Large mileage - what bits will need changing.

It's a bit of a "make it up as we go along" trip, but certainly from the UK down to Portugal, Morocco, Africa, Italy, Alps, Balkans, Eastern Europe - Then stop for the winter, see how money/bike etc are and then eastwards/upwards hopefully.



I leave in April, and meet up with some others at various points but itll be largely solo.



I don't quite have the budget for a Ewen/Charlie support team/4x4s - , just a hammock and everything thatll fit on the back of the TW.

Holy cow that's a huge trip - exciting to hear you're taking a T-dub and not a GS or something! Good luck and keep us updated on this...

qwerty said:

I don't think you will get 8000 miles out of a knobby front tire.

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- I was hoping the tw302 would manage that sort of mileage - it's a fairly large/heavy tread - not as knobbly as the mt21s etc. The front is not such an issue as the size is a bit more common and I should be able to pick one up in most of Europe - the rears are difficult to find in knobbly tread over here, even worse in North Africa/Eastern europe.



On that note - what's a sensible psi to be running in the stock rear/tw302 front with getting lots of miles out of them as a priority.

Boret said:

It seems a bit too much to change the oil every 1000 miles. I am sure you can get 2000 even 3000 out of good quality oil.

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I figure I'm expecting this little bike to do 25,000+ miles through desert/dirt/mountains etc - least I can do is give it a drink every so often. It'll depend where/what oil I can get but at under $10 per litre it's one of the cheaper things to keep on top of.



I'm in the process of setting up a little blog

I think changing oil often is cheap insurance.



In addition to your regularly scheduled parts depots, stock a couple of spares with a trustworthy friend at home. Have them ship spares just before needed should you run short of schedule.



I would not schedule front pads, they are small enough to carry a spare pair. Leave a couple extra pair with your trustworthy friend, and should you need to replace a set, have them ship a spare pair to your next depot.



I would replace light bulbs before heading off on the more remote parts of the ride.



Tire pressures about 16/20 pounds on dirt, 24/28 pounds on pavement. Sounds a bit high, but you said you'd be carrying a load.



Extra cables: Go ahead and run spares next to the cables on the bike, zipties to hold them in place, heat shrink tubing to seal the ends from dirt and water. That way if a cable breaks it will not be necessary to remove the seat and tank to affect repair.

Great tips! I love the spare cables zipped tight to the cables on the bike. What a great idea!



Going back to the oil. Even better insurance would be to change it every 500 miles, maybe every 250. ( not trying to be a smart ass just trying to make a point)



Based on the limited information I have on the trip I can see some areas that won't be that hot such as Portugal, Italy, Alps, Balkans, Eastern Europe.

I can see it making more sense changing oil every 1500 or 2000 when going through Europe, and then moving to 500-750 while going through North Africa.



You can easily do 500 miles per day, at 1,000 that means changing the oil every other day for a total of 24 Oil changes and 12 oil Filters.

If you do every 1,500 you are down to 16 oil changes and at 2,000 that's 12. Some of the places where he will be riding I can't see him getting quality oil every 2 days, so that will have to be added to the packing list. Maybe carrying 4 liters = 4 oil changes might be already quite a bit. And that will just yield 4,000 miles.



Now, if you use your bike on weekends, a few miles here and there, and end up with 2 or 3k miles a year it makes sense to do 1 oil change every 1500 or so miles as the oil degrades, and if it gets pretty hot (air cooled in northern Africa, southern Balkans will get hot) it makes sense too. But riding everyday and changing every 2 or 3 days... not so sure.



Any way, I am making a mountain out of very tiny part of the project.

Please give us more info, pictures, plans, etc... this totally sounds like a lifetime event! Good luck!

qwerty said:

I think changing oil often is cheap insurance.



In addition to your regularly scheduled parts depots, stock a couple of spares with a trustworthy friend at home. Have them ship spares just before needed should you run short of schedule.



