The day had arrived to take the R80ST and myself for some gravel training....yeah I know ...just get out there and do it... I'm a slow lurner so coaching works for me. Booked up a day at Riverhead forest with http://www.northerngraveladventureridersnz.com/ Arrived at 8:00 with all the other noobs on a wide variety of bikes from 250 Hondas thru to Triumph Tigers and the all conquering KTM Nine ninety summit. Started off riding around cones in a big gravel area and braking uphill and downhill, Then we went off and practiced that. Great fun and once I got the hang of the standing on the pegs and leaning the wrong way it was pretty good. The R80 got lots of attention mainly for being 30 years old... and the word Icon was thrown about a bit too....( case of mistaken identity with the GS) The smaller bikes up to the DR650s handled all the conditions with ease, the larger bikes seemed more of a handful, stopped to help pick up a KLR 650 and a BMW 800 parallel twin thingie....heavy beasties. The ST battery started to show signs of fading, I put that down to lots of stopping and starting.....then it became a hill start job. The run to the Golf Club ( really) for lunch charged it up enough to start ok. By 3:30 at the end of the course it was dead.... Unlike Top Gear they don't leave anyone behind.... Jim ( the Coach) said " we'll tow it the 15 kms to the start" Memories of 1990 and my sidecar outfit being tow started in the snow by a Trabant came flooding back......noooooooooooooooooooo. " It'll be ok" I was waiting for the " what can possibly go wrong" line He then produced a rope with loops at either end and put one in his fight peg and one on my left peg.....fine if you don't have sticky out engine bits. Ended up tied to the crash bars, and away we went. All I needed to do was maintain the tension.....I was pretty tense. We got back to the entry of the Forest and then I rang my bested bike mate in the whole world...Trustme He was local and had his trailer hitched Came and picked us up Fairly undignified end to the day but all good Summary: The airhead BMW may be very old but it sure held its own with the modern stuff. If I was going around the world KTM 990's, BMW 800 GS's and Tigers would not be my choice of bike. Give me clunky and simple any day. Fun day, but today my thighs hurt..... my office fitness program needs tuning. Big thanks to Sue, Jim and Mike(?) for a great well run day out. I'm sure I'll be back. Anyone thinking of getting into a bit of gravel, you don't need the latest and greatest.....makes you sad when standing there with broken bits of plastic.
Awesome stuff Valty looks like you had a fun day out, shame about the battery bud
He then produced a rope with loops at either end and put one in his fight peg and one on my left peg.....fine if you don't have sticky out engine bits. Ended up tied to the crash bars, and away we went. Why didn't you crash start it? Sounds like a great day out, my adventure bike used to be what ever I was riding at the time I think I'll be looking for a monolever G/S for my next bike
As always a great write up Volty. I'm used to trying ti squeeze the last out of a battery before facing the inevitable purchase. Although the CBR only needs a 14aH battery so I'm hoping they'll be cheaper than than the 32aH Beemer/Guzzi monsters.
They should never have stopped fitting kick starters to BMWs. I have had to use mine on several occasions over the past 35 years that I have owned it. Watched that movie about the Grand Budapest Hotel. The villain rode an R11 side valve 750 BMW which he kick started sitting on the bike. Doh! He also changed gear leaving his hands on the bars. Doh. This model was the previous series to my R17. Transverse kick starter and hand shift 4 on the floor. Brilliant movie though.
My battery went flat on a gravel road, and not a hill in sight....well, I was at the bottom of all the hills around. I was a bit worried about pushstarting a BMW on a gravel road with road tyres (K70's).....but it started up great, the back wheel didn't even skid. But that's a low compression little 650, a real BMW might be different. I hope they don't teach stand up riding on this course, sure some guys can go real fast like that....but never faster than sitting down. Dirt bikes aren't ideal for gravel - too much weight high up and on the rear wheel, good for rear wheel steering, but you need more weight on the front wheel. You need more trail for gravel too, the BMW has heaps more than a dirtbike. The ST is not much different from a normal airhead in weight distribution - good weight on the front, and it goes where you want it too, weight down low and it doesn't want to fall over with a bit of lean. It's really hard to pick up these top heavy bikes when they fall over - I couldn't pick up the XLV750 by myself, that was really embarrassing! So, already for the Easter adventure - what tyres are you using...a TKC80 up front, and some sort of Kenda on the rear?
