Wednesday Afternoon Blast

[Jeffrey SmithMember]

With daylight saving coming to an end soon I thought I would take advantage of the good weather and of course, daylight and so jumped on the Transalp this arvo and went for a blast up past Clarence Town out through the back roads and firetrails towards Stroud/ Dungog. Found some nice trails tp play on and a few more I will have to explore one day. All up about 145Km’s for about 2.5 hours of riding. There were a few dodgy old bridges to cross and my first semi deep creek crossing on the TA.

I think I need different gearing for the off road adventures as it is very hard to loft the front wheel in anything other than 1st gear when you need to which almost resulted in my having an off at one stage. I was heading down a hill into the sun and realised there was a deep puddle covering the track at the last moment, tried to pop the front whell over it but wasn’t even close. The front dropped in and the water knocked one foot off the peg (even though I was standing), managed to save it though (a lesser man may not have :laugh: :huh: :blush: ).
On the way back I detoured through what used to be called Uffington State forest where I took her through a creek I have been through a few times before on the DRZ, I was only going through it slowly and the water was up to my ankle while I was standing on the pegs.
I also had an incident where I had the tank bag on and it was getting in the way when I was standing up so I put it on the back rack. I was shooting up this hill with a few sharp erosion mounds, one of which caused the back end to buck (a bit like KTM’s ) and the bag came off at the front of the rack. The back was still attached which made it swing over the back and the tyre grabbed it and tried to feed it up under the guard, well not try, it did feed it under the guard, Some damage done there.
Any way here are a few pic’s and the route I took

The deepish crossing

[Jeffrey SmithMember]

I will try and fix the picture tomorrow, can’t be bothered now as it takes too long on this computer.

[GregMember]

Would you mind if I fixed them for you Jeffro?

Great report with funny bits that made me laugh even though I was jealous it was you not me :laugh:

Pictures looked great to great route, the transalp looks great as well, really good may have an extra good look when I get the chance.

TB

[Jeffrey SmithMember]

Feel free to fix anything I screw up mate, unless it’s one of my bones, then I will wait for the profesionals

[GregMember]

Broken bones are a specialty mate trust me

Will fix them for you, the report and the pictures are to good to not be displayed

TB

[MalMember]

Great report Jeffro. Sounds like your getting good use of the TA. Pity I can’t see piccys at work.

Did you get different tyres?

[Jeffrey SmithMember]

Yesterday when I was out riding the front brake was really spongey, so much that I couldn’t brake with 2 fingers because the leaver would hit the other fingers still on the throttle before the brake started working, yet this morning on the way to work it felt firm again. Any thoughts on what’s going on there? I was thinking maybe the brake line has gone soft or something and the colder weather this morning meant it wasn’t stretching as much, or do I just need to bleed it?

p.s. I re-added the route map to the original post.

[Jeffrey SmithMember]

mal5.1 wrote:

Quote:

Great report Jeffro. Sounds like your getting good use of the TA. Pity I can’t see piccys at work.

Did you get different tyres?

Yeh, kinda getting used to it, problem is I want to ride it like the DR and hit all the erosion mounds to get a bit of air but I don’t know that it would be a good idea. You really feel the extra weight on the rougher stuff and there’s alot more weight to try and catch if I get out of shape but really enjoying it. I put one of the Pirelli Scorpions I got off Sutto’s on the front, the knobs are a bit too flexy on the road with all that weight but I am getting used to that too, the back is only 17″ so I couldn’t use the rear I had. I got a Dunlop D606 or 605, can’t remember which, whichever is the harder compound of the 2, it has good size knobs rather than smaller ones. I thought that would be better for the heavier load.

[Mick DMember]

Yeah Jeffro, sounds like it needs the brake fluid replacing to me.

[Jason GreenMember]

Hey Jeffro your the reason why I bought the nx after reading one of your posts last year it got me thinking I need an adventure/touring bike Whats the transalp like it looks bloody heavy but I bet its all well balanced right?Is it a vtwin 750 or are they bigger? Anyway good to see you made it home unscathed As for the brakes I have to have a look at my rear brake because it does not feel the same as my xr but my xr has steelbraided lines so that might be something to look into.

[Jeffrey SmithMember]

G’day XRT, Yeah it’s not bad for balance, like I said, it’s only in the really rough stuff or the bigger washouts and unavoidable holes that you notice it that much. Mine is a 600 but they make 650 and 750’s as well. I was originally looking at a Tenere (not a new one) or an NX but everyone seemed to have an NX and I was too impatient to wait for a Tenere. This came up and I sort of bought on a wim which is how I got back into bikes in the first place.

[drewMember]

that’s one funny looking Tenere :blink: :huh: you have there Jeffro

Jeffro wrote

Quote:

g’day Drew,

Mine is a 1997 model it’s an XT600Z that I bought just before Christmas

or did you mean to type XL600V but were thinking XT600Z :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :silly: :kiss:

[Jeffrey SmithMember]

Probably just wishful thinking, thanks for pointing that out mate

[Author]

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