ADVENTURE Magazine

africa’s only adventure & overlanding e-zine

Nuclear Powered TourersRAW Entry Form Gear Cape to MoroccoDakar 650 Super Rebuild & much more

2

adventure magazine

ContentsGearAssault gear and Market dominating Neck protection.Engage lowTriumph Rocket Touring - Touring with nuclear power.Dual Sport WeekendClanwilliam adventure weekend.History in the makingXT600 Tenere.Screamin EagleHarley Davidson Electra Glide Ultra Classic.Cape to MoroccoJan and Lindsay take us on a tour.Making a good bike even betterJason rebuilds his Bmw F650 Dakar’s front end.Bargain buysLegendary Suzuki DRZ400.

3

adventure magazine

Crew & Contributors

Editor-In-ChiefStephen de Vries

Copywright EditorKirsten Sheldon

Contributors Etienne van RensburgPeter DovetonJason Manley

Photography & DesignKirsten SheldonStephen de VriesStitchedkitten Photographywww.stitchedkitten.co.za

Web Hosting Redhammerwww.redhammer.co.za

AdventureMagazineWow,I’m at a loss for words. It seems that Adventure Magazine has kicked off with a bang. I want to thank you guys. If it wasn’t for your support I don’t think we would have gotten this far. Every month we’ll be bringing you something better than the previous month. I would like to see this publica-tion grow to something top-notch!

The winter is upon us. I must say I’m excited. I don’t think our friends from Europe and North America would agree with me, but this year we’re going snow hunting. That’s my quest.This issue is something different, we head out on the tarmac with two gigantic tourers, both in the mid 300kg bracket. These bikes are just something different. They will pull crowds at every fuel stop. They truly make the time stand still and you find yourself wishing that the road will carry on for-ever. Recently the Western Cape held a Dual Sport Weekend in Clanwilliam, lots of pictures to prove the guys had some serious fun. Ever wondered about the Yamaha Tenere? With the new one due for release in South Africa very soon, we share with you what it is like to own a little piece of history.

Keep on reading, there’s plenty more to sat-isfy my fellow adventure seekers. Also feel free to join our Facebook appreciation group - http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=75218038482&ref=ts Enjoy the issue. Remember, on the bottle – off the throttle. Take care and ride safe.

Steve

4

adventure magazine

GearProtect your neck

Recently there has been many neck protection de-vices that suddelny appeared on the market.

We will help you in the next couple of issue’s to choose the one that suits you best.

The Alpinestars Bionic Neck Support (BNS) is a structure which is designed to work with a helmet to reduce the risk and severity of a catastrophic neck injury (i.e. a paralyzing injury) while riding motocross or off-road. While no product can guarantee protection from all motorcycle injuries, due to the varied dynamics of accidents, the BNS is designed to substan-tially reduce the likelihood of a career ending neck injury although it must be stated at the outset that it, as with other such systems, may not prevent injuries occurring in all cases. The BNS comes with its own carrying bag for extra convenience.

Alpinestars Bionic Neck Support

The Leatt-Brace(R) GPX Sport is an injection molded glass reinforced nylon and carbon fiber neck brace system designed by medical professionals and motorcycle enthusiasts to help prevent the following extreme movements:

* head, foward HyperFlexion * head, rearward HyperExtension * head, sideways Lateral HyperFlexion * spinal column compression Axial loading, due to the effect of force on the helmet * head/helmet, rearward on the neck Posterior HyperTranslation

Leatt Brace GPX Sport

EVS RC EVO

Providing the ultimate in neck protection, The RC EVOLUTION has been designed from its inception with the assistance of top orthopedic professionals to help reduce neck compression and extension related injuries by effectively using an entirely new and innovative combination of absorption, diffusion and deflection of impact energy mechanisms not seen in other popular neck protection devices.

www.evs-sports.com

www.alpinestars.com

www.leatt-brace.com

5

adventure magazine

Download the 2009 RAW entry form here

6

adventure magazine

GearWith the arrival of Assault’s Hur-ricane Touring Gear, the designers and manufacturers of this incredibly comfortable suit have kept two of the most important things in mind when you opt to buy good gear built to last; One, you need great protection from the elements and result of coming off your bike and two, being seen by other commuters on the road. Made from durable Cordura material and fitted with CE approved shoulder, elbow, back and knee protectors, you will be looking at a suit that has you completely catered for from the get-go.

Assault has designed this suit not only with creature comforts in mind, such as easy-to-get-to storage pouch-es (we all know these as pockets), effectively positioned Air-Flow zips and detachable thermal inners, but these are considered highly practical as well as a necessity to most.

On the jacket body itself, fully ad-justable at the waist, you will find a total of five Velcro’d compartments - the two upper pockets and back pouch are both fully zip and Velcro equipped, where the remaining hip

pockets account for the other two fitted with just Velcro. The second creature comfort/ne-cessity mentioned are the Air-Flow pockets.

