Thumper Club Forum
Club House => Events/Meetings/Rideouts => Topic started by: guest7 on January 20, 2009, 12:34:31 AM
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I'm mostly packed, my new sidecar outfit is built and I have a small stash of beer money tucked into my jacket pocket.
Tomorrow lunchtime my brother and I leave for an overnighter in Dover, prior to a 6.55am departure (with simon Morgan) for Calais. Then it's off to Austria for the Tauerntreffen (http://motorang.com/tauerntreffen/index_english.htm (http://motorang.com/tauerntreffen/index_english.htm)).
Our snow chains have to be seen to be believed :o
Wish us luck
GC
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Good Luck and have fun you lucky whatsits ;D
Andy
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Have a good safe trip . Let's not forget Jethro and Jules will be travelling through the night and docking at about 4am tomorrow . Madness !! .
Rob .
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Have a good safe trip . Let's not forget Jethro and Jules will be travelling through the night and docking at about 4am tomorrow . Madness !! .
Rob .
Thanks Rob !!!!
Still got a Fat Head from last night/this morning :-\ :-\
Never mind a Brisk ride will do the trick.
Jethro
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Tallyho chaps and all the best and come home safe.
Steffan
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Well your all quite mad IMHO :o Enjoy yourselves and don't bother to come back until you have a bag full of intresting and amusing tales to delight us all with. ;D
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Thanks Rob !!!!
Still got a Fat Head from last night/this morning :-\ :-\
[/quote]
I can vouch for this . He was in bits this morning . :D
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Enjoy yourselves you jammy gits !
Richard
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Good luck boys, wrap up warm and ride safely.
Bill
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Good luck boys, wrap up warm and ride safely.
Bill
In Wurzburg now, had a torrid time of it, but all well and warm after a restorative chinese meal. The last few miles were done in the dark in freezing fog.
Lots of silly incidents, will report back upon return.
Toodlepip
GC, Simon, Gareth and Liz
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Take it steady guys, hope you get on ok.
Post lots of pics when you get back. ;D
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Gotta say I initially (from my limited knowledge of German geography) thought you'd strayed a bit off course for the rally going via Wurzburg but I see how your doing it now. I should imagine the scenery is gorgeous in a Christmas card sort of way, but I suppose your concentrating far to much on staying upright for all that "tourist" nonsense. You're doing well folks, I hope your enjoying it. Where's the Stalwart & Jules by the way?
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"Lots of silly incidents, will report back upon return.
Toodlepip
GC, Simon, Gareth and Liz"
Is this code for "at this point I am driving a hire car"???
We all await news..
steffan
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Yeah good luck Lads and Lasses, stay safe and have a good one! 8)
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Well we got up the hill one way or another and I have to say that it is indeed a fantastic rally, off to bed now (back in Wurzburg) will report back later
Met up with Jethro and Julian there and they will have their own tales of woe to relate...
GC
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Well we got up the hill one way or another ...........
Graham was towed up by Fritz on a yellow Beemer.
(http://idata.over-blog.com/2/06/10/63/Abschlepp.jpg)
Gareth was towed up by me (Blue Beemer). Therefor no pics, just this one:
(http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff325/Richard-NL/TT%202009/DSC04165.jpg)
Julian had to change his rear wheel bearings three times. (some welding included).
(http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff325/Richard-NL/TT%202009/DSC04100.jpg)
But both Julian and Jethro rode up the hill without any problems.
(http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff325/Richard-NL/TT%202009/DSC04266.jpg)
Simon was OK. Jethro’s gearbox held up to Aschaffenburg.
Pic of my bike:
(http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff325/Richard-NL/TT%202009/DSC04130.jpg)
Richard-NL :)
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Great Pics
Now I am confused though. Fritz and yourself have chains, while Julian seems to be on car tyres without and yet GC needed a tow? Is it skill or technology that gets you up the hill?
Andy
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Julian had a snow tyre.
Richard has two wheel drive with snow chains on car tyres.
Jethro had a knobbly with chains lashed to it.
Simon used chains lashed around his wheel (trail tyre) with luggage strapping, he did a really good job getting to the top (and back down) on his solo without any drama.
Gareth and I had a bit of project fever by the time we came to sort out our chains and he made two sets using ideas gleaned from various websites. Mine lasted well at the beginning of the climb, but then I lost a tensioning bolt. After that it was a combination of short stints between stopping for repairs and the maddest tow of all time. During the course of this short tow a chain section came loose and acted as a flail... hence the shattered number plate in Richard's picture of me being towed. I managed a few more stints on my chains until they finally gave up the ghost and the fella you see in the picture towed me the last 1/2k to the site.
The pictures give no indication of the steepness of the climb and Gareth and Simon did very well indeed to get as far as they did (Simon made it, Gareth got very close).
Hats off to Julian and Jethro though, they just rode up.
Our two mistakes were:
Not fitting heavily-treaded tyres
Not listening to the organiser's advice on how hard it was to make your own chains.
