Tuesday 21 March 2017

10 days to go!

The Tour of Portugal is approaching first and preparations are as good as done!

A 90 mile trip round the Peak District last Monday was an excellent shake down, everything (well almost everything see below) worked well and I felt fit and coped with nearly 7 hours on the bike without difficulty. Although i will confess the new seat is a lot less comfy than the old one!





The only downside was the battery being flat but as the bike was kick starting easily, not a big issue. I eventually tracked the problem to the relay on the headlight being faulty and not switching off. So I was riding, sometimes at slow speed with the 55 watt halogen lamp on constantly. So little wonder the battery flattened itself. After unplugging the relay the battery started to charge up again and was starting on the button by the end of the day so that's sorted!

On my return I first stripped the bike down (again!) for a good clean.



The next evening I fitted new tyres (Maxxis Maxcross IT) and re-lubed the mousses.

Stripped off the faulty relay and replaced the halogen lamp (fitted for the MOT as it has a proper dip pattern) with the old LED lamp. I taped over the top half of the lens on the inside to make it into a dip beam so hopefully wont blind every Portuguese driver I meet on the Rally J

I then got it ready for transport, draining down to virtually no fuel, disconnecting the battery and cable tieing the footpegs out of the way.

Then last job, fit my impossibly small new number plate (race use only of course) but I did pack my full size flexi plate in my spares box just in case.

The spares box and kit bag got packed on Saturday night then the van was loaded up and Sunday morning we were off on the long trip down to East Sussex to deposit the bike, box and bag at Desert Rose Racing ready to be transported off to Portugal next week.



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