Horizons Unlimited - The HUBB - Carrying spare bearings

I know what a worn out chain looks like, and my chain was not worn out, it only had 5k on it, but as the old saying goes, a chain is only as strong as the weakest link. Unfortunately I was in hospital and had no chance to view the offending article. I think I would call this a freak accident. I made the assumption that the workshop that put it back together would have checked out the wheel bearings during the process.

There is only one radiator, and the early model f650s have a temperature guage, not all bikes do, some just have a warning light. Maybe I stretched it a bit to say 'no water' so although I refilled her every morning and lunch time I was able to keep an eye on the engine temperature and checked the oil often, oil does a hell of a lot of engine cooling, and maybe the dry sump method has the advantage of the oil cooling somewhat while passing through the gearbox/filter/oilpump/frame before it returns to the header tank. Main thing was that the guage needle only moved over half way, point at which the fan cuts in. When I was stopped in traffic I switched the engine off and let the fan carry on to bring the temperature down. I am indebted to Albert of The Turtles Head in Quito for finding me a man who could weld aluminium, and made an impecible repair.

I carried two panniers, a 45litre top box, all my camping gear and a 65litre rucksack, plus me at 14st (200lbs) and am convinced that setting up the shock correctly at the very beginning was the key. How did I do that. Loaded up the bike and took a local long winding corner many times, adjusting up until the wobble just went away. Not sure if that's the 'book' way, but it seems to have worked for me.

Main problems with the regulator are overheating and overcharging. You can cure the overheating by moving the regulator out from under the seat where the heat builds up. Overcharging is due to small resistance build ups in the connectors over time. The regulator senses the battery charge via the ignition switch, so all the joins and connectors to the front of the bike and then all the way back to the battery add a little resistance at each and the regulator thinks the battery is undercharged. At tick over mine registered a charge of 15V, not good because it cooks the battery. There is a 'Chain Gang' fix that wires the regulator directly to the battery through an add-on relay. I never had time to do this though and had to replace my battery after about 6 months riding, but I was resigned to the fact that this might happen before I set out.

The thing is you can't carry everything with you, mine is a 13 year old bike, so I just had to take into account that sometimes crap happens, it's called risk management. So you do your best and keep focused and get it fixed.

I did not set out on my ride to prove that the BMWf650 was a good bike to tour on, I set out to find out who I really am, see the world, meet interesting people from a different culture to mine and have something worth remembering at the end. I've said this before elsewhere, but the bike is just a heap of metal, rubber and plastic, the rider is where the miracle lays.