Review – IXS Montevideo jacket & IXS Caracas trousers

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Kilian

I have been thinking that I would like to have a more varied range of content on this blog, and a gear review section sounds like a good idea. Through this new section I would like to share with you firsthand experiences, opinions and impressions of the gear I use in my travels, and offer some advice to those shopping around to equip themselves or their motorbikes.

We’ll start with a review of one of my most valued pieces of kit: my IXS riding suit. Prior to my first long trip, I had a pair of Dainese trousers (non-waterproof), a pair of cheap plastic waterproof trouser covers, a Dainese vented summer jacket, a Dainese waterproof winter jacket that can be worn over a suit (perfect to wear to work every day) and a Dainese waterproof winter jacket more suited to travelling. Not that I am a Dainese fan (or of any other brand in particular), but I bought a Dainese back protector insert for my first jacket and by sticking to the same brand I can swap it between them. And there is a Dainese store round the corner from where I live that offers very good deals on end-of-the-season products…

Anyway, while planning the route for the long trip I realised that this was not going to be the usual weekend ride and that I was going to encounter widely varying temperatures and weather conditions, but it was not realistic nor practical to carry two pairs of trousers and two jacket in the limited luggage space that a motorbike offers, so I decided to sell the trousers and winter road jacket and find a 4-season suit.

Most brands offer an all-season adventure jacket and some trousers to go with it in their catalogue, but I quickly realised that most of them are more of a 3-season option – while they all include waterproof and thermal layers that can be removed, very few offer the level of ventilation that is needed in really hot conditions. The only one that seemed to be modular enough to be a true 4-season riding suit was BMW’s Rally suit. I had read glowing reviews about it, but with all the money I had spent on other gear, I could hardly justify its price tag, which was easily twice what other suits cost.

While scouring the internet for a second-hand one that was my size, I found several references to a comparative test carried out by a German riding magazine that put one suit I had never heard about in first position above BMW’s offering arguing that it offered about everything BMW’s did but at half the price. It was the IXS.

I had not heard of the brand before, but a quick search revealed that it is based in Switzerland and they are a big player in the biking world (at that time I was a relative newcomer…). I could not find a bad opinion about the jacket + trousers combo, and the price was very tempting, so I set about finding a shop where I could see and try one on.

It seemed that IXS is not such a popular brand in Spain, and Adventure Riding being a rather niche segment, there was only one shop in my region that had the suit in stock, 50 kilometres away. I went to try it on and it fit like a glove, so I bought it on the spot. Now, what do I think about after three years of use?

Adjustments:

The jacket is very adjustable, so it is very easy to make it fit comfortably – the sleeves have a strap with have three pop fasteners on the upper arm and an adjustable strap with a plastic locking buckle on the forearm; there is an adjustable strap around the back at kidney height and a little strap with three pop fasteners on either side at the bottom. The cuffs also have three pop rivets. The trousers have two Velcro straps to adjust the waist.

Protections:

There are Powertector pads for the elbows-forearms, shoulders and knees. These are not just pieces of plastic or rubber as in cheaper suits, but special impact-absorbing material with CE certification. In addition to this there are a couple of foam inserts in the trousers to protect the hips and a larger, thicker one for the back, which is one of the very few complaints I have about the jacket. I know that some jackets do not include even that, but a proper back protector would be nice, even if it was as an extra cost option. As far as I know, IXS does not offer a specific one for this jacket.

Storage:

This is one of the strong suits of the jacket – it has so many pockets I have managed to lose stuff in it. At the front there are no less than 10 pockets: two small ones on the chest and two small ones below, on the ribs; these four have sealed zippers. Then there are two huge front pockets that close with a Velcro flap which in turn have two smaller pockets with zippers at the front and two big pockets with zippers to the side which are ideal for my gunner to put her hands in when she’s cold. I addition to all of these, different parts of the ventilation system can double as pockets when closed, taking the total count up to 14 front pockets. To that you can add a big pocket across the lower back of the jacket, one inner pocket next to the main zipper (no need to unzip the jacket to access it), and two inner pockets on the jacket, which are duplicated on the inner side of the thermal layer so you do not lose them in winter. All in all, 18 usable pockets in winter mode and 14, 12 or 10 in summer depending on how you set up the ventilation system.

Weather protection:

The jacket comes with a zipper that attaches to the trousers, offering extra comfort in cold weather as well as protection in case of a fall. It can unzip from the jacket and zip to the thermal layer, so it can always be used. The waterproof layer attaches to the jacket with a zipper on either side of the jacket’s zipper, three pop fasteners around the collar and two on either cuff. The thermal layer attaches to the waterproof layer, so it is not possible to wear only the jacket and the thermal layer without the waterproof layer. I have never found this to be a problem, when I need the thermal layer it is cold enough that the waterproof layer is not a bother. The attachment system is the same, two zippers at the front and two pop fasteners on each cuff but only one in the collar.

