Congratulations! After all the drama with panniers, carnets, leaks and whatever else must have come up! Fantastic achievement, very jealous!

Again Congratulations and thank you for spending the time to share your experiences with us all.

Well done Gordon! And Richard.

Thanks tjmouse, alandob & Chris. It was an adventure.

Extra mention to Richard as he has had his ankle checked and it turns out he has a fracture. He rode from Northern Angola to Cape Agulhas like that. Well hard!

The bikes are with African Overlanders and will hopefully be shipped back asap. I'm looking forward to giving my bike the TLC it certainly deserves. The bikes took a pounding.

Apart from regular maintenance items there are a few things that need replacing on my bike. The blown fork seal will mean the forks have to be rebuilt, the screen is broken, an exhaust shield went awol somewhere in Africa and the rear rim has a dent in it. Pretty sure that was from a pot hole in Angola.

The front brake discs are worn with the left one below minimum thickness. I'm guessing that was due to the left one doing all the work while the right brake disc was covered in fork oil.

Then there is the cleaning. There isn't a part of the bike which isn't covered in African sand and dust.

The water pump is an odd issue. It leaked, covering my boot and the engine case in coolant. It lost most of the coolant in the reservoir but then stopped leaking. Not sure how this can happen but the water pump is an expensive part so to change it or not to change it? Maybe see how it goes on local rides but I wouldn't go to a remote area without fitting a new pump first.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Gordon

Congratulations to you both on completing this epic ride… and well done on documentation of the legions of paperwork you had to deploy!

Glad to see the ferry now actually exists across the Congo river and the (breath stopping, for me) loading of a big bike onto a pirogue on the beach is a thing of the past.

Simon

Just an update. The shipping went really well and I got the bike back a couple of weeks ago. It took over 2 months but apart from that it was excellent. Just dropped it off at African Overlanders along with the Carnet. They took care of everything and I fetched it from Tilbury dock, London, and rode it home. It started on first press of the button even though it had been standing for some time.

The plan was to do a few repairs and full service but unfortunately there were a couple of seized bolts. Two exhaust header bolts sheared off so the cylinder head had to be removed. According to the Honda manual, step 1 is to take the engine out of the frame.

I'm not sure if that is necessary but as I bought the bike second hand, I thought this would be a good opportunity to inspect the rest of the bike and give it a good clean. It's a 2018 and I bought it in 2023. It clearly hadn't been well cared for in its previous life.

Unfortunately a forward engine bolt sheared while removing the engine. Getting the stud remainder out of the engine casing required heat and a great deal of care. I don't think the seized bolts were due to the African conditions, more likely from running around salty UK roads for the previous 5 years with no love or attention apart from the odd oil change.

The bike is now in pieces. The chrome on the fork stanchions was worn off. Both sides but worse on the leaking seal side. New stanchions, genuine Honda parts, were only slightly more expensive than a re-chrome so I bought new stanchions, seals, sliders, bushes etc. and rebuilt the forks.

The engine has been cleaned and is ready for the cylinder head to be changed. The parts need to be cleaned, some touch up paint on the frame, change the head and see if it will all go back together.
It's a work in progress.........

Attached Thumbnails

 

 

 

 

 

30 Sept 2023. The rebuild is pretty much done. The bike is back together and running perfectly. So much better now that the forks have been rebuilt. A pleasure to ride.

The rebuild has answered a question I pondered before the trip. Which wheels are best for an adventure bike? Cast alloy or with spokes, tube or tubeless.

I think it's fair to say most big adventure bikes never really see any adventure, instead spending their lives touring on paved, first world roads with maybe a bit of prepared dirt, or even just weekend riding and commuting. For those bikes, cast alloy wheels with tubeless tyres are fine. Small punctures can be plugged quickly and easily without removing the wheel. I don't think tubeless alloys are much use for proper adventure riding though.

There are a couple of reasons, if you do need to change a tyre, as we did, you may run into a problem. Changing the tubeless front tyre on Richard's bike (CRF1100) was easy enough but inflating it afterwards proved impossible without a high volume of air. This may have been partly due to it being a second hand tyre that had probably been stored horizontally, compressing the beads together. It was the only tyre we could find in Douala though.

