“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! 🙂