In the trousers, the story is exactly the same, except for the fact that at the bottom both layers attach using zippers, which I very much prefer to pop fasteners down there.

The thermal layers offer sufficient protection for the kinds of weather I have ridden in so far, including winter in snowy conditions, complemented by a thermal undershirt and a thin fleece in the coldest days. I have not needed to wear anything extra over the legs yet.

As for the waterproof layers, we need to take into account that when it comes to breathable stuff, nothing is truly waterproof, no matter what the manufacturer’s literature says. In this case, the waterproof membrane is detachable, not sewn into the jacket, which means that the jacket (and trousers) will get wet in the rain and even though the membrane underneath will keep you dry, a soaked jacket will feel cold and heavy. It takes a whole day in good weather or a in well heated room for a fully soaked suit to dry, which is something worth taking into account when going on multi-day trips. It is not the same to hang out the suit to dry at the end of a Sunday ride and forget about it, than to get out of a warm, cozy bed in a damp morning and slip on a wet suit. In any case, if it rains hard enough, water will eventually seep in sooner or later. How fast is that? Having had no alternative than to ride in heavy rain more than once, I can tell you that under a high-intensity deluge, it can happen in 30 minutes. In milder constant rain conditions you can ride for a couple of hours before water comes in. I usually carry a cheap plastic rain suit. It is truly waterproof and faster – you have to perform a striptease by the side of the road to put in the waterproof layers of the suit, and it takes a few minutes of fasteners and zippers, so under heavy rain, you are going to be soaked in your underwear almost instantly unless you find cover to do it.

Ventilation:

Everything described so far applies to mostly any other decent 4-season suit in the market, but here is where the IXS Montevideo truly shines. Step by step, it can turn into the closest thing to a summer mesh jacket you can find.

First, there are two small vents above the breast pockets.

As the day gets warm, the breast pockets themselves can be removed, leaving two 100x130mm mesh apertures.

To the sides of the breast pockets, and running all the way down to the front pockets, there are four zippers that can be undone for extra ventilation.

Finally, with these zippers down, the whole front of the jacket detaches front the breast pocket flap using a Velcro strip and can be folded back and down into a space behind the front pockets, leaving two 200x140mm mesh openings in the front of the jacket.

The sleeves also have zippers running from 140mm above the cuffs to almost armpit level that open top to bottom, and for really hot days, undoing two zippers the whole back of the jacket detaches from the top in the same fashion as the front pieces and provides a huge 350×250 mesh vent.

The trousers have two small openings at the back, two longer ones diagonally across the upper part of the legs and finally two long vertical ones on the inside of the legs (which are also used to extract the protection pads). To have good ventilation on the legs on the hottest days I need to separate the legs from the bike, another couple of vertical openings on the outer side would have been nice, but I imagine that since IXS has not included them on the new version of the Caracas trousers, they could compromise the effectiveness of the knee pads in case of a fall. That said, they offer better air circulation than most other trousers.

I have ridden in +40ºC temperatures with this setup and as long as I am on the move, the airflow is enough to keep me reasonably cool. Stopping to visit something is another matter altogether…

Durability and fit and finish:

The suit is made of 600D Dynax and 500D Cordura and the trousers of 500D Airdura and 630D Dynax, although this info matters little. What is important is that after heavy use it has stood the test of time very well and looks very little worn out.

All fasteners and zips are of very high quality and after 3 years of use nothing has torn, come loose or fallen off. The only thing that seems to have worn out prematurely in my opinion is the soft fabric sewn around the jacket’s collar to make it nicer to the touch against the neck. Nothing serious, and I can probably get someone to sew a new one in, but still, it does not look good.

Ok, so anything bad?

Just a few little things – the removable breast pockets are totally removable, so losing them is a possibility. I doubt IXS will supply them as a replacement part, so be careful. I lost mine for a couple of months after moving into a new apartment and it does get very cold without them in winter. Fortunately they turned up eventually.

As I said before, back protection is poor, and there is no specific back protector for the jacket, but this is something that affects most jackets, you can always buy a good strap-on protector.

I would like the jacket to have attachments for a water blade as the BMW Rally suit does, and having zippers under the armpits would be nice too. The Rally suit has detachable sleeves, which I personally see no use for on a riding jacket, but you can partially open the zipper for extra ventilation.

Other than that, it is a bit on the heavy side, but you do not notice that while wearing it.

This suit is not for sale anymore, but the second generation version is identical in all respects and has improved on two of the aspects mentioned above: it does offer a water blade as an optional extra and the breast pockets are attached to the suit, so it is a highly recommended purchase.

Conclusion:

A very well-designed and durable suit that offers true versatility all year round at a reasonable price. Mine looks and feels as if it is ready to take on several more years of use, and when the time comes I will probably replace it with another one.

Stolen

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Kilian

As most of you may have already seen in the Stroming The World Facebook page, not a week had gone by after I came back from my holidays than my new motorbike was stolen.