These zipped pockets can be found positioned on the forearm of each sleeve, shoulders and shoulder-

blades, combining taking your ther-mal inners out for long rides on those warm days out in the country.

The pants/bottoms of the suit have not been neglected in this area and have full-on knee zips which run about 20cm across the knee and 20cm up the thigh for effective air flow travel.

Available in Black, Red and Blue the Assault Hurricane suits are one of the most affordable and genuinely nicest-looking suits out there. Quality and comfort have not been compromised for affordability and aesthetics – this is honestly the kind of suit that wears and shows off its rider.

Available from Full Throttle

Retail

Jacket - R1799 - 00

Pants - R1399 - 00

http://www.fullthrottle.co.za

http://www.assaultgear.co.za

7

adventure magazine

8

adventure magazine

Funny thing, these monstrosities…. Is it a bike, is it a car? I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to

manoeuvre almost 400kg’s around in traffic.

Engage Low Gear

9

adventure magazine

One thing is for certain; hopping onboard the Rocket 3 Touring feels all but intimidating. Nice forward foot controls and a big speedo with a fuel gauge and all sorts of electronic features, makes it even nicer just to play with the switches.

The Triumph Rocket 3 was launched in 2004, it won awards everywhere and stunned the motorcy-cle community with its monster 3 cylinder 2.3 litre engine. It quickly became popular with the crowd who wanted to be seen on something else; some-thing that is not American and something that is not a Harley. It is however, till today, the largest and most powerful production cruiser engine avail-able. The only bike bigger and stronger than this are the Boss Hoss V8 contraptions.

The 2,294cc engine produces enough torque to pull start an 18-wheeler truck! I’m serious, the torque is something to experience. Just idling along and changing gears, will accelerate you briskly from 60kph in 5th gear, to what I assume is around 190kph, where the speed restrictor comes into play. What did I ever expect with nearly 210nm (209nm to be exact) and 72kw? Triumph claims that the Rocket will out accelerate a Yamaha R1 from 0 – 60 kph. You know what...? I believe them.

Riding along with around 400kg’s beneath you sort of makes you feel like a king on the road... That typical bad boy attitude... you can’t but help it… I snigger inside.

The Triumph has a 24l fuel tank. It takes forever to fill it as it has to “bleed” over, from the right side to the left. But once that’s done the party is started with a press of a button. That typical (not so typical) 3-cylinder off-beat English engine just

10

adventure magazine

Triumph Rocket TouringR195 500

Engine : Longitudinal 3 Cylider, 4 valves per cylinderCapacity : 2294ccPower : 140hp - 210nmDrive: 5 Speed - Shaft

ProsOh all that torque

Smooth power ... everywhereLots of chrome

ConsHeavy

Where are the highway pegs?

11

adventure magazine

pulses along. It’s a sound that you can’t really describe in today’s world of dominating 4-cylinders and v-twins. Riding the triumph feels very much like a four; so smooth but with the low end grunt of a v-twin. The gearbox is clunky, but I didn’t expect to be shifting like a Bentley Continental - this is a lot of metal I’m moving. The sound-track is muffled with the exhausts; I guess they never really intended the Rocket 3 touring to be heard coming into a quite country town.

The nice tall windscreen with chrome backing com-pliments the motorcycle and just adds to the total package. The screen is high and takes nearly all the wind off the rider, with a slight bit comfortably hitting the shoulders. The screen is also detach-able and removes in about 10 seconds - looks real good too without it.The black rubber bits under-neath come in 16 inch sizes with the front being 160 wide and the rear following with a 180. They have actually made the rear tire narrower than the Rocket 3 Classic as they had to beef up the tail section of the bike to fit the panniers, as well as to be able to accommodate the extra weight. The Rocket feels at home cruising at the speed limit, maybe even slightly less. I found myself com-fortably placed riding at 110kph the whole day. Somehow riding a tanker puts the whole world in a different perspective, I actually now took note of the world around me. However, make no mistake; it will jump from 110kph to 180kph quicker than you can say Triumph Rocket Touring.

The 24liters in the tank would give you a range of about 350km, if you are being reasonable with the throttle. I expected much less and actually closer to the 10l/100km mark, but instead with a light throttle I was surprised to see much closer to 6-7l

/ 100km, for a 2300cc bike weighing nearly 400kg with two people upon. I think it’s excellent!

It’s not hard to see why people buy these sorts of motorcycles. It’s just something that is very hard to explain if you have not yet ridden one of these beasts. It gives you that sense of open-road free-dom. Don’t plan your route… just go where the road takes you.

12

adventure magazine

13

adventure magazine

Cederberg

Outriders Festival

14

adventure magazine

This event was the first of its kind in the country that was not brand or dealer driven. All makes and sizes of roadworthy licensed dual sport dirt bikes were invited. The turnout was really good for a “first event” and after over 110 riders were subscribed, we had 87 registered and about another 20 made up of pillions, family, para-medics and crew. Good enough for a serious party!

