Toolkit

Have added the following toolkit to the bike, whilst i thought it was on the expensive side It really is a great kit especially the 3/8 ratchet, fit nicely under the seat. see http://www.advdesigns.net/f800gstoolkit.html
I also added the tyre change kit see http://www.advdesigns.net/cotichkit.html These kits include motion pro tyre levers...

Sprocket change

After taking the 800 down some single tracks I found it difficult to keep the bike at a slow pace whilst climbing and negotiating obstacles. In order to gain better control I will change the standard sprocket ratio of 17/42 to 15/42 (without altering the chain length). The idea here is to take both front sprockets on the trip and interchange where fuel economy is of concern. We also have the option of changing the rear sprocket to 47 if required however the chain will need to be lengthened to cater for the extra teeth.

Rear brake lever

I am now much more farmiliar with the bike now (my WR feels quite foreign) however I am still finding the rear brake lever missing when a need it most, I have ordered the touratech extension to see if this solves the problem

Minor Adjusting of the suspension for dirt

With our baseline out of the way we decided to alter a few things before the ride today.

1. change tyre pressures from 28/28psi to 18/22 psi front/rear.
2. alter the rear rebound adjuster from midway Hard/Soft to full soft.

What a difference, the bike handled so much better, the rear now held the track with much more control and was much less bone jarring over corrugations. The front also felt less harsh. As the confidence level increased we moved onto some single tracks, these were quite difficult as the gearing on the standard setup did not allow an easy takeoff on steep tracks nor allow easy control in the tighter sections at a slow pace, this is to be expected I guess with the standard 16/42 sprockets.

Note: Be sure to reset the tyres and rebound to standard before hitting freeway speeds, the rear move around quite a bit at +100km/h particulary with panniers fitted.

First off road baseline

Well we finally got the chance to take the bikes offroad on some easy fire tracks, we did not alter any of the suspension setting or the tyre pressures (approx 28 psi) this gave us a good baseline to start with.
The verdict; The rear suspension was very hard and lossing traction quite easily, the front suspension also seemed quite harsh. JC also found the forks bottomed out on some of the rougher tracks. The bike felt quite good otherwise in terms of balance although standing is required on loose surfaces such as heavy blue metal logging roads.

Dirt Tyres

Yes today I had the bike booked into BM Motorcycles to have some TKC80's fitted to replace the factory fitted anakee's ready to do some dirt trials. Jumped on the bike and sure enough I had a flat rear tyre, those anakee's were living up to their name; so in all of 70km they had managed to find a small nail what the f&^%$...
Onto BMW road assist and they transported my bike to BM. (for an additional charge).

Now I was getting round to putting the toolkit together that includes tyre/tube repairs (this would entail more thought than my WR toolkit), but after this experience will have to put that higher on the list...

anyhow after having the TKC80's fitted I found the road riding includes a little more vibration but acceptable; to be expected of those knobs.

Extras fitted

Our US shipment finally arrived that included the exhaust, footpegs and headlight protector. The bikes are fully kitted out for dirt now just need some good rubber.

GPS

Decided on the zumo 660 as the best bike GPS around so we picked up a couple of units and fitted to the bikes.
We wired it directly to the battery and mounted over the Dampers top bracket with the Touratek mount and a piece of 3mm aluminium plate bent at an angle to give the best positioning possible without obstructing the gauges.

Bike to Bike Comms

Joe and I managed our first ride together today testing out the BT Multi-Interphone bike communication (cheap alternative to the scala rider stuff). They worked great even on the highway at 100km+ however only as long as bikes are in sight of each other.
We managed to get pulled over by the boys in blue mounted on the bigger 1200 BMW's for a random licence check and breatho. Think they were more interested in checking out our new bikes... that was OK as we picked up a good tip for servicing the bikes, they tell us BM Motorcycles is the place to go...

We have the bikes

First Ride out of the show room at BMW Melbourne

Bike pick-up update

The bikes will be ready on Friday for pickup, most of the extra gear for the bikes should be here for the week-end so we can start fitting out the bikes...

I have also dropped off my rallycross jacket to the local tailor to have it fit the leatt brace, will see how that goes....