I had had it for three months, and at least I got to enjoy it throughly over the summer – a four-day trip across the Pyrenees to write the review that I posted recently, a trip to visit my old V-Strom and do some offroading and some research for a future article I’m writing and a wonderful trip to Normandy to explore the D-day beaches. It was a fast, fun, comfortable and reliable travel companion, and in the course of these trips it was proving to be a worthy successor to my beloved V-Strom.

I am now waiting to see how events unfold, and hoping the police may find her. In any case, she was insured against theft, even though I have little faith in the insurance company paying a decent amount for her.

Last weekend I went to retrieve my faithful V-Strom and put her back in service. She is back as my daily ride, but having lost the Yamaha has put a hold on my plans for future big trips, it will be some time before I can tell you stories about riding to distant locations.

In the meantime, life goes on, and I have just put the finishing touches on the story of my trip to Normandy and I will publish it shortly, I hope you enjoy it.

Please visit the Stroming The World Facebook page and share the description of the Yamaha.

Thanks!

Update – V-Strom in storage

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Kilian

As I wrote a couple of posts ago, after taking my old bike to its retirement I had to go back and prepare it for long-term storage – change all fluids and the oil filter to eliminate moisture, pour a bit of oil into the cylinders to protect them from rust, etc.

I had some free days by mid-August, so I took the necessary tools and spares and went there. It took some effort to roll the bike out this time, as I was on my own. Once in the backyard and pointing to the street, I reconnected the battery and tried to start it. It coughed a bit and seemed to start, but then it stopped. It took several attempts more before the engine finally fired, but once it did it ran evenly and smoothly. However, when I left it on the sidestand with the engine running while I locked the gate, I notice something dripping onto the ground. On closer inspection I saw it was fuel, and it was coming from somewhere up between the cylinders, where the admission system is. Bad sign.

I switched it off, rolled it back inside and set out to remove the side panels and raise the tank to see what was going on. By the time I had access the fuel that had leaked had evaporated, and I could not see any traces of fuel anywhere. I thought it might have been a cracked fuel line, so with the tank raised to be able to see things, I started the bike again. This time it fired up instantly, without any hesitation, and ran smooth as usual. I took my time to inspect everything and there was no sign of a leak anywhere. I was mystified. I put the tank down again and decided to take it out for a ride without the side panels so that I could still inspect the engine easily. The bike ran without a hiccup, and none of the many times I stopped to check things did I see any fuel leak out. I concluded that the most likely explanation was that the engine had flooded with the many attempts to start it and the extra fuel had somehow leaked, but I still do not know exactly how. If anybody has more mechanical knowledge than I do and a possible explanation, please leave a message.

After going back home and putting all the panels back on the bike, I went out again for a longer ride. I took her on small roads, on the main road and on tracks. The engine worked well and had no problems revving up, the clutch and gearbox worked smoothly, the suspension was fine… It seemed I had just ridden the bike yesterday, even though it had been two months.

That was when I realized that it was a shame to store her indefinitely. I can pop around here once every two months easily and take her out for a ride, and after all, a machine wants to be used, it will stand the test of time much better than if you just leave it standing there.

So she went back into the basement, battery disconnected, and I will be going to visit her in a couple of weeks now that the summer holidays are over.

Review – 2010 Yamaha XT 1200 Z Super Ténéré

Posted on September 5, 2015 by Kilian

I took delivery of my Super Ténéré and for the next week, other than a short blast into the hills with my gunner which did not allow me to fully explore the bike’s capabilities, I only had the chance to ride it as a commuter bike. 10 miles to work, 10 miles back, out of the city, into the city. Not the ideal conditions to get a proper taste of what the bike was like, just factual analysis:

The hydraulic clutch action is very smooth and requires less effort than the cable-operated one in my V-Storm. The brakes are far, far better, with four-pot callipers at the front and combined braking, which means that you only need to press the hand lever and it also applies pressure to the back brake. For more stopping power, or if you prefer to distribute the braking power yourself, pressing the brake pedal disconnects the system and each wheel can be braked separately. The system goes back into combined braking mode once pressure is released from both controls. The handlebars are high and wide, making the riding position very relaxed and clearing car’s mirrors easily when filtering. The seat is wide and very comfortable, and adjusting the height is a very simple procedure which requires no tools – lift the seat, change the position of the seat support a bit backward, put the seat back in position and voilà, the seat height drops from 870 to 845 mm. The dashboard is clear, easy to read and offers decent information, but I find it very annoying that they have decided to include an instant fuel consumption indicator and not a gear indicator… What use is an instant fuel consumption reading on a bike? It is just a way to keep your eyes off the road unnecessarily and have an accident. A gear indicator would have been much more practical. And since we are at it, having a fuel level and an instant consumption reading, it was only a matter of adding a few lines of programming to have a range indicator. When the bike goes into reserve a special odometer comes on, counting from zero from that moment, but it is up to the rider to estimate how far you can go. The OEM panniers and top case that came with the bike are nice looking and very convenient, locked and removed with the contact key, eliminating the many keys I was carrying with the old bike – although this might be a problem if I decide to sell them on. All objective and boring stuff.