I would not schedule front pads, they are small enough to carry a spare pair. Leave a couple extra pair with your trustworthy friend, and should you need to replace a set, have them ship a spare pair to your next depot.



I would replace light bulbs before heading off on the more remote parts of the ride.



Tire pressures about 16/20 pounds on dirt, 24/28 pounds on pavement. Sounds a bit high, but you said you'd be carrying a load.



Extra cables: Go ahead and run spares next to the cables on the bike, zipties to hold them in place, heat shrink tubing to seal the ends from dirt and water. That way if a cable breaks it will not be necessary to remove the seat and tank to affect repair.

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Thanks, some great info there - especially like the idea with the cables - Yes the bike will be fairly well loaded for much of the trip, fortunately I'm only about 80kg so the total load won't be much more than a 200-250lbs rider.

Boret said:

A few interesting spares that could save you from a long walk could be:



Set of levers, set of foot pegs, set of gear and break foot levers, a small roll of fuel line, spark plugs.

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Im running fastway pegs (which are bulletproof, Ive used them on enduro bikes before), forgot to mention plugs but I'll be carrying a few spare plugs. Levers I handnt bothered with but - thats something Ill be adding if weight/room arn't an issue. (I am running handguards with a support bar so hopefully that should help protect them). Also have a pouch full of fuel line/wires/zipties/duct tape etc.

Woofhound said:

If I were doing that trip i would definately run synthetic oil and change around 2,000 mile intervals depending on how it is looking. synthetics don't break down with heat and should have no problems with that change interval

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As for the oil, I tend to run silkolene comp4 semi-synthetic (which is pretty much 90% synthetic anyway). But it will really depend what I can get while I'm out there.



Difficult to say what the mileage will be exactly, but Im hoping for around 100-200 miles per day (Alot of the routes I've planned are backroads/offroad - NO motorways/freeways) - giving time to spend some time exploring/offroading/seeing places and people - So I'd be looking at doing the oil once a week (as you say some areas will be hot/dusty so I might do a change more regularly in Africa / less regularly in Switzerland - I'll just see how it goes.



Only really decided to do this trip on the 1st of Jan - and I kind of feel that overplanning takes the fun out of it for me - so its all a bit hectic at the moment and I don't have alot of route details, but I'll start a thread when I set off. First leg will be 1000 miles 90% offroad down through portugal.

davidsonsgccc said:

you have probably have already been there but the horizionsunlimited web site has tons of travel stories and lots of great info on what you made need. good luck

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I spend half my time browsing horizonsunltd and advrider - some fantastic reports on both those sites.

newrider said:

This is a little off topic from what you asked for, but I've done similar voyaging, and thought I would share my experience.



Being an engineer, I would go over the bike in detail and make a list of what failures could occur on your trip. Assign a consequence of the failure (1-10), and a probability of occurrence (0-1). Multiply the consequence by the probability and develop response plans for the failure modes with the highest product first. A compete engine failure has a pretty high consequence, but a fairly low probability. It might warrant a spare motor at home that could be sent to where you are. Where you draw the line is dependent on your funding, your comfort level with risk, and how acceptable failure to complete the trip is to you.



The only thing I came up that others haven't mentioned is a collection of jets and a float valve. I would also slime my tires.

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Did you do the similar trip on a tw? How did you find it?



Thanks for the input, Ive been searching for a spare engine for a while but short of buying a complete spare tw125 and a spare xt225 I can't find a tw225 motor anywhere - so just going to hope for the best and order the parts I need if the worst happened.



Tyres are already slimed and I have spare tubes, hadn't thought about the carb parts - so that's something to add - floats/jets weigh next to nothing so an easy spare to carry.



Overall I think the way to go about this is hope for the best and deal with the problem if it arises - all part of the fun , it's almost impossible to plan for every eventuality so, as you said, I'll focus on the stuff that is likely to be an issue and hope nothing major goes wrong.



On a "more positive" note, I finished mounting the panniers, skid plate, and spare fuel pack today and my gas tank cleared customs into the UK yesterday