The riders trickled in on the Fri-day, registered and set up camp. We had quite a few guys com-ing from the Eastern and South-ern Cape who had chosen to take the long way round to get there! We had a riders briefing in the evening explaining the two op-tional routes of which one be-ing less technical and pillion-friendly and the red route which had loose sand, rocks and gra-dients to challenge the riders. Morning dawned and for many who frequented the well stocked bar it was a serious effort for them to get up and going. There is nothing like a brisk ride to sort the head and body out!

Andy, the ride boss and his recce team of leaders and sweepers broke the riders up into smaller groups and left at short intervals to keep the dust down. We regrouped at Oasis and Wuppertal with the 4X4 backups and Paramedics in-tow. We got back to base mid to late af-ternoon in expectation of the skills challenge. By this time all bodies and bikes had had a good workout with more to follow! Myself and Leftless put together a course on the Friday and I must once again give thanks to the Clanwilliam Civils guys for the loan of their digger and the Co-Op for the tar poles. The rest of the kit we scrounged and pillaged. After a very entertaining afternoon of skills riding, barrel races and drags, it was time to clean up and party! The evening’s prize-giving saw riders picked out for who had performed well, stood out in some way or just plain trashed their bike! The party continued... I had four cornerstones to the Outriders DS Festival as I wanted it to be an event with a purpose. The first was to have fun, fun, fun!

15

adventure magazine

16

adventure magazine

Secondly, to have a non-brand-ed or dealer-driven initiative. Thirdly, I wanted to change the perceptions of the folk living in the Cederberg and environs about ‘bikers’ and especially dirt riders. The last is to use charitable or-ganisations to do catering and bar facilities if possible so we can help uplift the local communities. Coupled to this, any excess funds have been donated to the Cape Leopard Trust to help preserve the areas in which we love to ride. The riders were largely made up of the guys from the Wild-dog Adventure Riding forum with good participation from the Cape BMW Club and others. w w w . w i l d d o g . z a . n e thtt p : / / b mw m o to rc yc l e c l u b -cape.co.za/adventure-r id ingPrize Sponsers were generously donated by KTM CT, the Wilddog Forum, the Viper Lounge, Leatt Brace, Boerjie and The Ellwoods, who could not make it but allocat-ed their entry fee to prizes.

Next year we will definitely to do the event again....watch this space! Pistonpete & EtienneNXR

17

adventure magazine

18

adventure magazine

19

adventure magazine

For more information and sales visit www.hexdiagnostics.co.za or call +27 21 880 1433

20

adventure magazine

OperatiOn

DESERT STORMYamaha XT600 TeneréOwner Review by Mark Hurst

21

adventure magazine

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER, I mused, as I thumped Eastward along the A69. It was inevitable that this pleasantly rural highway would suffer at the hands of progress, but the sight of a new stretch of dual carriageway each time I travel it is depressing. As the North’s only direct cross country route, the A69’s fate has been officially sealed with 100% dualling of the carriageway’s sixty-odd miles ex-pected by the mid Nineties.

Parting company with the A69 at Greenhead, I took the high road along Hadrian’s wall before turning north towards the Cheviots. A hundred miles above the M62 and what ignorant Southern-ers call The North, I was heading for Kielder Forest and the Scottish border, some 12 miles away.As I rode, I reflected too on the demise of the bike that carried me. The XT600 Tenere has gone from Yamaha’s 1991 catalogue, though the name sur-

vives in the all-new XTZ660, a high-tech single-cyl-inder clone of the twin-cylinder Super Tenere. The motor lives on in the XT600E, but the combination that first brought weekend desert raiding to the masses has finally bitten the dust. Perhaps it was time. Once the best-selling motorcycle in Europe, cost cutting and copycat styling were slowly turn-ing the Tenere into a two-wheeled bread van.My bike is a 1986 model, from the days when big trailers still looked like dirt bikes. A high front mudguard, single headlight and lack of windscreen are the obvious differences from later models, but a closer look reveals anodised aluminium wheels, a drum brake at the back and a kickstart to distin-guish the older bike. The tank is a rounder, much more pleasant affair and the side panels look like an integral part of the bike instead of being fash-ioned from bits of leftover plastic.I followed the road up to where my map showed a

dotted line cutting off into the forest. This proved to be a forestry commission road, and I handed over the £1 toll and gave it a go. The first couple of miles were tarmac, but this soon gave way to a gravel track. Ruts and pot-holes aside, the hor-rible flinty surface played havoc with the tyres and threatened drastic injury in the event of a spill.Arriving at the other end, I spent a while picking sharp stones out of the tyres. Now about 4000 miles old, these are Avon Gripsters and seem to be holding up much better than the original Dun-lops. This is a bit surprising, as the compound seems very soft. The longevity is due in part to a more road orientated tread pattern, giving a larger contact area and superb road holding. The origi-nal tyres lasted 7000 at the rear, and 9000 on the front. The front would probably have done another 1500 miles but I wasn’t taking any chances.

