General waffle | Moto-Abruzzo

30/12/2011

Time for a change – 2012

It’s that time for reflection as one year fades into another, time to take stock of Moto-Abruzzo and in what direction I want to push it in 2012. Well to start with, I guess I have to think back to exactly what got me motivated enough to start the blog in the first place. It was (and still is) my Caponord Rally-Raid of course. I had this idea to write-up my own experiences, nothing anecdotal from others, only what I knew and experienced first hand. To that end it’s been quite successful – but limited, if nothing needs tinkering with, or breaks … what do I write? And that’s the Achilles heel of the blog.

So for 2012 I need to expand, to keep the blog fresh, to introduce a little pace …. but I don’t want to lose the essence of what I started. After plenty of dog walking and time to reflect, these are the meager ideas that popped into a tired mind.

Abruzzo: More content, but from the perspective of a bikers eye. Abruzzo websites/blogs abound with more general info than I could, or want to accumulate …. but none are from a bikers viewpoint as far as I can see.

Caponord: I’ll stop taking the mundane jobs for granted, everything is questionable to someone. So I’ll cover the basics with text/photos/video/3D to add more depth to the Capo content. Simply put … more detail.

Blog layout: Devote a little more time and effort to increasing the blog look and speed for mobile/smartphone use. The technical content may be useful when you’re stranded by the side of the road! Mobile content is where it’s all heading I guess.

Mystery project: Yep, the one and only. The dusty canvas draped over the mysterious artifact that gently pulses and hums hypnotically in the shadowy corner of the barn may well be pulled back to reveal ………… all in good time!

So I hope dear reader, you’ll still pop by now and again and see what’s new, maybe drop me a line – good or bad. Constructive feedback can only help move the blog and it’s content forward. Layout or display issues would be very useful …. I’m no internet wiz-kid. I’ve an ageing laptop running Vista and access to a couple of old clunkers with Windows XP. Combined they let me see the site in Firefox, Explorer and Opera but I’ve no idea what it looks like on Windows 7 or any other browser. Time to upgrade? Yeah, you may well be right…….

$The Capo on \'Cold Road\'$

A warm, windy and atmospheric December day, that was ideal for a nice ride out and few moody pics dropped to black and white. Picture 2, looking over the saddle …. I can see my house from here!

13/12/201116/12/2011

The good, the sad and the rather wintery!

A week of highs, lows and extremes I guess. You may remember the post ‘Strada Brutale!’ – the tale of our woes trying to get our road resurfaced. Well after a three month rest, the Comune has got the ball rolling again, or more correctly, the man in a digger. A subsurface layer and a nice white topping of Breccia ( white stone) make our road positively glisten in the sunshine ….. the calming crunch of gravel under tyres replaces the squelch and dribble of liquid mud, how delightful. Note to self: Stone = fit Capo radiator guard!!

Have a look at the nifty before/after picture below … click on the vertical bar and then swipe it left or right to see the two-photograph overlay. If you only see the text … hit ‘refresh’, the pics should magically appear!

[beforeafter][/beforeafter]

Pictures taken in July and December 2011

Then the low …. I recently posted about the virtues of Altberg boots and their refurbishment service. Well as of the 7^th December 2011, the service has stopped. I got an email on the 10^th … now I’ve got a pair of boots sat in a box fit for nothing but door-stops. I do think a heads-up in advance would have been nice, I could have got them in the system before it closed down. Sad to say, minus-one for customer service on this one Altberg. UPDATE 14/12/11: Just had a reply to my email to Alberg. An in-depth explanation regarding the withdrawal of the service…. in a nutshell, a service run at a loss and sadly abused by a minority with unrealistic expectations about what a refurbished boot should be. A very sad choice to make, but understandable in the circumstances. Bullying isn’t only rife in the playground it seems – and the new weapon of choice is vilification by social media when their unreasonable demands are challenged. I think the email I’ve just received is the one that should have been sent initially …. a clear concise explanation that as disappointing as it is, I understand. I for one will still be 100% behind Altberg when it comes to the next pair of boots!