So when the classes were over and I had five days for Sant Joan before starting the summer course, I took a friend of mine who has a 660 Ténéré and wanted to do some offroading and we both headed to the Pyrenees to see what the bikes were capable of. We headed for Banyuls, a wine-making village on the coast of France just past the border. It was a good point to start with our plan – to ride the Catalan Pyrenees from east to west.

A short stint on the motorway revealed a few things – on the negative side, while the wide tank and radiator fairings provide great protection for the legs, the OEM screen is far from adequate. At 6 feet, I felt buffeting on the helmet and on the shoulders, and could not ride with the visor open, which was not a problem on the V-Strom with a tall Givi screen. There is a supplementary set of holes on the mounting brackets, but unlike the V-Strom they are just holes, there are no threads for the screws that support the screen, so it cannot be moved to a higher position. In any case, doing so would leave a gap between the screen and the instrument panel, which might let air in anyway. On the positive side, the bike feels planted at high speeds, and can maintain a good cruise without effort and with plenty of power in reserve, which is exactly what I was looking for now that I travel with a passenger.

Once we reached Banyuls we turned inland looking for a small mountain pass called Col de Banyuls that goes back into Catalan territory. The road up the pass is little more than a paved country lane, and there is a section at the bottom of the pass on the French side that is unpaved (or was paved a long time ago, but it is not anymore). It is perfectly passable on a car as long as you drive carefully, and I attacked it fast on the bike. This revealed what I had been expecting and would be confirmed over the next few days – the suspension on this bike was way better than on the V-Strom. More about that later.

We reached the town of Espolla and from there, instead of heading south to meet the main motorway going to the border, we tried to find a route I had tried to do and failed when I did my trans Pyrenees trip the previous year – a dirt track connecting through some military training fields to Campany. This time we had downloaded terrain maps and were confident we could find it.

The bike came with a set road-biased Metzelers, and when my friend suggested doing some offroad, seeing that I was not familiar with it and it was considerably heavy than the Suzuki, I swapped them for a set of 50/50 Mitas. I was so glad to have done so when we attacked the first part of the track… it was a fine layer of sand over rock, and the bike behaved impeccably on the Mitas, very confidence inspiring, it hid its weight really well even though it was carrying the full set of luggage.

Things got a bit complicated further on, the track deteriorating with some deep ruts in a steep section, and here was when the bike showed me its full capability – this was worse terrain than anything I had done on the V-Strom, and even though I had very, very limited experience on the bike, standing on the footpegs and with a healthy dose of throttle it climbed the gradient without any problems, the suspension soaking up the ruts and loose rocks.

Unfortunately, we had to give up shortly afterwards. After another steep climb, we came to a point where the road descended abruptly, and neither of us felt confident enough to take such heavily loaded bikes down there, so we had to turn around and head back to Espolla and the main road. The Albera mountains had defeated me once more. On the positive side, I can confidently say that I ran out of talent long before the bike did, it is a very capable offroad machine if you know what you are doing, but my skills are definitely not up to the bike’s full capability.

It was time to try some corners, and the GI-501 and 505 provided the perfect road. It starts in the village of Agullana and it does not really lead anywhere, it ends at the border with France next to a memorial to president Lluis Companys, meaning that there was very little traffic. Even on semi-offroad tires and loaded with luggage, the bike was great fun on a winding mountain road, you can lean confidently, the front end is positive and communicative, with 117 Nm the engine has more than enough torque to pull strongly and smoothly from very low revs, and past 4,000 it makes a delicious sound. I know some people find the bike a bit boring, but it suits my riding perfectly, I prefer to have torque than power at the top end of the rev range.

At the top, the road does continue down to the French side, but it is only a gravel road. It was in quite good condition, and it descended – sometimes steeply – down to the village of Las Illas. Here I had several opportunities to test – both intentionally and accidentally – the ABS system. I have read a lot of complaints about it not being a switchable system, and how this limits the bike as an offroad machine. To that criticism I can only say two things. One – the system is incredibly well-judged, and I applaud Yamaha for having taken this approach. BMW chose to simply fit a switch and turn it off, Yamaha went to the trouble of designing a system that works really well offroad. I braked hard intentionally several times, and had to brake hard a couple of times when a car appeared the other way out of a corner, and at no point did I lose braking power. It only took a couple of bumps or a bit of gravel to leave my V-Strom without brakes. Two – if you are an offroad master (which I am definitely not) and really feel the need to switch the ABS off, then 55€ buy you a kit with a switch, the necessary wiring and a fuse, and I am sure you can make one yourself for less, so I do not think that the non-switchable ABS system is such a big deal.