The chain gave up the ghost at 13000 miles, mostly due to lack of maintenance. The main reason for this is the absence of a centre stand, making appli-cation of chain lube a bit tedious and chain adjust-ment downright difficult. Faced with an over-tight chain in the wilds of the Lake district I came up with a novel way of elevating the back wheel. I dis-covered that one way to get the back end off the ground was to tip the bike up on to the side-stand and front wheel, with the steering on full lock, and rest the end of the handlebar against a tree. At a certain distance from the tree (a trade secret), the angle was just right and left the bike standing on its head with the back wheel about three feet in the air. The possibilities for catastrophe are obvi-ous, and a strong elastic band around the front brake lever is useful insurance.

22

adventure magazine

When I found out how much a new chain and sprocket set cost, I decided to take a keener inter-est in chain maintenance. A heavy duty O-ring chain and sprockets cost around £60, and having shelled out this much, I went on and bought a Scottoiler too. This needs to be plumbed into the carb, as it operates on the vacuum created at the engine side when the throttle is closed. Luckily the Tenere’s fuel pump is driven by the some mecha-nism, so connection is a simple matter of tapping into the right hose. Vanilla XT600 owners will need to drill a hole in the inlet rubber.

I bought the bike from a dealer with 1900 miles on the clock, that figure matching the price quite closely. However, it was over two years old and seems to have been neglected and/or mistreated

in the engine department. It soon developed some serious noises, ending up with a rebore and a new set of rockers after only 5000 miles. It’s worth noting that the engine can only take two rebores and the second takes the bore out by lmm and in-creases the capacity to 608cc. There are insurance implications here and it may be a better idea to go for a new or second hand cylinder. A new one will set you back £140. The piston is around £40 and piston rings £12. These are genuine Yamaha prices - patterns may be substantially cheaper. Then there are the gaskets (£22 head, £4 base) and gudgeon pin (£9). The message is clear: regular oil changes and warming up the engine carefully are essential.Routine servicing is reasonably straightforward, though the enormous tank has to be removed be-

fore you can get at the spark plug. The number of valves has doubled since the old XT500, so setting the tappets is twice as much work. Adjustment is by locknut and a small square-headed adjuster, and should be done cold. The exhaust valves couldn’t be easier to get at, but the inlet valves are quite tricky.

Draining the oil is a two stage affair, with half the oil lying in the sump and half in the oil tank. The tank has a weird extension tube that has to be wound out before removing the drain plug itself - the idea is to make the dribbling oil miss the frame on the way down. As the bike leans so for over the other way on its stand, this doesn’t work so well. When changing oil without replacing the filter, the air bleed screw has to come out. Located at the top of the filter housing, the 8mm hexagonal bolt is easy to round off with the toolkit spanner, and although it has a nice deep Philips driver slot cut into the top, it sits just below the exhaust pipe and is impossible to get at.

The rear suspension has a full complement of grease nipples but the left-hand swinging arm nipple points inwards and needs a goose-necked grease gun to get at it. The back brake is a drum so maintenance is minimal and the shoes last for ages. The front brake (and rear on the later mod-els) is a disc with the usual maintenance hassles. Miscellaneous replacements have included a clutch cable, a tacho cable and fork gaiters, the lat-ter an incredible £24 each! I tried a cheap pair but they fell to pieces in less than three months. The exhaust is starting to show signs of serious rust in the out of the way areas and will need attention

23

adventure magazine

soon.Plodding around the backroads of Northumber-land is the sort of thing this bike is good at. Its six-gallon tank is more useful than the ordinary XT’s little one, typically giving more than 250 miles before hitting reserve. As a London commuter it’s brilliant, though not so economical, but as a long haul tourer it’s pretty miserable and pushing it into the wind on a fast road is as frustrating as it is uncomfortable. Backroads thumping on twisty and hilly terrain is really what it’s all about. In these conditions the Tenere handles exceptionally well. Its forty horsepower provides more than enough stomp and it has the satisfyingly chunky power delivery which is characteristic of all big singles.Second hand Teneres come reasonably cheap these days, though many are a bit shabby. There is a tendency to load up with headlamp grilles, mud-

guard braces, alloy handlebars and other fake off-road tat, and many people seem to cover the bikes in Paris-Dakar stickers instead of cleaning them. Even so, a good example can be had for well under two grand.

The Tenere is a practical, fun bike and in the days of soaring labour costs is simple enough for the most ham-fisted home mechanic. With reason-

able all round performance, it offers a leisurely alternative to the hysterical high tech road racer. If you like to actu-ally experience the countryside as you ride through it and want a bike with a bit of character you could do a lot worse.

24

adventure magazine

Screamin’ Eagle

25

adventure magazine

There must be something about just deciding about a direction, filling up with fuel and just riding into the sunset. The freedom and worriless pur-

suits of not caring about a single thing in the world. With the engine beating along, nothing else matters in the world. Nothing.

Riding Harley Davidson’s biggest tourer is just that. It’s heavy but with the new chassis, the handling is not as slow as expected. A couple of times I actually felt like I was leaning too low and I’d rather not want to scratch the exhausts or the floorboards.

