Ride Report: BikeHedonia rides the world (one way or another)

[XTreme]

1 hour ago, Sir Fallsalot said:

i spent yesterday blowing a large dent out of my exhaust and welding on a new mounting bracket on a bike that's 5 months old 

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

12 hours ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

Exciting times!! Omg.

Tomorrow morning I'm getting my hands on my GUIDE BIKE. Woop!

You may recall my ambitions to transition from broke, unemployed vagrancy to slightly-less-broke, occassionally-employed vagrancy, by working with a company offering fabulous tours here in northern Thailand during the high season. Well, this is the bike I need to make that happen!  For mixed and ordinary off-road tours, I have a KLX230 on its way from Bangkok right now... It will handle both off road and low-to-medium speed on-road, and will be perfect when my customers are riding KLXs and CRFs. For pure road tours I have the CBR, and for hard enduro I will (hopefully) have access to the Gas Gas EC300. 

I cannot wait to get my hands on this beautiful creature. It's brand new too - because basically all the second-hand KLXs up this end of the country have been absolutely rooted already. They're almost uniformly a bad investment second hand, because these mountains take no prisoners. So - a new bike - you can imagine how bad I'm going to feel the first time we fall down a mountain together. 

Here's a picture the transport guy sent to me:

 

Very nice, look how shiny and new it all is

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

14 hours ago, Sir Fallsalot said:

 

That first scratch is easy to get but hard to accept, i spent yesterday blowing a large dent out of my exhaust and welding on a new mounting bracket on a bike that's 5 months old 

You're clearly doing things right

Nothing sadder than pristine dirt bike, really. ...at least that's what I'll tell myself when I bin it for the first time 

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

On 07/02/2022 at 00:28, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Very nice, look how shiny and new it all is

I've never had a new bike before. I've ridden other people's bikes which were brand spanking new but never one of my own. It never made sense before - you lose so much value as soon as it rolls off the showroom floor - but the problem with buying KLXs second hand around here is that they've all been absolutely thrashed. Hm, I have said this before? I may be losing my marbles but who cares, I have a new bike

[Sir Fallsalot]

10 hours ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

I've never had a new bike before. I've ridden other people's bikes which were brand spanking new but never one of my own. It never made sense before - you lose so much value as soon as it rolls off the showroom floor - but the problem with buying KLXs second hand around here is that they've all been absolutely thrashed. Hm, I have said this before? I may be losing my marbles but who cares, I have a new bike

Same here i just couldn't buy a modern second hand enduro bike without knowing the history of it now. I've bumped into loads of people on the trails with disconnected speedos and all the bike taped up so they can sell it on with low hours in a few years time and I've lost count of how many new bikes I've seen drown in rivers.

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

17 hours ago, Sir Fallsalot said:

Same here i just couldn't buy a modern second hand enduro bike without knowing the history of it now. I've bumped into loads of people on the trails with disconnected speedos and all the bike taped up so they can sell it on with low hours in a few years time and I've lost count of how many new bikes I've seen drown in rivers.

Right! And even worse than seeing the bikes drown in rivers is what you see people do to them afterwards...i.e. try to ride them without even changing milky oil. WTF... I will never understand

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

Righto, I have stripped a lot of weight off the little bike and yesterday was her first run out. I could nitpick a lot of things like, suspension is not great and could do with some more power, but that would be the pointless moanings of someone who's been spoiled rotten with gas gas and ktm and technix suspension in the past. Overall it's a great little bike for the money and certainly something I can happily wrestle through some fairly gnarly stuff. Loving the bar position in particular - no risers, just replaced original bars with a renthal fat bar - and it's so much less taxing on the upper body than all the other dirtbikes I've ridden. Suspect this is what happens when you finally get to riding a bike designed for people of your own dimensions? Anyway I could go on and on but suffice to say that the bike is now dirty and I'm loving getting to know it. We're going to have a long and productive relationship.

[XTreme]

7 hours ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

Righto, I have stripped a lot of weight off the little bike and yesterday was her first run out. I could nitpick a lot of things like, suspension is not great and could do with some more power, but that would be the pointless moanings of someone who's been spoiled rotten with gas gas and ktm and technix suspension in the past. Overall it's a great little bike for the money and certainly something I can happily wrestle through some fairly gnarly stuff. Loving the bar position in particular - no risers, just replaced original bars with a renthal fat bar - and it's so much less taxing on the upper body than all the other dirtbikes I've ridden. Suspect this is what happens when you finally get to riding a bike designed for people of your own dimensions? Anyway I could go on and on but suffice to say that the bike is now dirty and I'm loving getting to know it. We're going to have a long and productive relationship.

Looks good Grace!

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

8 hours ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

Righto, I have stripped a lot of weight off the little bike and yesterday was her first run out. I could nitpick a lot of things like, suspension is not great and could do with some more power, but that would be the pointless moanings of someone who's been spoiled rotten with gas gas and ktm and technix suspension in the past. Overall it's a great little bike for the money and certainly something I can happily wrestle through some fairly gnarly stuff. Loving the bar position in particular - no risers, just replaced original bars with a renthal fat bar - and it's so much less taxing on the upper body than all the other dirtbikes I've ridden. Suspect this is what happens when you finally get to riding a bike designed for people of your own dimensions? Anyway I could go on and on but suffice to say that the bike is now dirty and I'm loving getting to know it. We're going to have a long and productive relationship.

