I got up very early in the morning packed up all my things and headed for London.
I didn’t return to London straight away but explored the little villages on my way. I found this little peaceful cemetary. Most graves were close to 200 years old.
all locations
Gear Test – Vango Nemesis 200
After getting the sprockets of the bike changed by the dealer and getting the bike checked over I felt safe riding the bike again. Apparently the clicking sound is normal according to the dealer. I will just have to take his word.
Finally I also had all the essential camping gear that I need for my future trips read so I wanted to give it a first test right away.
I rode to a little campsite close to London to stay one night.
My tent is the Vango Nemesis 200 two persons tent. I am very happy with it. The best things about this tent are that you can put it up with the inner and outer layer simultaniously so you don’t get the inner layer wet in bad weather. Also since it is a geodesic design it stands on its own without any ropes. You can just pick it up as a whole and carry it somewhere else. Of course it can also be tied to the ground. It packs down to 40cm x 20cm and weighs close to 4kg. The hydrostatic head is 5000mm which should be perfectly fine for bad rainy, stormy UK weather.
It’s got a lot of sotorrage room on both sides. Both of those seperated storage compartments can be folded away and have two openings each. Very handy.
For somebody my size it is just big enough (6’3). My head and feet just about touch the edges. For two people of the same height I’d recommend the bigger (300/ three person tent) version of the tent.
For my purposes I am very happy with the tent. It is exactly what I was looking for.
Breacon Beacons 2 – Engine Trouble
The next morning after breakfast I packed my things, and got ready to continue my journey. But when I started the engine I noticed a strange clicking sound just like the sound that you hear on a bicycle with different gears idling when the pedals are not moved. So I stopped at the next parking lot to look for the source of the troubling sound.
The front sprocket cover was filled with chain oil residue. A sign for bad lubricant being used (applied by the dealer).
I tried to clean it as best as I could but nothing would stop that strange rattling sound. (A plastic bag is a pretty decent substitution for a working glove to keep your hands clean so you don’t get your biking gloves all oily on the inside if you don’t have the chance to wash your hands right after the work.)
After two hours of fiddling around with the chain it became more clear that the sound had to be coming from the chain or the sprockets and not from inside the engine. That was a big relief. Still I wanted to find a mechanic shop to get an expert opinion to know whether it would be safe to continue the journey or not. Google said there was a shop half an hour from my location but when I got there I discovered that it was closed which was not a big surprise because it was Sunday. From there I decided it was best to end the trip here and try to get back home without adding to the damage on the bike.
This was disappointing but I am actually glad this happened because I learned a few valuable lessens:
I need to carry more tools with me. I should have the possibility to take off the chain and sprockets, to inspect inspect them, clean them or swap them. I should have the tools to adjust the chain tension and I should lubricate the chain regularly and carry the lubricant with me on bigger trips. Also I will add disposable plastic gloves to my tool kit.
Breacon Beacons, South Wales
After visiting the North of Wales the South was next. Breacon Beacons is a National Park with great hiking trails and great scenery. I didn’t have the time to go hiking since this was just another weekend trip but I was hoping to experience the scenery on the bike as well.
The first day was pretty much just spent getting there since I left pretty late on Saturday.
Snowdonia 5 – Holy Island
After reaching the western outskirts of Snowdonia I decided to also check out this little island even farther north called Hollyhead.
The villages I passed through on the island all seemed deserted except for a little spot in on village where some jet-skies took off.
It looked so calm, quiet and relaxed. It really seemed like time was standing still.
Hollyhead was my last destination on this trip. I spent an hour on a little beach and afterwards went straight back to London. I wish I had had more time to stop at Liverpool and Manchester which were right beside my route but that will be another trip.
Snowdonia 4
This time I wasn’t so lucky with lateRoom. They had double booked my room so I had to take a different one which was bigger but didn’t have a bathroom en suit. Nonetheless I slept like a rock and left early in the morning after a good English breakfast. I can’t wait to finally switch to camping!
(click image to enlarge)
The scenery was just like I hoped it would be.