The 96 cube motor comes to life with just the push of a button. Easy starts with an automatic choke sorting out all the worries for you. Harley Davidson introduced the fly-by-wire throttle system on most of their bikes recently and as expected, the throttle action is so easy.

When paying big money for a luxurious tourer you expect to get your money’s worth... This baby delivers. Harmon Kardon sound, Intercom system, CB Radio, Cruise control and ABS. I could go on and on about the extras available for the Electra glide ultra classic, but you would sit here till next week reading the list...

26

adventure magazine

Fuel consumption is around 5l/100km cruising out on the country roads, it could even get better if you know how to treat the throttle gently. This gives the Electra Glide a range of nearly 400km, not bad since it only has an 18.9l fuel tank.

Now for the negatives.

It’s not a lightweight. It sort of fools you when riding. You don’t really know its 358kg until you are doing 3-5km/h in first gear trying to manoeuvre through the traffic. The screen is not adjustable – manual or electronic. If you are over 1.9me-ters tall you might want to browse through the Harley Davidson catalogue.

The Harley Davidson Electra glide Ultra Classic is a very special motorcycle. If you love the open road, you should really look at giving this motorcycle a decent look. It’s intimidating at first, but all you need is a couple of minutes to bond and get at-tached to her... you’ll end up not wanting to leave her side. Who knows one day Ill be riding Route 66 in Ultra Classic Style.

Traction is taken care of by a 160 front and 180 rear with classic pinstriped tires. I actually thought whitewalls would have given it the real American touch... but hey, what do I know? There are dual 12v outlets on the bike, one in front behind the tank cap and another on the left hand side located on the side of the passengers backrest. The passenger also has separate volume controls with track skip buttons on the right hand side. The Harmon Kardon provides exceptional sound, even at highway speeds. I would however prefer to ride with an open face helmet opposed to a full-face with a visor down, as it somehow gives a muffled sound. But standing and having the radio playing, you would really be surprised at the volume levels it can reach... mind-blowing!

There’s a nifty security system that comes standard with the Electra Glide Ultra Classic which acts by means of a transponder. This also acts as the key. Keep it in your pocket or even in the bag in the back of the luggage compartment, the bike will purr like a kitten. However, move the bike with it out of its perimeter or fiddle with any of the controls and you get this high pitched whine, letting you know that at any moment now, you will be embarrassing yourself when the alarm sounds.

27

adventure magazine

Harley Davidson Electra Glide Ultra Classic

R325 000

EnginE Air cooled, V-Twin, 96’Max TorquE 124.7 Nm @ 3000 rpmTransMission / DrivE 6 Speed / BeltDry-WEighT 367 kgFuEl CapaCiTy 18 9 Litres

Pros.

Comfortable Tank Range

Features (Mp3 – Intercom – CB) Luggage Space

Endless Accessories Exclusive

Cons.

Heavy

28

adventure magazine

Cape to MoroCCo

29

adventure magazine

Altogether 17814km, 17 countries and 697 litres of fuel. Cape Town to Morocco; 21 April 08 – 7 June

08.

Wine farmer Jannie le Roux and guesthouse owner Lindsay Steyn decided to embark on this once in a life-time journey – they share their experiences.

Route : Namibia, Angola, DRC, Gabon , Cameroon, Ni-geria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Burkino Faso, Mali, Senegal, Mauretania and Morocco . With West Africa behind them, they crossed the Mediterranean Sea, through Spain, Portugal and France. Once completed, Lindsay went to England.

Problems were few, the people were friendly and everything that we needed was available to us. Food, and fuel were no major issue – only two places saw us battle for fuel but on a whole, we could reach the next town with minor interruption.

Africa is truly wonderful, but don’t mistake it to be a first-world continent. Some of the roads were horrible; there were some roads where we rode 5 hours on a mere 50km.

Although everything went smoothly, we were warned about the Ninja rebels in Congo that were reported for sudden attacks. However everything went well through the country only to be delayed in Nigeria by army troops.

The only obstacle we had was the corrupt Army and Police that were only there to try and get money out of us. We refused to give them any money, and although they threatened us, they eventually allowed us to move on.

Mali’s desert-like country was beautiful and very inter-

esting. When we got to Morocco, we could see that we were no longer near any third-world country, but rather in a more advanced area.

We were in contact through sms to our loved ones at home and were conservative with what we ate. As there are different foods all over the world, you often end up eating the un-expected. In Gabon, we noticed that there was Cat on a menu and in Congo; they devel-oped a taste for Canine’s.

Our Diet consisted mainly of bread, French-fries and beer. We eventually reached our destination, with a miraculous count of 1 flat tire for the whole trip and a slight problem with a front shock absorber.

We are grateful that God protected us and kept us safe from any harm.

30

adventure magazine

31

adventure magazine

Making a great bike better

32

adventure magazine

Jason discovers that rebuilding a bike after an ac-cident provides the perfect excuse for hitting all those farkles you’ve been wanting.

