Categories
Uncategorized

Coast to Coast Part 2

Part two of the coast to coast write up is now at http://www.rpsys.net/wp/rp/c2c/index2.

Categories
Uncategorized

Coast to Coast

The day for the coast to coast arrived, we made it to the meeting point for 2am, set off in the Lake District from the west coast at 5:30am and headed for the east coast. The trip was not without incident although that wasn’t really a surprise.

People have been asking how it went and I’ve shared part one of a write up at http://www.rpsys.net/wp/rp/c2c. I’d warn its long and has lots of photos, mostly stills taken from the video footage. I took 20GB worth of video footage of the trip but there wasn’t time to stop and take photos, not that you could carry a decent camera trail riding anyway. Its taking some time to write up but I’ll try and get the rest of the write up completed soon.

Categories
Uncategorized

Coast to Coast Prelude

“Coast to Coast” trips from the west to east coast of the UK are fashionable at the moment, be it walking, cycling or otherwise. For me, this weekend’s challenge is covering ~250 miles of green lanes by motorcycle, starting on the west coast near Ulverston and ending up near Alnwick on the east side, all in one day. Anyone with a map will notice this is a diagonal crossing, not a straight line and the route itself is even more convoluted to incoropate a good selection of lanes. There is a wide selection of terrain, including some deep fords which anyone reading this blog will know are associated with Alnwick.

All seemed to be going well with perparations, even my complete lack of transport for the bike on the day in question was to be resolved by dropping it off at a collection point in advance when I could borrow a van. I’ve decided to use the YZ over the CRM despite the CRM being the logical choice (better tank range, oil tank, comfy seat) mainly on fun factor although it also has the better tyres on it. I was about to put the YZ into the van to transport it and thought “I’d better just check it starts”. Turning on the fuel lead to a puddle forming under the bike with a continual stream of fuel flowing from the overflow pipes. Hmm, not good.

None of the normal tricks to resolve this helped so it was back into the garage where I removed the carb, along with half the bike or so it seemed after letting the person at the collection point know I’d be “a bit late”. I’ve never dismantled this part of the YZ before but that wasn’t going to stop me. There was gunge in the carb and the fuel valve seemed to operate ok with things cleaned up. The floats weren’t holed or anything nasty like that and once back together, it started and worked with no fuel leaking. I didn’t have any bits left over either which is always good.

I’m hoping this is my share of the mechanical gremlins and I’ve got them out the way now. The bike is waiting ready for us to meet at 2am on Saturday (tomorrow) at the collection point from where we set off to get dropped off in the Lake District. Then the fun begins! 🙂

Categories
Uncategorized

The spirit of Linux lives on (literally)

One memory that springs to mind this evening is something tglx said at a plumbers conference about modern Linux hackers of the modern generation not being able to hold to traditional values, like properly enjoying beer!

I think this evening we proved that wrong. If the team here in Romania was trying to get me drunk, they’re going to have to try harder but it was an enjoyable evening and I think there are people who appreciate those traditional values, long may it continue! 🙂