On the road I met another rider who had seen me stopping taking pictures. Malcolm, he organizes motorcycle tours and offered me a big discount for one of his trips if I document it with photos and videos. Never having tried it guided tours are not really my thing but he gave me his card so I could get in touch with him.
Snowdonia 3
On Saturday morning I started from London heading straight towards Snowdonia. Since I still didn’t have a tent I again made use of lateRooms.com. The ride up to Snowdonia was uneventful and the motorway scenery was rather underwhelming. However it got better. A lot better.
As soon as I crossed the non existent border to wales the scenery changed. With the setting sun the saturated green of the endless little hills looked like what can only be described as a cheesy movie interpretation of heaven or – Teletubby land. I wouldn’t be surprised if the shot this show there.
After a quick google search: They did in fact shoot this show here ………….
Just a few hundred meters from the B&B I was aiming for I stopped to take advantage of the last sun rays for a few pictures.
Snowdonia 2 – new headlight
Before leaving for Snowdonia I wanted to get my head light fixed. After taking another closer look and having bought the necessary tools (torx Allen wrenches) I realized that I didn’t actually have to take off the front cover with the glass to access the bulbs like I had assumed:
Instead there is an easy access lid at he back of the casing. So on the way up to Snowdonia I stopped at Halfords (Forstinger in Austria), got a new bulb and installed it.
![IMG_20150418_134614[1]](http://davidskorepa.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IMG_20150418_1346141.jpg)
![IMG_20150418_134814[1]](http://davidskorepa.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IMG_20150418_1348141.jpg)
![IMG_20150418_134710[1]](http://davidskorepa.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IMG_20150418_1347101.jpg)
And there was light and it was good … knowing that I could use the high beam for it’s actual purpose again.
![IMG_20150418_134856[1]](http://davidskorepa.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IMG_20150418_1348561.jpg)
Snowdonia, Wales
Because the weather was supposed to be fantastic over the weekend I decided to add another country to my check list: Wales. More precisely I wanted to see Snowdonia, a National Park with supposedly beautiful scenery. Initially I had planed to also pass through Swansea on the south coast of Wales but I decided to spend the weekend entirely on the north and make a separate trip for the south later.
(As you can see on the map I ended up going a little farther than Snowdonia to see what this Island above Snowdonia looked like.)
Lands End 7 – On filtering
After having forgotten the time, spending two hours at the beach instead of 20 minutes I got back on the bike and set course for London.
Traffic was bad and we were slowly crawling up the hilly motorway, stopping countless times. As annoying as that was it made me understand something I had been wondering about for quite some time. The reason for filtering on a motorcycle. It’s probably not what you (or I) thought. What filtering really is all about is that you don’t have to stop. It’s not really about getting ahead. Being stuck in a traffic jam on a bike is very different from being stuck in a car. For one you can’t really drive with the clutch alone like with a car so you constantly have to rev (with your right hand) while squeezing the break leaver every other second while balancing the 150 kg motorcycle uphill. So you have all your muscles tensed up for as long as you are in the jam. This is annoying for 5 minutes let alone two hours. It gets exhausting fast. Especially when you have already been riding 800 miles in the past two days. So filtering is not all about speed but more about convenience or rather fatigue. The only problem is that with a bigger bike like mine with panniers you are not that narrow any more so it’s more difficult and often there just is no getting through.
It was getting dark and I was still stuck in traffic in Cornwall with a regular work day just hours away – in London.
While waiting – one driver had a megaphone out the window asking drivers to honk x amount of times for the correct answer number x to a question – I noticed that my bike was casting two shadows onto the car in front of me whose driver had just honked twice giving the correct answer to the question ‘Which is the capital of Norway?’. That’s when I realized what the yellow triangle warning light must have been about! My head light had to be out for me to see the shadows in front of me. After finally getting a chance to exit the motorway I checked the light at a petrol station that had already closed for the night and sure enough only the parking light was on. I didn’t have enough tools with me to get the bulb out or to check if it had just gotten loose so I adjusting the angle of the lights housing instead so I could switch on the high beam and would not blind anybody.
The tools on the F650GS are under the seat so it had to come off:
This high beam solution worked well and traffic was getting better at this late hour so I continued my journey safely and reached London at around 11pm.