Extremes? Well it’s been bloody windy! Yesterday was a taste of weather to come I fear, while today is blissfully sunny and calm. Next week looks like we’re set for a liberal coating of the ex-UK weather currently rumbling across Europe – snow, high wind and plummeting temperatures! What fun. So woolly hats and snow shoes all round … and a nice warm blanket for the Capo!

Well I guess that’s almost the end of 2011, I trust it was a good year, taking your Caponord to some seriously far away places. Winter is traditionally the tinkering-time, so have fun on the spanners and I hope Santa brings you just the right shiny/twiddly bit you need to set your Capo up for 2012.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

01/08/201101/08/2011

RecReg takes poll position

Ok folks, with over 80 votes on the poll – ‘What part(s) have you had fail on your Caponord’ – I’ve decided to close it and publish a new one. So firstly a big thank you to each and everyone of you that took the time to participate, I really appreciate it. Click on the image to get a better view of the list.

Well the data certainly mirrors the perception I get from hanging around the AF1 forum … no big surprise then what the top 5 causes of vanishing bank balances and roadside tears are;

•RecReg • Coils&leads • fuel connects • wheel bearings • instrument panel •

I was surprised that the clutch slave cylinder seal and starter solenoid didn’t appear to score very high … maybe they are not so prone to fail as I’d thought. Mind you, I still carry spares in the tool kit just in case! Other items listed include a couple of the ‘Y’ coolant hose, a couple of rear shock failures – including the nitrogen unit on the RR shock (gulp!) and a head gasket! In fact that’s the only engine failure listed …. that Rotax engine is most definitely bullet-proof , especially in the de-tuned Capo version.

So all in all, we can quite rightly blame the Italian electrics for most of our woes, or can we? The RecReg is made in Japan, the coils in France, the brown connectors in ……. well do I need to go on? Ok, the Italians connected them all together with a less than perfect wiring loom, but hey, it’s what gives the Capo character right?

So on to the next poll ….. are you a weekend-wonder or a four seasons mile-muncher, does your Capo spend more time on the center stand than wearing out its tyres? Go on, let us know what mileage your Capo has racked up over the years!

29/07/201129/07/2011

The Nautilus pays for itself!

Years ago I was reversed into …… a HGV stopped on a main A road, we and the traffic behind us stopped as well. Then he reversed. Instinct 1 – horn, instinct 2 – bale out, or be crushed. As accidents go, being reversed into is quite a slow affair, time enough then to process the outcome, time enough to let the dread take hold. My step father and I were lucky, trapped by the car behind with nowhere to go, a quick thinking German jumped the line of traffic and drove alongside the tractor unit with his horn blaring.

Role on to yesterday ……. heading back home on the heavily laden Capo. I take a right turn onto a decent section of road I know well. Ahead is a HGV. He’s moving at a reasonable speed and I’m in no hurry, so I settle on the crown of the road about 100m behind. In about 2Km I’m turning left (pic. above), about 75% of traffic turns there …. So it’s quite conceivable this chap will as well. In my mind I’m setting up for the overtake once we’ve settled down after the turn.

We approach the junction doing about 70Kmh and his left indicator starts flashing. A second later I indicate as well. He starts braking and I back off the gas. I’m thinking he’ll shave off 20-30Kmh to make the turn. As you can see from the picture above, it’s a wide open junction with good visibility.

Then things rapidly unravel.

I’m still at the crown of the road, so I can see his mirror clearly …. And the fact that he’s scrubbing off way more speed than I’d anticipated – he’s stopping! I’m now about 30m behind.

He stops …. I stop about 15m behind, in clear view of his mirror. He’s still indicating left.

Then it happens. The engine revs, the reversing lights go on and with a lurch he’s accelerating backwards towards me.

It takes 0.7 seconds to process and react so they say.