1 - Bike dies

That’s odd, I thought as I lay in the middle of the road staring up into a blue cloudless sky with Table

Mountain in the distance. A second ago I was riding down Forrest Drive with a clear road ahead of me. Well, except for that Golf coming out the

side-street... OH!

I had T-boned a car that didn’t stop before trying to turn across my path. Lifting my head off the tar confirmed it. I had gone over the car and landed 20m down the road. Argh, I should have taken that comprehensive insurance policy.

The spill could not have come at a worse time: I was supposed to be flying out to Italy in two days, and America the following week - trips that had been in the planning for months. I lay in the hos-pital with broken bones for a while, but managed

to make my American trip which would last five months. During this time, the remains of my poor Dakar lay in the garage, bleeding out of every orifice. I knew the bike was in bad shape, and the insurance assessor confirmed it when 3 months down the line, he asked my landlady when the rider was getting out of hospital.

The bike was instantly declared a write-off.

I could not afford a new bike, being a poor stu-dent with only 3rd party insurance. I figured I’d have to sort myself out (good move too: it’s now almost a year down the line and I’m still waiting to hear from the other party’s insurance).

Eyeballing the bike, things didn’t look so bad.

Even the top-box survived and was still attached. There were just a few bent brackets. Well, apart from the radiator (which had been mangled into a shape I don’t believe they have words to describe), the oil tank and the seat with all its mountings. Oh, and the head lamp, the dash cluster and all the plastics. And the entire front end which had not only bent, but snapped clean off the chassis. Ah, and it looked like the whole faux tank assembly was distorted. Okay, maybe things were pretty bad.

2 - The post-mortem

I started stripping the bike to fully assess the damages. When I got down to the frame and it became clear that this too was buckled, so I decided that this was the end of my Dakar. Sur-prisingly, the engine and gearbox had emerged unscathed - not even barely a scratch. Some

33

adventure magazine

friends suggested I try to have the frame straight-ened, claiming that they’d seen these guys work miracles on damaged bikes.

After speaking to three frame-straighteners throughout the country and realising that this process would align the wheels, but not actually straighten the frame, I decided that it was a bad idea and tried to find out what a replacement frame would cost (just for kicks, because BMW has crazy spares prices). It turned out that just to buy the parts to replace the damaged bits, would cost over R40k. However, many of the parts could actually be repaired. I’m very grateful to my friends who collected all the plastic bits lying in the road. The right foot-peg, rear brake lever and rear seat mounts were straightened with a vice and a 4lbs hammer. The seat, front fender and radiator expansion tank were glued together. I’ve never really cared for the looks of my bike. I’m all about function over form. If my bike could be made mechanically sound, then I’d be happy. So I glued together all the main panels and covered the holes with stickers!

The motorcycling community is amazing... more like an extended family, really. I put out the word that I was looking for some parts and when fellow riders got to hear of my plight, orders for replace-ments started rolling-in. Some guys donated spares that were gathering dust in their garages, others put me in touch with various mechanics and second hand dealers. I managed to source a second hand frame too.

But even after all this, I was still lacking forks and a front wheel.

3 - A new front end

I could not afford new forks, or a new front rim, so I started looking at alternatives. The Touratech upgrade was supposed to perform miracles on the Dakar’s handling, and it was an upgrade I’d always wanted to do. Now seemed like a good time for this upgrade, since I had to replace the front-end anyway.

But the Touratech kit cost over R20k. A little more digging revealed that the forks in the kit were actually WhitePower WP4357MX units, with custom triples, brake calliper and wheel mount-

ings. It turns out that this same fork is used in all the pre-’02 KTM dirt-bikes, as well as the earlier KTM640Adv. It must’ve been fate: two days later I came to hear of an ‘01 KTM 250EXC gathering spider webs in a fellow adventurer’s backyard. At first glance, it looked like a simple conversion.

The BMW and KTM’s steering bearings inner diameters and steering stem length looked to be the same, so the triples appeared suitable. The total length and the offsets of the KTM’s WPs were almost identical to the BMW’s Showa’s, so the geometry would not be upset.

34

adventure magazine

The brake calliper would need a new mounting bracket as would the handlebars. But, I thought, how

hard could it be?! Famous last words!

During assembly, I realised that things were some-what more complicated. The ignition switch mount-ing (and hence the steering lock mechanism) and steering end-stops, amongst others, were quite dif-

ferent on the Beemer. This, I think, drove Tourat-ech to making custom triples. But, in true South African form, I made another plan with an angle grinder and parts I mostly had lying in the garage.

I was in two minds about the front wheel. Since I needed a new one anyway, I could either put an-other BMW rim on there, or opt for some other make. But I did want to keep the ABS system. The BMW rim mounts using standard 6203 bearings and a 17mm axle with a 300mm brake disc. I got a hub from the KTM250 with the forks. It used a smaller brake disc and odd-size bearings with a 15mm axle, none of which appealed to me. I eventually opted for another BMW wheel after I managed to find a simple calliper mounting solution. I did look into manufacturing a calliper adaptor bracket locally, but this particular conver-sion would be rather tricky, requiring a fancy CNC machine to mill it out of a solid block of metal.