Over the next two days we spent half the time on and half the time off road. On the road the Super Ténéré behaved impeccably and never missed a beat, and offroad it was a revelation. I had changed the springs on my V-Strom to stiffer ones to cope with the weight and be able to do some offroading without bottoming out, but it was a harsh ride on tracks – the front end bounced around and I had to fight it to keep it going in the right direction, and the back kept losing traction for the same reason. I had never ridden anything other offroad, and I just thought this was the way you were supposed to do things… This bike opened my eyes – longer suspension travel and more sophisticated damping meant that it just soaked up the bumps, keeping the back wheel firmly on the ground most of the time, and the 270º crank engine behaves like a big single, sending the power to the back wheel in pulses to keep traction. It climbed through dirt track tight hairpins in the heart of the Pyrenees practically at idle without any problems, I would definitely not have been able to do that in a Tiger 800. That said, sixth gear is tall enough to cruise the motorway relaxedly, good combination. The seat that was so comfortable on the road is quite narrow at the front end, and with the bars quite high, the position when standing on the pegs is almost perfect. I say almost because being on the tall side, I would prefer it a bit higher, but this is easily solved with a set of risers, which I will definitely be fitting in the future.

So all in all, a very positive impression of the bike. Fit and finish is very good, it might not look as good as a BMW, but when you look closer you see that Yamaha has spent the money where it counts, making a tough, functional bike for actually riding, not posing. Everything has been cleverly design, and it seems to be very user friendly if you want to do your own maintenance. The shaft drive does not bear such strong loads as in a GS, as there is an arm on the other side to distribute forces, meaning that it is very likely to be a lot more reliable, and coming from a chain driven motorbike, I did not notice any strange reactions when accelerating nor braking, making the Paralever system look unnecessarily overdesigned and failure-prone. It sure looks nice, but I want something I can ride with total peace of mind.

Summer holidays are coming, and there are at least two trips planned for the bike, which means that it will be due for a service when it comes back. I plan to do it myself, so I will let you know how easy or difficult it is.

The good:

Power delivery – plenty of grunt down low and still able to deliver a good kick at higher revs.
Very comfortable riding position and seat, still good to ride standing.
Good offroad behaviour.
Long service intervals, seems easy to service (to be confirmed).
Good gearing – sixth gear is good for the motorway, first gear is low enough for offroading, torque helps, and when it is not low enough, having a wet clutch works better for slipping than BMW’s dry one.

The bad:

Poor wind protection from the stock windshield – buffeting in the helmet and shoulders. I need a taller screen.
Abrupt off-throttle action – the bike is a bit jerky when completely closing the throttle. Not a big issue, but it can get annoying in start-stop traffic.
No gear indicator

Edited: a few months later, back from the Normandy summer trip, this motorbike was stolen right from my front door.

One last ride

Posted on August 24, 2015 by Kilian

So, new motorbike. What about the last one? Unlike owning a car, one of the many great things about motorbikes is that there is a very active second hand market, so it is easy to change bikes often and experience some variety. Not only that, it also means that there are lots of good bikes out there for sale and it is easy to sell yours and pay for a good chunk of the price of the next one.

The trouble was that mine was very special to me. It had been my first big motorbike and even though it started as a commuter bike it quickly graduated to weekend bike, short holidays bike, long holidays bike and finally adventure bike. It took me across Europe into Russia and Kazakhstan. To the Nordkapp and back down to the Adriatic. Across the Alps. Across the Pyrenees. Around Spain and Portugal…

By the time the Yamaha came across and I decided to retire it, she had become a travelling companion and I had no intention of getting rid of it. I told myself that she was too old, that she had no real market value at almost 140,000 km, but that was just a poor excuse. I could break it apart and sell the parts, there is strong demand for V-Strom parts in Spain. I could also sell the accessories, I had spent a small fortune turning her into an adventure bike. But the truth was I just did not want to part with her. So I did what I knew I was going to do from the beginning – keep it.

So by the end of June I got her ready for her last trip – a trip down a route she had done many times before, a trip I had done countless times before her by car, a trip which had always been the very definition of driving and riding pleasure to me.

My late grandparents were born in a remote village deep in the countryside in a region that is very sparsely populated. Their house is still standing and we sometimes spend long weekends or holidays there, it is a wonderful place, quiet, beautiful and most importantly, with no main roads around. There are a thousand different back roads to get there from Barcelona, I have taken from five hours to two days to make the trip, and more than the time I spend there, what I really enjoy is the getting there.

My first long bike trip was there, it took me about six hours at a time I had not spend more than one hour straight on the bike. I had just bought her, and such a long trip was a daunting prospect, I had no idea how I would cope, or what I would do if I got too tired halfway. It was a blast. I fell in love with the bike, with riding, and I have not got off a bike ever since.

So with a place to keep her and a new excuse to make the trip from time to time to go visit her, we set off along those familiar roads one last time with her.

