. The other recovery person watched. Then they opened the back of the van and I had to sit on a wooden box surrounded by jump leads and tools, whilst Alexa had to sit on her knees to fit in.
In the back of the van we could not see a lot, after half an hour on the road we were thinking we must soon be at Dunkirk. We turned into a car park, the van stopped and the recovery people got out. They opened the back door of the van, said to go into the office and jumped into another vehicle and drove away. We had no idea where we were, or what was going on. We went into the office where a demand for €120 was made. After calling my contact William at BMW Assist he said not to be concerned this would be arranged and we would get to the port. The office person, after more phone calls, said their recovery service would take us to the port and to wait for the recovery people to return. We asked where we were and found we were in Ypres.
After another half an hour the recovery people came back and said the guys father was on route to take us. While we were waiting, sat next to the trailer on the ground, we saw what condition it was in, covered in moss, cracks in the tyres, broken bits. The motorcycle was strapped firmly on but the condition of the trailer was concerning. Finally the recovery man’s father arrived and they moved the trailer across to another vehicle, an old 4×4, with 2 seats. The wooden box was moved into the back for Alexa to sit on (I did offer the front seat but she didn’t want to sit next the nasty old man hehe!) The old guy asked how to get to Dunkirk.
Having never been to Dunkirk we had no idea! We agreed to go down the autoroute and look out for signs to Dunkirk and the Ferry Terminal. The old guy went very quickly down the autoroute and so missed several turnings and took a long time to get there. Finally we did arrive.
Having missed the 4pm ferry, though we would have probably made it if we had gone direct from Poperinge, the next crossing was not until 8pm. We bought our tickets and went successfully through check in and passport control. Advised again by the ferry company they could recover my bike but we needed to board by recovery vehicle unload the bike, secure it and have another recovery vehicle to get off, we were all set.
Having not had a toilet break or anything to eat or drink (except sharing our emergency jam sandwiches!) we went into the terminal for a comfort break. Whilst in there I was phoned by the office of the recovery people (the lady who had demanded the €120) she said the old guy could not wait, we were fit and able to push the bike on ourselves and he could go home. Explaining he had to drive us on as per the Ferry’s regulations she did not agree and I advised her to ring BMW Assist as they were arranging this transfer. We went back out the trailer again and the old guy was on his phone. He said he was not told he would have to wait this long and would not be paid. After more phone calls he did stay, but not after stressing us out at getting this close to the ferry that we would be stuck, especially as the temperature had really dropped outside now.
Finally the ferry came in and we were loaded on first. The old guy rushed off as soon as it was off the trailer. The Ferry staff were great and strapped the bike down and we went off relieved to have got on! We were met easily at Dover by the UK recovery van (SOS Motorcycles) thanks to BMW Assist for arranging this for us. We arrived back home at midnight. The motorcycle was collected the following Wednesday morning and taken to Cannon’s in Braintree.Although this was a stressful day we were grateful to the support and attention from BMW Assist, the ferry staff and the SOS recovery guy in the UK.
The really anoying thing was I went out to look at the bike on Sunday, the day after we got back, and hit the starter switch with the palm of my hand, and guess what? It bloody started! I wasn’t impressed. So now every time I tried it, it started, no problem, so Cannon’s would have a real job now finding the fault.
After 2 days at Cannon’s, and them not being able to reproduce the fault with no errors on the diags, they replaced the complete starter button cluster. They told me then, that last time, they had only replaced the actual starter micro switch, inside the starter/kill switch, last August. So I’m hoping that now it is fixed, but I can only ride it and see, and hope!
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Cardo System G4 Powerset Intercom bike – bike
5I have been using the Autocom Pro 7 sport for about 5 years now and have been fairly happy with it, thou I only ever use the music function with my Ipod shuffle plugged in, or the navigation audio plugged in, it does a good job of fading the music down to hear the tomtom. But the biggest problem with the Autocom is it all hard wired – the power, a lead to the rider/pillion headset, lead to the iPod, to the tomtom, walkie-talkie and phone.
The main reason to get the autocom was the function for bike to bike, but you had to have a separate radio walkie-talkie connected and well it never worked that well in practice. It would either cut out all the time or just not work at all.
Also your able to connect a mobile phone up so can make and receive calls while riding along, all be weather it’s safe to do so, but having a Iphone I didn’t really want it plugged in via a wire that either had to go up to a pocket or find somewhere on the bike to store it.
So while a day waiting for BMW to have a service and fit new tyres looking around the parts store I see a set of Bluetooth intercom systems (Cardo System G4 Powerset) it comprises of 2 separate units one for rider and one for pillion both the same that clamp or stick to the side of a helmet, with a boom mic that goes round to front of your mouth and 2 mini speakers to fit behind the helmet padding behind were your ears go. The unit itself that sits outside you helmet witch is self-powered with a rechargeable Lytham battery has volume up and down, power/phone, mp3/rider a, FM/ rider b buttons that are a good size when wearing gloves, a pop up arial for improving the distance with rider/pillion but not for the fm radio or the Bluetooth devices that are connected, a LED and also has usb port for charging and updating the firmware. The whole unit is waterproof so no worries when get caught out in the nasty stuff.The unit can be removed from the bracket when you need to charge it or just don’t want it on.