Fortunately, it turns out that the KTM950Adv uses dual-disk versions of the same 300mm Brembo calliper as the F650GS, on the similar WP4860MX forks. So a KTM950 left-hand brake calliper mounting bracket was acquired.

The KTM triple’s centre steering stem had to be machined down to fit the BMW bearings and a new custom wheel axle constructed. I found a retired, sympathetic turner to help me with this. If there’s one piece of advice I can give anyone trying to embark on a similar project: find a sym-pathetic turner!

He put up with all my crazy questions and hun-dreds of ideas, helping me to whittle them down

to the simplest solution to solve the problem at hand. The new axle looks just like the origi-nal KTM unit, but thicker at 17mm rather than 15mm. Some spacers were also required to cen-tre the rim. A 1mm washer found lying in a jar in the garage did the trick.

The pitch of the KTM’s handlebar mountings were not standard, because only two bolts are used at a time on the MX bikes, as opposed to four on the Dakar. An adapter plate was manu-factured to accommodate this difference. This had an added benefit: It raised the handlebars my 20mm. I had been wanting risers for a long time. For good measure, I added another 50mm of height in the form of aftermarket risers.

I found a second-hand Dakar rim within my bud-get, though it had a small smiley in it. I’m living with the smiley. It doesn’t adversely affect the bike’s handling or wheel balancing and it doesn’t create the trouble in a tubed wheel that it does in a tubeless setup.

35

adventure magazine

The brake pipes needed to be elongated and re-routed. I purchased these locally. I wanted braid-ed pipes, which required a little more searching and were somewhat more expensive, but are available in a variety of colours.

Then came the silly little problems that took the longest time to sort out, like the ABS sensor mounting or switchgear panel mounting (it used to attach to the handlebar clamps). I found some steel plating which I mangled into form to solve these problems. Most of my tools are manual (filing requires patience!) however, I did borrow a baby grinder and a cordless drill (whose battery

didn’t even last long enough to drill four holes). It’s tricky to do with hand, too, when the toler-ance specification for the ABS sensor is 0.1 to 0.9mm from the ring!

The ignition switch was drilled out (it’s OEM mounted on the upper triple with security screws which can’t be unscrewed) and mounted on some L-shaped brackets.

Because the WP uppers are much wider in diam-eter than the original forks (they are USD, after all), the steering range is somewhat reduced. You don’t notice this while riding, but manoeuvring

in tight spaces is now a little more difficult. This also meant that some parts had to be enlarged to accommodate the bigger diameters, as shown in figure 7.

A steering end-stop solution had to be found to prevent the forks from hitting the main frame at full steering-lock. I constructed a plate and mounted it onto the lower triple clamp which has adjustable grub screws for meeting the frame’s end-stop bumpers. The front fender’s mountings also had to be customised to bolt onto the lower triple.

4 – Reassembly

The reassembly of the bike was actually rather mundane and took just one weekend. I realised halfway through disassembly that it would be a good idea to label the parts, screws, bolts and nuts that I was removing so that I would know how to put it all back together again. But by then I’d already stripped half the bike down!

Fortunately, the BMW parts fiches specify the sizes of all the bolts and show pictures of how the sections should be reassembled. I found a copy of the parts fiche for the earlier model of the stan-dard F650GS, which was close enough for my pur-poses. This also provided me an opportunity to change all the bolts and torx screws with suitable Allen-head stainless steel parts. BMW only seem to use stainless steel parts for the little screws that hold the plastic panels in place. Maybe it’s because these are the only the ones the customer can see?! The rest are galvanised steel, some of which are HT. And yes, they do start to rust after

36

adventure magazine

a while.

I also didn’t like the fact that I had to carry a giant toolkit consisting of spanners, sockets, allen-keys, torx drivers and screwdrivers if I wanted to fix the bike in the bush. I wanted to consolidate. So all the bolts that I replaced either use a 4mm, 5mm, 6mm or 8mm Allen key. Most are stainless steel, with only the high stress areas using HT bolts (only because I couldn’t find A2-80 stainless bolts). In fact,

I upgraded all of the HT bolts to 12.9 rather than the BMW standard 8.8 spec. My replacement frame arrived with a snapped-off rear sub frame bolt still stuck in it, so it seems this is a prudent replacement.

I have managed to save a few spanners in my toolkit, though I haven’t fully rid myself of the torx bits yet. My plan is to phase them out as they need replacing from rust.

A centerstand makes working on the bike much easier. I didn’t have one. My solution was to use boxes and bits of wood to keep it upright. This was a bad idea. I have a black bruise down the entire side of one leg to prove it.