Riding Gear

Well with bike parts on the way from the US and still waiting on the Bikes it seemed like a good time to review riding gear.
In our current Enduro lineup I have Alpine star tech 6, Alpine star upper body armour, knee pads, MX gloves and a Leatt brace with a Fox V3 helmet. Most of which will not be suitable to many hours of road/offroad with the Beamer. So I have gone for the following

• Keep the Tech 6's for now and see how they go; not real happy with anything with less protection given I still have a plate in my ankle from an earlier get-off.
• Ditch the full upper armour for the dryrider rallycross pro2, mainly for abrasion protection, may add vest protection.
• Ditched the MX pants/gloves for the Dryrider rallycross, gives more abrasion protection. Keeping the leg strapped knee pads.
• Ditching the V3, although I really like this helmet with the best ventilation and lightest helmet I have had, it is quite noisy and the peak catches the wind at +100km/h so I am looking at a dual sport, favouring the Shoei Hornet at this stage.
• Unfortunately the Leatt will not fit any type of textile jacket so will need to have the RallyCross Pro2 altered to fit the Leatt brace.
  

Accessories for the F800GS

OK have done a lot of research on the following: The idea is to get the base bike ready for dirt action. This means adding accessories to enable us to control the bike and to protect the bike when it is dropped. Orders have been placed for the following

1. Headlight protector by Aeroflow
2. Foot Pegs by Fastway F5
3. Engine crash bars by Hepco & Becker
4. Front Brake-res protector (Plas) by Touratech
5. Rear Brake-res protector by Touratech
6. Folding gear lever by Touratech
7. 29/35 Litre pannier system by Touratech
8. Steering Damper by MSC ralle-moto
9. Bark-Busters by Bark-Busters
10. Tyres Continental TKC80
11. Akrapovic slip-on exhaust

Whilst we did not want to purchase a pannier system at this stage we thought we had to in order to protect the rear of the bike in a fall. We don't intend on fitting the cases during our off road learning exercises.

Change of options

After a lot of research into the options for the BMW we decided that the OEM bash-plate offered the best protection as its the only one that covers the catalytic converter, we were going to go for the adventure-spec plate. Was also put off the OEM bark busters as they would add unnecessary weight to the bike with steel construction and lead anti-vibration ends and minimal wind deflections, will go for the home-grown bark busters instead.

Your bike gets heavier one gram at a time...

So a quick email to Melbourne BMW to amend the original order was done...

We put down the deposit

Yes, after much deliberation on which bike to get the BMW F800GS came out on top so the deposit has been made.

With the world super bike next weekend at Phillip Island, Melbourne BMW are overloaded servicing bikes before next weekend so it will be about 2 weeks before our bikes are ready to ride away.

The only options we have gone for on the 2010 F800GS are ABS and the OEM bark-busters.

The Tenere Hmmmmmm

I initially discounted the Tenere as the suspension seemed quite limited at only 210/200 mm travel. The reviews seemed to confirm that the suspension left little to be desired. But this bike does look great and comes with a 23 litre tank...
The weight of this bike was also a little worrisome as its curb-weight less fuel is only 4kg lighter than the 800GS ??? what gives, this is a single!

Thought I should at least give this bike a go, so I rang my favourite Yamaha dealer and to my surprise I could not get a test ride anywhere in Victoria... In fact I was told these bikes are in short supply and would not be able to get one for 6 months... There were a few on showroom floors if I wanted to risk buying before trying. That's a big no thanks....

Anyhow on paper and all reviews I have managed to find tell me the Tenere is no match for the F800GS

F800GS Test Ride

Went for a test ride of the 2010 F800GS today, could only manage freeway and street testing but what a difference, as expected the Beamer sat very comfortable on the highway at 120km+ and I could easily see myself cruising for many hours on this machine, a far cry from the KTM 690.

The sub-frame looks quite strong and able to carry a fair load, this again puts is above the KTM 690 with a non existent sub-frame.

The weight of this animal at +200kg will be a challenge considering we are only used to throwing round enduro bikes like my WR400 that weighs about 120kg.

Test Ride KTM 690R

Test rode the 2010 KTM 690R today, could only manage a highway ride but got a good feel for its handling. at +120km I was getting blown all over the place and the vibrations from that large piston made me feel that I may need to take a closer look at those larger bikes like the BMW GS, Tenere, transalp and vstrom. What a bummer I was hoping this would be the bike.

Even if I did add an expensive rally kit to this bike to alleviate the wind turbulence etc. there is no way to beef up the sub-frame for carrying capacity or widen the relatively skinny rims.

I also took a look at the KTM 990R but this bike is way too heavy to consider...