She did not feel old at all. Loaded with luggage for the weekend, all the spare parts and tools that were specific to her and I would no longer need for the Yamaha and a passenger, she could still keep a decent cruising speed and be fun on the windy bits. It was as if she was telling me ‘see? I can go on another 100,000 km, no sweat, I’m made for this’.

I know V-Stroms can last longer than 140,000 km, but I did not want to ride her to the ground. I knew she still had a good few thousand kilometers left in her, my idea was to take her there and put her on long-term storage until I decided to use her again for future projects, and this little village was perfect – the climate is very dry, so I did not have to worry about rust.

Getting her into the house was a different matter… There is no garage as such in the house, just a basement that is accessible from the street through a backyard. Oh, and the house is not finished either… It is what you can call an ongoing project, it is not my grandparents house, but another one we bought some years ago. So when I got there I opened the old wooden door leading into the backyard to find it overgrown with weeds waist high. I paddled the bike across to the back door, the back tire spinning on the grass until I finally got her into the basement, only to find the next obstacle. I inched my way past construction tools and materials to reach two high steps that led to the only clear space where I could keep the bike, at the end of the basement. We used an old wooden plank with a brick under it to prevent it from snapping in two under the weight of the bike and succeeded in getting her up there.

Now, there are a series of procedures that have to be done to a bike in order to keep it store for extended periods of time, but it was a normal weekend which meant that we had get back to Barcelona the following day, and this time by bus, which takes much, much longer than by bike, so I just disconnected the battery and propped the bike up so that there was no weight on wither wheel. By mid August I would come back with everything I needed and prepare her for hibernation.

The following morning we called a taxi and it dropped us at the village where the bus stopped. It was more than ten years since the last time I had done the 8-hour journey back home by bus, and the combination of teenage memories and having let my bike behind made me feel quite melancholic as I enjoyed the views as a passenger again.

New baby

Posted on August 15, 2015 by Kilian

Ever since I finished the original Stroming the World trip I had been saying that I needed to change my motorbike. I bought my V-Strom second hand, thinking that it was my first big bike and it was going to get heavy use as my daily commute and sleep on the street, so it was a good idea to buy something cheap and reliable. It had about 40,000 km and at that time I had no idea that it was going to take me to so many places. By the time the trip was over the bike soon passed the 100.000 km mark back on her daily role as commuter bike and I was taking it everywhere – out on weekend trips, holidays in Corsica, pretty much everywhere in Spain… and I kept thinking that I needed to start considering a new one, for the old trusty V was already piling on too many kilometres.

What do you replace a V-Strom with? Usually the answer is “another one”. Nothing is as cheap, reliable and versatile as these bikes. Nothing. But I was now doing most of my trips two up, and I wanted something more powerful. For months and months I spent hours reading tests and reviews, trying to figure out what the best replacement was. I wanted something a bit more powerful, comfortable, just as reliable and with the off road ability that the V lacked, that is, better suspension and a bit more ground clearance.

I first looked at the same manufacturer – I had a very good relationship with my Suzuki dealer in Barcelona and I trusted the brand, after all my V had proven to be 100% reliable. I took a look at the 1000cc V-Strom, but a few things put me back. It was a new model, so there were still no second hand deals, which meant that it was just out of my budget, and it was quite road-biased – cast alloy wheels, not much ground clearance and not enough suspension travel increase over the 650. And not the prettiest girl in town, either.

The GS was another obvious answer to many, but the asking prices for second hand ones were just ridiculous, and the ones within my budget has astronomical mileage. And despite all their round-the-world, Long Way Round fame, a GS just did not inspire as much confidence as my V when it comes to reliability. Too many reports of final drive failures, electronic gremlins and lower general quality than my V. I kept reading a lot about “quality components” on the specialised press, but when I looked at how the plastics aged on a GS that had spent its life on the street compared to the ones on my V, I just did not perceive that famous quality. My bike is a workhorse, not a garage queen that is only ridden on sunny Sunday mornings, and I need it to live up to that task.

The 800 GS was interesting – much better suited to off-road duties, more power than my V for two-up riding, not as heavy, cheaper to buy and with a huge range of aftermarket extras. However, it suffered from three main problems. One – same patchy reliability record as her big sister. Two – ugly as hell; I did not fall in love with her, and you have to love your bike, it cannot be something you look at and think “it’s OK”. And three – the Porsche Boxter phenomenon. No matter how good it is, it still looks as if you couldn’t afford the real thing, a 911. This is the same, it’s just not a 1200 GS.

If I wanted more power, more off road ability and more fun, orange seemed the way to go. I had had a taste of Ilya’s 990 Adventure in Moscow and fallen in love with it. Second hand prices were very good too, at least in Spain, and it is definitely the queen when it comes to rough terrain. The problem is that Katies are 100% adrenaline 100% of the time. Great for adventure trips or attacking twisty roads at the weekend, not so great for everyday traffic, and while relatively cheap to buy second hand, they are frighteningly expensive to run. Fuel consumption can be ridiculous in heavy traffic (I have to commute in and out of Barcelona every day), and a valve check is due every 12.000 km, which means taking half the bike apart every few months. No thank you.