Once it realises how many miles its going to do and all the things it'll see that'll be one happy bike.

[Catteeclan]

Enjoy.

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

If you're bored and cold in the depths of winter, you can watch me talk about KLXs

 

And how that all translated on the trails (high idle ftw)

 

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

Nice work. Do you need to have stuff like a horn on the bike for an MOT type thing or do they not have vehicle safety inspections there?

[XTreme]

15 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Do you need to have stuff like a horn

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

3 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Damn that one slipped through the net

[Sir Fallsalot]

1 hour ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

If you're bored and cold in the depths of winter, you can watch me talk about KLXs

 

And how that all translated on the trails (high idle ftw)

 

I'm running Michelin Enduro Medium for the first time on the rear of my XTrainer bloody good all round tyre just bought a new front ready for when the stock tyre wears out 

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

9 minutes ago, Sir Fallsalot said:

I'm running Michelin Enduro Medium for the first time on the rear of my XTrainer bloody good all round tyre just bought a new front ready for when the stock tyre wears out 

Good idea buying the spare, they had a hiccup in the supply chain at the end of last year when everyone in their factory caught covid. Everyone out of stock for a couple of months around here.

It seems to be the tyre of choice amoung the hard enduro guys in this part of the world

[Catteeclan]

The beeming smile at the beginning of the second vid shows you're enjoying it.

[Sir Fallsalot]

6 hours ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

Good idea buying the spare, they had a hiccup in the supply chain at the end of last year when everyone in their factory caught covid. Everyone out of stock for a couple of months around here.

It seems to be the tyre of choice amoung the hard enduro guys in this part of the world

Do you run tubes or mousses in your tyres there 

 

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

5 hours ago, Sir Fallsalot said:

Do you run tubes or mousses in your tyres there 

 

The serious enduro guys all run tubliss conversions, so they go about 2-4 psi for hard enduro. For budget reasons, I still run tubes; heavy, I know, and I can only go down to about 8psi. Mousses are not popular here - a few guys tried them but they are a bit harder than 2-4 psi, not preferred for hard enduro; a few people also complained that they didn't last well. I haven't had personal experience with the mousses though.

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

6 hours ago, Catteeclan said:

The beeming smile at the beginning of the second vid shows you're enjoying it.

Loving it! Such a blast to get out on the trails (every time, it never gets old) and a strange feeling not to be totally shattered after as well!

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

13 hours ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Nice work. Do you need to have stuff like a horn on the bike for an MOT type thing or do they not have vehicle safety inspections there?

They do annual inspections on bikes that are more than 5 years old. So I've got 5 years before I have to start bolting this stuff back on for the annual inspections! Yeah, they require things like horn, indicators, correct sized number plate; most annoying though, is that the colour of the bike has to match the original registered colour, so if you've stickered it or painted it, that's always a headache. 

Anyway, that's a headache for 5 years down the track

[Sir Fallsalot]

14 hours ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

The serious enduro guys all run tubliss conversions, so they go about 2-4 psi for hard enduro. For budget reasons, I still run tubes; heavy, I know, and I can only go down to about 8psi. Mousses are not popular here - a few guys tried them but they are a bit harder than 2-4 psi, not preferred for hard enduro; a few people also complained that they didn't last well. I haven't had personal experience with the mousses though.

With the trail riding i do on the 650 and xr400 i run tubes because there's always a lot of road work and i like to keep up a good speed on the road and always carry spares and tools to change them. with the XTrainer i use mousses because you just cant puncture them i run a 120 Mousse in a 140 tyre so when the mousse is new its the equivalent of about 10 psi now it has 1500 miles on it it's more like 6psi  when it starts getting really soft i'll stick it in a 120 tyre
I was thinking of tubliss but I was out a few months ago with a lad using tubliss system and he had a rip in the sidewall of the tyre, he had a tubeless repair kit but it was no good to fix this. A fix would have meant putting a tube in so that means carrying tools and tubes again so i decided to stick with mousses 

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

13 hours ago, Sir Fallsalot said:

With the trail riding i do on the 650 and xr400 i run tubes because there's always a lot of road work and i like to keep up a good speed on the road and always carry spares and tools to change them. with the XTrainer i use mousses because you just cant puncture them i run a 120 Mousse in a 140 tyre so when the mousse is new its the equivalent of about 10 psi now it has 1500 miles on it it's more like 6psi  when it starts getting really soft i'll stick it in a 120 tyre
I was thinking of tubliss but I was out a few months ago with a lad using tubliss system and he had a rip in the sidewall of the tyre, he had a tubeless repair kit but it was no good to fix this. A fix would have meant putting a tube in so that means carrying tools and tubes again so i decided to stick with mousses 

I still run tubes on my 690 (my round the world, get-stuck-in-random-places-alone bike) because of the repair issue you just mentioned, i.e. what do you when there's a serious tear to the carcass of the tyre. 

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

So I was like, "let's check out this new remote route through the wilderness!" and THREE DAYS LATER we made it home. Turns out that it was most likely a drug smuggling track not a normal trail... lol.
 

 

[XTreme]

Wow! That was some harsh terrain there Grace!