14m, 12m, 10m ……..my thumb hits the horn button …… and the Stebel Nautilus sings out. It echoes off the back of the truck and floods through my earplugs, it gets the job done. Sleeping Beauty is awoken from his afternoon siesta by the 139db kiss on his delicate eardrums.

And just like that, the situation is defused, my pulse falls as I ride away and I realise my tongue is well and truly stuck to the top of my desert-dry mouth. The weak knees and tremors take a bit longer to fade away.

Why this muppet did what he did I have no idea, the nearest entrance behind us was about 400m and anyway, the junction is so spacious and quiet he could have turned around easily. I guess I’ll never know what thought was crossing that barren wasteland called his brain.

The question is, would the situation have had the same outcome if I hadn’t recently fitted the Nautilus …..

03/10/201028/11/2010

A little then and now.

I was having a little rummage the other day and came across five copies of ‘The Motor Cycle’ from 1938. Although not in good condition, they are certainly readable and all the drawings/photographs are bright and clear …. so I took a jolly well earned breather and read them in depth.

The last is dated 20^th October and to put things in perspective, my grandfather was 25, my grandmother 21 and would shortly receive news of her first child on the way. On Jan’s side, my father-in-law was only 9 and my mother-in-law just 1 ! …. and in ten days, Orson Wells would transmit a radio play that was to stun America …. while Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resolutely believed his piece of paper with Hitlers-still-wet signature, would stop a world war.

So in a nutshell, what do these paper time-capsules tell us about biking in late 30’s England, were things so different then, or do the same issues grip us today?

How about these for a start:-

Looking for 100bhp from a 500cc engine (with supercharging).
Tales of rides to Switzerland, Italy, Scandinavia … and even up Vesuvius!
Tyre & suspension technology and how to improve the design.
The condition of English roads…potholes, tramlines and wooden blocks missing!
Restricting events through ‘Elf’n safety’…though they didn’t call it that back then.
…and sadly, the ‘ism’ that sees some motorcyclists discriminated against.

Hold on … this all sounds remarkably familiar – power, touring, bureaucracy and crap roads. The long and the short of it is – we don’t do anything new, yep … gran and gramps did it all long before us, even defeating forward-facing speed cameras with a ‘dummy rider’ – brilliant idea!

Even the travelling it seems was truly hardcore. A pocket full of change, a clean hanky, a tartan thermos and a nice ham & pickle sarni for the journey – Tally-Ho and see you next year! So saddle up if you’re game … no gadgets to help soothe your ego while the world follows every mile in tweetable-HD or pours over your zillionth geo-tagged digital masterpiece on Facebook. Nope …. if you want to do it right, you’ve got to go cold turkey. No electronics, no GPS, no bank cards – cash only where we’re going, right?

So I’m giving up ‘Adventure biking’ and ‘Overlanding’ … no longer dreaming of an ‘RTW’ trip with my ‘Expedition’ luggage. No. Time to drop off the grid, buy a BSA Bantam, load up the biggest dog I can find and hit the highway…maybe with a sidecar, what do you think?

Of course before I go, I’ve still got time to read the books and articles by some of these ground breaking motorcyclists. How about reading Gasoline Gypsy by Peggy Iris Thomas or Across America by C.K. Shepherd (a WW1 RAF pilot) for example, a fantastic account of crossing the USA in 1919 – while Peggy in 1953 also dipped down into Latin America.

So it seems we are indeed following in our ancestors tyre tracks …. the question is, will the next generation follow ours, or will they have adventures immersed in the womb-like safety of ‘virtual reality Google Earth 3D‘ – I know which way my money’s going. Cynical to the end, that’s me .. hey ho.

06/09/201010/09/2010

Back again!

Well a big helllooo to you all!

After dumping Facebook and all thing Google, I couldn’t raise enough enthusiasm to start over with a new blog – especially when hosted (controlled) by a big fat corporation.

Then, over a spiffing lunch one day I got a piece of excellent advice about setting up a website based blog.

I mulled it over for a few days, then tinkered and voila, Moto-A is back again …. hot-to-trot! So a big thank you to you-know-who!!!