The 1200 Triumph Tiger Explorer was also out of the question, too expensive, as was the Moto Guzzi Stelvio, not only too expensive to buy new (very rare and therefore difficult to find one second hand) but with abysmal depreciation if I wanted to sell it on later.

That left two candidates that looked good on paper – the Triumph Tiger 800XC and the Yamaha Super Ténéré 1200. Both had wire wheels, good suspension travel and ground clearance, enough power for two people plus luggage and were easily available on the second hand market. The problem with the Yamaha was that it was still out of my budget, and the few units that I could afford were over 50,000 km – not such a high mileage as the GS, but still more than I wanted, and I was also worried about weight. The bloody thing weighs just over 260kg wet!

So, Triumph Tiger it was. I went to the dealer where I had found my second hand V and asked if they had any for sale. It turns out they did – an ex demonstrator, practically new, in black, very good deal. I was almost convinced that I had found my future bike, but then I took it for a test ride.

What a disappointment. I really liked the bike, it looked great, had good suspension, very good brakes compared to my old one and the legendary triple engine was smooth as butter. What did not live to the legend was the low-end torque. Everybody said that this engine was the best of both worlds – low end grunt like a twin, exciting at high revs like an inline four. Well, it wasn’t. Despite having 27 more horsepower it only had 16 more nm torque, and I kept stalling it in start-stop traffic in Barcelona. Some people argue that you just have to adjust to the clutch and the power delivery, and to be fair, when I was back in the city after a ride in the hills I did not stall it so much, but it still required more work and attention to ride in traffic than my V, and I just did not see myself using that bike daily, let alone negotiating difficult terrain. My feeling was that Triumph had designed a very good trail bike and then completely ruined it by fitting it with a road bike engine.

Back to square one, then… I kept riding my beloved V and started considering just replacing it with another one when it got too old, until I was invited to a wedding.

I once read some statistics somewhere about how many people find their future partners at weddings, and seems to be true. During lunch we were sat at the table with a friend of mine who has a 660 Ténéré and is good friends with one of the mechanics at the dealer he bought it from. We were talking bikes and he mentioned that they had a Super Ténéré for sale there. Only two things had put me off that bike before – price and weight. Other than that, it was the perfect one – Japanese reliability, powerful, very torquey, shaft drive (no more chain maintenance) and relatively economical to run. He told me the bike had been bought and serviced there and they knew it had a good history, it only had 13,000 km and they were asking the same as for the ones I had seen with over 50,000 km, so I went to see it the following weekend.

It turned out that the previous owner was a dentist and had bought the bike on a whim and only used it to go between his two clinics and once a year for a holiday in Mallorca. It was in mint condition and had all the accessories that came with the First Edition – aluminium engine guard, headlight guard, hand guards, heated grips and three original Yamaha cases, which unlike the Tiger, it meant that I had to spend nothing getting it ready to travel. The guy had decide that it was too much bike for that task and put it up for sale. So far, so good. Only one thing to do – test it. I needed to see how the engine delivered its power, if it vibrated much and how it handled its considerable weight.

I took it for a ride in the Collserola hills and fell in love with it within minutes. This was it. My new bike.

I paid a deposit, and a few days later picked up the new baby. A week later I went for a 4-day ride in the Pyrenees that combined roads and tracks to see what she was capable off and I was very impressed, but that is a story I will tell on a later post, together with a full review.

So now, what about this blog’s name? It is based on the V-Strom name, after all… And what about the old bike? Well, the old bike is not retired yet… more to come soon.

Heidenau K60 Scout and Kazakh visa

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Kilian

Just a short post to tell you that the tires I ordered are here. It’s a set of Heidenau K60 Scouts, and I am now going to spend the weekend figuring out how to carry them on the bike all the way to Volgograd, where I will have them fit while the bike is being serviced in preparation for Kazakhstan.

I decided to take this ones because I have had good references from other riders, they seem to be a good compromise – not to radical on the road, grippy enough off road, and they seem to last much longer than other knobbly tires, important since I expect them to last all the way back to Europe.

I will also be taking a puncture repair kit and a compressor but I have my doubts about taking tire irons. I have never tried to replace a tubeless tire, and it seems to be very hard to do on the roadside, especially breaking the bead. Can anyone advise me on that?

I was hoping to carry them lying flat on the passenger seat and the back rack, but I also have to carry a rather big Ortlieb Rack Bag (I did not want to have too many little bags attached to the bike, they might easily get stolen in short stops to get supplies), so I am not very sure how to position them. I will experiment this weekend.

On a side note, this week I gave my sister (who lives in Madrid) the application forms and paperwork to get a Kazak visa. I do not have a hotel reservation or an invitation letter, but it seems that there is a simplified application process for Spanish citizens. Let’s see if we get lucky.