Some additional complications arose during final assembly. The control cables had to be re-routed because the handlebars were now so much higher. The hooter was replaced and repo-sitioned below the radiator. And the front wheel can scrape on the front fender if the forks bottom out. Fortunately, this hasn’t happened yet. At worst, I’ll lose some paint on the underside of the mudguard.

37

adventure magazine

5 – Afterthoughts

Repairing an accident-damaged bike provides the perfect opportunity to become intimately familiar with its design. And to customise it as you see fit! There’s no guilt about replacing a part with an after-market accessory when the original part was damaged and needed replacement anyway. I changed bolts, fitted handlebar raisers, 2-finger levers, heavy-duty tubes, a centerstand and new front forks besides others.

These forks are fully adjustable and I believe I’ll be spending many hours fiddling with all the set-tings to tune them to my preference. For exam-ple, the first ride around the block revealed that the front

forks were jarring over bumps instead of absorb-ing them. My heart sunk as I thought perhaps these WPs weren’t quite as good as I’d been led to believe. Decreasing the compression damp-ing solved that problem though. An additional advantage of the WPs is the increased travel they afford. I haven’t yet bottomed them out, which I managed to do often enough off-road with the original Showa’s.

Be careful when buying second hand parts. I discovered that the second hand front brake disc which I purchased was slightly warped (only by 0.5mm, but enough to cause a brake shudder).

All-in-all it’s been a very interesting experience and a fun exercise.

See you on the dirt!

38

adventure magazine

DRZ400SThe best dual-purpose bike on the market?

39

adventure magazine

When Suzuki launched the DRZ400 in 2000, I don’t think

they expected quite the following the little zook had created. Google DRZ400 and the fan based websites, forums and aftermarkets websites are endless - some of you wish your money would be endless too, when deciding to kit out the bike.

The Suzuki DRZ400s is based on the enduro spec version which itself has proven very popular with the single track and woods type riders out there. There have even been guys who have crossed the States on them.The S version, fitted with indicators, horn, mirrors and a number-plate, makes riding it on the road to your destination a breeze. You find that the service intervals are also consid-erably further apart than your more motocross rivals such as the WR450F and the CRF450X. The motor is a lot less stressed so it should be more reliable too.In 1990 Suzuki launched the DR350S. It was lighter and featured better suspension than most of its opposi-tions counterparts had on offer. It was simply a winner. Ten years later the DRZ400 was launched and was crowned bike of the year.There weren’t any technical upgrades in the last couple of years, but merely different colour schemes. Like they

say, if it isn’t broke, why fix it?The gearing is slightly more road-ori-entated on the S model, but this has its advantages on the asphalt – yes better cruising speed. The gearbox is a 5 speed with smooth shifting, that one would find almost expected on most new bikes these days. The sus-pension is adjustable, so setting it up for your weekly commute to work or chaninge it up to go and play with the guys in the bush, the DRZ400S, will handle everything you throw at it. The DRZ400S is really a great little mid-size thumper, the strong torque curve just keeps on going.

With endless accessories available, it’s hard to beat .

40

adventure magazine

Cape Town

Mike Hopkins Motorcycles Cape Town021 423 8461Fax 021 424 5428

133 Bree Street Cape Town

EVERYBUSINESS

HASTO

DO YOU?

Click me to find out more

ADVERTISEADVERTISE

ADVERTISEADVERTISE

ADVERTISE

41

adventure magazine

ROCKIN’ pre-owned value.

NatioNWide delivery caN be arraNged • Full raNge oF NeW models availabletrade-iNs Welcome / FiNaNce caN be arraNgedHarley-Davidson® Tyger Valley, Cape Winelands, the dealership with a difference.Willowbridge Lifestyle Centre, 39 Carl Cronje Drive, Tyger Valley | Georg: 0833792479 e-mail: georg@hd-tygervalley.co.za | web: www.harley-davidson-tygervalley.co.za

© H-D 2009. Harley, Harley-Davidson, Bar and Shield logo and Buell are among the trademarks of H-D Michigan, LLC.

1. FLSTC HeRITage CLaSSIC - 2009 • 18,000 km, includes engine guard and luggage rack •balance of 2 year factory warranty

3. FLHTCU ULTRa CLaSSIC - 2009 • 20,000 km, new swing arm, new 180 rear tyre, abs, cruise control, radio / cd • balance of factory warranty

5. FLHRC ROad KINg - 2004 • 25,000 km, includes top box, pipes, rider back rest and many more

2. FLHTCU Ultra Classic - 2009 • 20,000 km, new swing arm, new 180 rear tyre, abs, cruise control, radio / cd • balance of factory warranty

4. FXdB Street Bob - 2006 • 4,400 km, includes pillion seat, sissy bar and screamin’ eagle pipes

6. FXdF Fat Bob - 2008 • 3,200 km, includes v&H pipes, race tuner, heavy breather kit and much more • balance of factory warranty

1.3.

5.

6.2. 4.

4 available from

r199,0002 available from r279,000 r189,000

r199,000

2 available from r279,000 r145,000