Being tubeless, you need the bead to seat on the rim in order to inflate it but without a high volume of air that may not be possible. The small compressor we had wasn't enough, neither is foot or hand pump pressure. Yes, I know about wrapping straps around the tyre circumference and compressing the tyre but we couldn't get the bead to seat. Fortunately, a helpful fellow with a car took the wheel to a garage in town and used their high pressure air to seat the bead for us. But what do you do if this happens in a remote area and you're on your own?

Then the next issue. The wheels can take a real battering on bad surfaces. I knew my rear wheel had a dent in it, I think that happened in Angola but I only noticed it in Namibia. What I didn't know until I took the tyre off last week was that the rim was cracked. Not sure when the crack started but if that was a tubeless tyre it would have gone flat with no chance of re-inflation. Also if that was a cast alloy wheel it quite possibly could have broken up.

It has answered the question for me and no need for further pondering. If you're going to remote areas, riding on poor surfaces with no backup or support and have to be self sufficient, then I think it's best to have spoked wheels with tubed tyres.

I'll attach photo's of the damaged wheel.

The coolant leak in Angola/ Namibia is an odd one. It definitely leaked from the weep hole, covering the engine and my boot, so evidently there was a problem. Having topped up the reservoir in Windhoek, it didn't use any coolant for the rest of the trip. The original coolant was orange and the top up coolant was blue. On stripping it down, the reservoir still had blue coolant and the radiators etc. still had orange, they hadn't mixed. I haven't changed the coolant pump yet. I've done a few hundred miles on it since rebuild and it's still not leaking. How can it fix its own leak? I'm baffled by it.

The bike had a pretty good strip down. All parts cleaned, lubed and greased as required then reassembled with anti-seize compound. Its got a few more scratches on it than it had before the trip but all in all it scrubbed up well.

Attached Thumbnails

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just came across this thread and I wanted to congratulate you on the trip. Fantastic achievement. I have a brother in Cape Town, and I have a dream of getting on my bike in London and riding to Cape Town to have a couple of s with him. Yes, I could fly, but where is the adventure in that?
I was thinking of doing it by myself, but security issues do scare me. It just makes sense to have someone else with you in case you lose your panniers etc.
Am I being too cautious? Guess that's a personal question.
Again, congrats.

Thanks Sunset.

Security is something to be aware of, however, we didn't have any issues while riding. In fact, I lost all my bike security equipment when I lost my panniers and didn't lock my bike at all from then on. That's all the way from Guinea to South Africa!

I doubt you could ride across the UK and leave your bike unlocked without it being stolen or vandalised.

The main worries for me were with the authorities as they have power and no accountability. Corruption is rife and you certainly don't want to end up in a cell on a trumped up (fake) charge. Again, it's not all of them and the vast majority in all countries were very friendly, helpful and accommodating.

I wouldn't let the perceived security issues put you off taking the plunge and going on what will certainly be a great adventure.

I also have a brother in SA and my motivation for the trip was the same. Sure you can fly, but where is the fun in that!

If you're in the UK and want more detailed information on planning etc. let me know through the forum or a PM. I'd be happy to help.

It's now April 2024 and time to continue riding in South Africa.

The Red Africa Twin from this blog is back in the UK and it is too expensive to freight it back to SA.

The new plan is to go out to SA and buy a used bike locally in SA.

The money that would have been spent freighting my bike from the UK to SA can be put towards buying a bike in SA.

I'll cover buying and registering a bike in SA under a new thread called "2024 Buying a bike in South Africa to continue the 2023 overland ride"

Hi Sunset. I think Gordon (PostTree) has already said this but travel in Africa on a motorcycle can be a wonderful experience, especially if you can take the time to meet with and chat to people. If you are solo (as I was from Mauri to Pointe Noire, Congo and from Namibia to Khartoum) then there are usually more people who will interact with you. And if you break down or have another problem, people pop up before you know it. At least, that was my experience and I did a fair bit of breaking down in remote places on my elderly BMW.