Spot Satellite GPS Messenger

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Kilian

This is one I have been having doubts over for a long time. To buy or not to buy. As with many other things involved in the preparation of a trip like this, there are scores of very well argued opinions for and against the SPOT tracker all over the Internet. Some say that it can save your life; some say if something really bad happens, it will not guarantee that help gets there on time and for anything less serious, there are other ways of getting help, so it is an unnecessary expense, not to mention one more item to carry and worry about.

After weighing pros and cons for my particular case, this was the conclusion I came to:

FOR:

– There might not be phone signal in most of Kazakhstan and Mongolia, so no way of getting help on the road.

– I can let people back at home know that I am OK and they can track my progress almost in real time on a map.

– My mum would be more than happy that I carry the thing.

AGAINST:

– I have been told that phone signal is surprisingly good around towns and anyway, I will not be far from populated areas for that long.

– Being rescued might incur in hidden expenses that can amount to a lot of money (but then again, it is much better than not being rescued at all…)

– It is expensive, at 159€ plus 99€ for one year’s subscription to the service (yes, you do have to subscribe).

I was not going to get one, but a week ago I thought I would check on eBay to see whether I could get a used one and I found a new one on the States for 90€ plus shipping, which was still considerably less than buying one here, so I decided to order it (and make my mum happy).

I went to pick it up from the post office this morning and when the guy behind the counter gave me the box, I though ‘well, it had to happen, a new one for so little money could not have been real… I’ve been conned’. And I had good reason to think so – the box I had been given was labelled ‘Phillips Headphone Set’. Panic.

I walked out onto the street and towards my bike thinking about how unlikely I was to get my money back and trying to convince myself that 90€ was not that bad. I put the box on the bike’s seat and ripped the tape sealing it to find… The real box containing my SPOT!

I went to work, very relieved and much happier! When I got home this evening I was eager to open it and see how it worked.

The box contains the unit itself (a lot smaller than I thought); a kind of pouch to carry it around your arm, velcro it to a surface (the patch is too small, though, – I think I would lose it quick if I stuck it like that on the bike) or just hang it on to your belt or trousers; two replacement covers for the emergency buttons; the instructions and three batteries (Energiser Ultimate Lithium, the instructions are adamant that only this particular brand and model should be used). It does not include a cradle to mount it on the bike, but I can probably get one cheap and adapt it to the RAM mount that came with my Garmin and that I’m not going to use (more about that in another post).

Now that I have almost everything I need for the bike I am planning to go on a test trip in a couple of weeks. I will get it activated this week and see how it works then.

Adventure MotoStuff engine guard

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Kilian

I received my engine guard today! I had checked out a lot of different models (see this list – in Spanish) but in the end the only one that I found convincing was the one manufactured in the USA by Adventure MotoStuff.

All the other options had some shortcomings – they were too narrow at the top and exposed part of the oil radiator; they requiered the oil radiator to be moved to a higher position; they had exposed screws at the bottom; they had access holes at the bottom (handy for servicing the bike, but leaves some parts more exposed); they were build of different parts screwed or welded together, some of them being too thin; etc.

The Adventure MotoStuff one is made of one thick, solid piece of metal, it covers the oil radiator, can be attached to the Hepco & Becker crash bars I already have and has a perfectly clean underside, withouth protruding bolts or screws. The mounting bracket also looks very sturdy.

It took about a week and a half to arrive, and my only complaint is that I had to pay import VAT, which had never happened before with anything else I had ordered online. I guess this time I was unlucky and the parcel was inspected at the border.

Customer service at Adventure MotoStuff was great, I emailed them some questions and they replied promptly with clear and useful answers.

Hepco & Becker crash bars

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Kilian

A huge parcel arrived yesterday morning! It was early and I still hadn’t got dressed so I opened the door in my dressing gown, unshaven, with great bed hair and a mug of coffee in my hand… Must have made a great impression on the delivery guy.

Anyways, after opening the box and removing a looooooot of air bags,I found my new crash bars! I have the original Suzuki ones (still for sale, by the way), but they are too low and while they protect the plastic fairings in the event of a silly fall on tarmac – they have done their job well a couple of times – I’m afraid they won’t be enough if I drop the bike on rough terrain, so I wanted something beefier and that offers protection higher up than these ones.

The Hepco & Becker crash bars look great, made from thick steel tubing and great attention to detail. They even have mounting points to install floodlights, nice detail. The only thing that worries me is that they fit both my bike and the later model (2011 onwards) and in the instructions pictures the bar that attaches one side to the other seems to be mounted lower on my model than on the new one – it seems to have slightly raised mounting points. In any case, neither of the bars pictured looks like the one that came with the set and the instructions make no difference between the two models, so it should be alright. I’ll report when I find a moment to install them.

Stroming The World

Adventure riding

Category Archives: Equipment