Having said all that, we had a great time despite our troubles and (thankfully for our egos) we certainly weren't the only ones being towed up.
Skill or technology? I'd have to say that it's down to your kit. I know how capable my brother is off-road and it was the chains that let him down, not any lack of riding skill. Having said that, I ended up (due to a moronic mistake on my part) having a fast ride up the hill on the back of Richard's outift and he displayed a massive amount of skill.
As for the descent, it wasn't as scary as we had convinced ourselves that it was going to be. Smooth road tyres offered minimal grip for steering and stopping, but with a combination of pulsing the brakes and using the snow bank as a brake we made it down just fine. In fact we should have come down a lot faster, but Gareth had fitted chains to the front wheel and these played up so he wasn't prepared to let the bike run as fast as he could have.
All in all it was an adventure.
Jethro flew home today from Frankfurt so he can now add the experience of his first plane flight to the trip.
GC
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Just thought I'd add...
We were incredibly lucky with the weather, we had little rain (mostly in bloody Belgium) and it didn't snow until we got to the site.
Yesterday Gareth, Liz and I rode 700 miles from Wurzburg to home (Simon did 600 miles back to Reading). Apart from a cold start we had a great day, we even rode into Calais in a superb sunset.
I didn't use heated grips this trip and it was fine (the doctor says I'll only lose two fingers ;))
Cheers
GC
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Hi Folks,
I was really impressed about you tough island-guys, that you survived the odness of 2x1600km...
I had only 330km one way to ride to the Tauerntreffen. Total km were 1000 in three days, I wouldn't have liked to ride much more...
Hope to see you next year again!
Cheers,
from the guy who had to weld his MZ-frame (http://www.nefo.med.uni-muenchen.de/~hiha/bilder/tt09/dsc02411_1.jpg) while you were filing wheel bearing distances :-)
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=5-z3CPrprC8
Hans
P.S.: The welding still lasts !
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Two more pics:
(http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff325/Richard-NL/TT%202009/DSC04245.jpg)
(http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff325/Richard-NL/TT%202009/DSC04250.jpg)
Richard-NL
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You just made my day. Guess who's got a nice (not so new) new Triumph wheel ready to go on his boot lid with luggage strap/snow chains ;D
Had me thinking I was barking up the wrong tree. Seems we are just barking (as usual).
Andy
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Hi Folks,
I was really impressed about you tough island-guys, that you survived the odness of 2x1600km...
I had only 330km one way to ride to the Tauerntreffen. Total km were 1000 in three days, I wouldn't have liked to ride much more...
Hope to see you next year again!
Cheers,
from the guy who had to weld his MZ-frame (http://www.nefo.med.uni-muenchen.de/~hiha/bilder/tt09/dsc02411_1.jpg) while you were filing wheel bearing distances :-)
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=5-z3CPrprC8
Hans
P.S.: The welding still lasts !
Hans,
So that was your name.. ;D
Great to meet you and hope your welding lasts !
We met So many good people I cant remember all their names.
I hope we will meet again,maybe at the next TT.
Jethro
The BMW rider with broken Gear Box.
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Hey Jethro,
do you want to borrow the bullet until you get the BMer back - quality Indian engineering - none of this soft west german stuff.
Steffan
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Hey Jethro,
do you want to borrow the bullet until you get the BMer back - quality Indian engineering - none of this soft west german stuff.
Steffan
What ! ::)The one I built and you cant start ????? :P :P
Jethro ;D ;D
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Yes, the one you built and the one I start all the time :P - although time or takes time is very apt. ::) The AMAL is calling me and I know its a mistake ??? ???
So do you or don't you??
Steffan
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You just made my day. Guess who's got a nice (not so new) new Triumph wheel ready to go on his boot lid with luggage strap/snow chains ;D
Had me thinking I was barking up the wrong tree. Seems we are just barking (as usual).
Andy
I've just uploaded my pics of TT09 to http://www.simonmorgan.org/biking/tauerntreffen/2009/index.html (http://www.simonmorgan.org/biking/tauerntreffen/2009/index.html)
My homemade chains are at top right of the second page. They're the mark 2 version, having found from last year that cable ties just aren't strong enough.
Simon
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It looks so sunny it's hard to remember that it was bastard freezing ::)
GC
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Hey Jethro,
do you want to borrow the bullet until you get the BMer back - quality Indian engineering - none of this soft west german stuff.
Steffan
Many Thanks for the offer ! But No Thanks as I still have the GS500.
It may be tired old and tatty but it does seem to be pretty reliable.
Well it was till I mentioned it !
The Beemer will be delivered Monday 9th of Feb.I believe.
Jethro
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It looks so sunny it's hard to remember that it was bastard freezing ::)
GC
That appeases me a bit. Before I thought, you take a bath in the lake every morning, after having hoed up the ice :-)
Gruss
Hans
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That appeases me a bit. Before I thought, you take a bath in the lake every morning, after having hoed up the ice :-)
Hans ! Dont You ?
We were wondering why nobody was running around in shorts and T-shirts.
Jethro
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;D