Travel Preparations - Technical

Some of the considerations and preparations which had to be undertaken in order to do this type of travelling.

Motorcycle:

Trick Parts:

Clutch: Touratech Lifetime Ceramic Clutch plate.

Starter: Nippodenso

Driveshaft: Demant Mods (replaced u-joints with stronger, greasable ones)

Electrics: 400w Alternator Kit, (Rotor, coil, diode board).

Shocks: Ohlins, 80kg spring for Cecilia, 105kg for me.

Front Fork Springs: White Power

Instrumentation: Touratech IMO 100-R300 Computer

GPS Brackets: Touratech both for the 276C and the 60CS

Exhaust retaining rings, specially fabricated parts.

Preparations:

In preparation for this trip, a total of 5 weeks work on both bikes were done, this along with a lot of money for parts got the bikes ready for the trip. Below you will find a short overview of the type and amount of work done. I was very lucky to be allowed to do the work at my dealers (

- Replaced all bearings in both transmissions. The transmission were in good shape, with the exception of my 5th gear which showed some pitting, and I was therefore forced to come up with a solution. In this case I swapped gear shafts with a friend of a friends gearbox (of unknown origin, but supposed to be an RT80), which had gears in better shape. The gear shafts were swapped put together. Two weeks laters, the first time I got on the road the first thing that I noticed was that it was a lot harder to get the bike moving, requiring a lot more clutch. The upside, it had a longer 5th gear meaning that at highway speeds, the bike was pulling less rpms.

To make a long story just a little bit shorter, I ended up swapping the whole gearbox with an original and now everything was ok again.

- New piston rings and retaining bolt, as well as head and cylinder gasket.

- Steering head bearings, wheel bearings (front).

- New brake disks (front, rear is a drum!), and pads all around.

- Frame Modification - Welding the seat bracket to the rear support, for more strenght here.

Camping

Tent Stakes: Replaced original ones with my favorite, 9 inch nails with oversize heads, found in some very strange places, amongst others some Spanish camping stores, hardware stores, etc.

Poles: Replaced original ones with DAC 9mm poles.