The unit is a bike to bike or rider to pillion working thou Bluetooth so no wires and the box claims up to a mile range, so would be perfect for just rider to pillion on our euro trip. As well as a intercom future it can be connected to a mobile phone for making/receiving calls, GPS, music thou Bluetooth, FM Radio, also has a 3.5mm socket for any hardwire music input. So sounds perfect, can listen to music, have the phone connected if anyone needs me, GPS instructions and also talk to the pillion/or other person all while riding along and all with no wires. BUT does it all work like that ….
After getting the units home, and must say the box it comes in is very sleek and hate to say that it did help to lay out the £340 for them, I placed both the units on charge for a few hours before I edgily plugged them in to the laptop to see if there was a firmware update, Im a firm believer that everything should be keep up to with the latest version out, these companies are always fixing bugs and problems. After installing the downloaded software from the Cardo website I followed the instructions on how to connect the unit to the computer with the supplied usb lead, the unit was connected and the software recognised it, from there you can select the pre-set fm radio stations channel and enable/disable VOX ( Voice activation) and the RDS function, also check to see if there any updates. Sure enough the pair of units I had needed updating, so I followed the onscreen instructions to reconnect the unit back up and then it would download the software from the internet and updated the unit, BUT in the process I held down the wrong button and it all seemed to go wrong. The unit failed to respond to do anything just the a blue light from the LED, it wouldn’t turn off no matter how long I held the Phone/power button for and the computer wouldn’t see it anymore, tried connecting it to the wall charger and holding down all different combinations of buttons, but nothing seem to make a difference, I thought that i had broken it already before id even used it, the unit was getting rather hot witch was worrying, after trying everything could think of and looking on the internet for any answers I gave up and left it to the side. But I did update the 2nd unit without any problems, I learnt my lesson that time and triple checked the button I was holding down to perform the update.
It was getting late in the evening so decided to leave them for the morning, only to find that the first unit that wasn’t working the night before now seemed to have life back I was now turning on and off and lights flashing all a good sign, so after I carefully connected it back up to the computer and yes a managed to update the firmware I could now try out all the function’s.
The first thing I tried was connecting my IPhone 4, I was hoping to listen to music and also take any phone calls, after the unit was paired to the phone it worked fine, so then it was the GPS turn, I have an older TOMTOM GO 720 that can be mounted to the bike, so i paired the tomtom up to the G4 witch didn’t work the first few times I tried it, after a little playing I figured that I needed to connect the G4 to the tomtom as an audio output device and not as a normal Bluetooth device, eg phone. After that it did work but the biggest flaw with the G4 unit which isn’t made very clear is that you can only have 1 Bluetooth device connected at a time, so I could only have the phone or the tomtom not both at the same time as what I wanted so I could listen to music from the Iphone and the tomtom route directions, the manual states that you connect the phone to the GPS and the GPS to the G4 but the that doesn’t allow the for the music to work from the phone, so I instead filled the TOMTOMs memory card with music for the tomtom to play the music instead witch seems to work fine. I did find some other problems with this as I had my Iphone connected directly to the G4 but when I tried to use TOMTOM the phone connects and then doesn’t allow the TOMTOM to connect to the G4, solution was just to disable the Bluetooth on the IPhone and not have it connected when I have GPS, im really not that bothered about taking phone calls while riding, and when I don’t need the GPS I can have the phone connected and use that to play music.
Now the main part of the G4 the INTERCOM side, after mounting both the G4 units on to the helmets witch is fairly easy, on the Aria helmet I used the clamp method, but on my new BMW system 6 flip front I used the double sided tape method it seems fairly strong on there so shouldn’t fall off, (I hope).
So we went out on the bike to test the intercom between rider and pillion, got down the road both had music playing from our phones, Spoke but nothing, the music was cutting out but couldn’t here one and other. When we stop I looked at the manual and decided that the 2 G4 units wasn’t paired with each other, so followed the instructions and paired them successfully, there meant to be paired out of the box but who knows what happened. After that and a little tweating with the microphone position they work fairly well, as long as the microphone is so close (touching) your lips then it works well.
After a few rides out, and well going to Italy using the G4 and a few teething problems I’m pretty happy with them, the audio quality is great don’t expect a good bass range from the speakers thou 
) the range between G4 headsets seems good handy when I kicked the pillion off to find a parking space ),the buttons are easly found when riding along and pressed, the only gripes I have is you can only connect 1 Bluetooth device at a time, the microphone boom arm gets in the way when closing the BMW system 6 flip front, can be very annoying when trying to shut it quick going into a national speed limit and the biggest thing is that using TOMTOM to output the audio (music and route instruction) to a Bluetooth device (G4 headset) when you talk using the intercom function it cuts of the Bluetooth connection to the TOMTOM and then takes ages to reconnect, very very annoying when trying to find the route. I think the problem is a little TOMTOM and a little G4 I will investigate and try and find a better way.
Euro Trip 2010 – Photos
0Trip to Italy by motorcycle, across France, Switzerland, the Alps, North Italy, a week spent at Lake Garda enjoying walks, a bike ride, lots of ice cream and day on the lake before returning through Austria, Germany, Belgium and back to Calais, France, to get home.
