Noticed in November that I had a little bit of Jamming in my steering. So I started to look for spare parts. Luckily the bearing is the easy one to find! Found it (them) from Germany and ordered 2 bearings. But soon I realized that maybe there is only 1 (??!!) Here is the picture from service manual:
Number 9 there is the bearing. But how on earth does it stay together at the bottom of the steering shaft? It’s a mystery to me? I didn’t open it yet… maybe I will soon. This is how my bike looks at the moment:
Started unscrewing things from my bike on Sunday. I knew the airbox is fractured (broken) from the bottom. Exactly from the place where the breather line is connected to it. So I was thinking if I remove (and chenge) the airbox, maybe there is room enought to remove the fan also? There isn’t! But luckily the removing of the radiator is not so big job! After you remove side fairings from the bike you only need to remove the plastic cover of the radiator (1 screw) and then you can release the radiator itself (2 screws)! Here’s the whole “unscrewing things” video:
And the fan was like this:
And on monday I got the new fan for my bike. I ordered it from Poland. It was 70€ with delivery costs so not a bad price at all! The airbox is also new! I ordered it already last summer when I heard from Biketeam that it’s broken. Now finally I got it changed to a new one! Yesterday I put everything back together in my bike and made a test ride. It was almost +30° C!
KTM is doing fine, it’s the biggest motorcycle manufacturer in Europe. BUT… It just has totally too much of debt! It’s too early to say what will happen for this giant company. Maybe BMW will buy a part of the factory/ brand? Who knows? Here’s a video to watch:
“KTM mechanics have been specially trained to remove a few thousand dollars from your wallet…”
Last week in Milano was again the biggest motorcycle exhibition in the world: Eicma 2023 This time there were many new models that are interesting and I will introduce few of them here. Honda NX500
CB500X will be NX500 from now on. The technical specs will be pretty much the same than in CB500X. But the look will be very close to it’s bigger brother 750 TransAlp.
Royal Enfield 450 Himalayan
New Himalayan will be much lighter and much more adventure ready! 40 hp, 195kg and 21 inch front wheel tells quite a lot about this bike. But if you really want to know more check ItchyBoots YouTube channel, she’s riding this bike already in India even it’s not in full production yet.
Kove 800X Super Adventure
Kove bikes are hardly sold in Finland yet! But they have a dealer here and it will be very interesing to see these!! It has almost 100hp and it weights 185kg! These specs are pretty much everything that all the adventure riders are expecting about the bike.
Triumph Tiger 900 Rally
This is still one of my favorite bikes! I did only a short test ride with it few years ago. Now they made it even better! It has now 106hp and it weights 228kg. I would say it’s totally ready for long long adventures!
And then 2 bike models that were introduced but only as a street models. And everyone is waiting the adventure model to be revealed very soon or at least next year at EICMA.
Ducati Hypermotard 698 Mono
First time in 30 years Ducati presents one cylinder engine! But what a beast it is! It has 77hp and the bike weights 151kg! There has been already artist drawings about the Enduro model:
I can say I like it very much!!
KTM 990 Duke
KTM has mad adventure models from every street models so it’s pretty obvious that there will be 990 adventure! This has 123hp and the bike weights 180kg (dry weight).
Springtime was so short! It started in the end of April and soon in May you will start to feel like it’s summer already. And I had so many ideas about new possible routes for transeurotrail. First idea was to make additional route Helsinki – Turku. There was already one but it was going from Turku to the TET route and to connect to it in Räyskälä (almost 100km away from Helsinki). So I started to check my plans in the beginning of May.
Here I’m riding the few possible selections Between Karjaa & Perniö and also all the way to Teijo ironworks area. I made second checking ride a week later and I was checking the possible routes between Salo and Lieto. I found only private yards and tracks that were impossible to ride.
The new update for the TET route was made on 13th of May! On that same day I was riding again! For that ride I found interesting start From Karjalohja: A very small ridgeroad going between two lakes (Kannaksentie) -but there are quite many summercottages on the way, I’m not going there again.
The part in the end of this video comes to Ruonankorventie that I have recommended to quite many riders that they should check this. I was riding from Lohiojanie to Lemmulantie and then to Ruonankorventie. On May 15th I was inviting riders to make a group-ride to Iso-valkee and 15 bikes came to make a very nice ride together!! You can see some pictures here! I made also a video:
Then in the end of May (Helatorstai/ Ascension Day) I made a ride to check some small roads and tracks on Hanko Peninsula. Found some very good ones! Here’s the video:
Eicma 2021 was in November but there was not too many interesting bikes. Now when we are already in 2022 it is interesting anyway to look the newcomers for this year.
1. Aprilila Tuareg 660 This bike is coming straight to the same category than Yamaha T700 so it will not be easy to find buyers… Or is it? The adventure segment is growing fast, more and more new bikers starting their adventures every day/ week!
80hp – 70Nm – 187kg – Seat height 86cm – 18 L tank
2. MV Agusta Lucky Explorer 9.5 This one is not coming to the stores yet in 2022. But it proves that all manufactures really are interested about this adventure segment. Maybe even more interesting is the little brother Lucky Explorer 5.5
125hp – 85Nm – 220kg – 85cm seat height – 20 L tank
3. Honda NT1100 It’s quite long time since Honda had an affordable big touring bike. This new NT 1100 will be filling the missing gap. It has the same engine than 1100 Africa Twin but after that pretty much everything is different.
100hp – 104Nm – 238kg – 82cm Seat height – 20,4 L tank
5. Harley Davidson Pan America 1250 This bike is been in stores allready for awhile and there is a lot of test riding videos of this bike! But it is so BIG newcomer and remarkable new model to the market. Everybody’s even saying that it is not bad at all! It is actually very good!! Harley Davidson has now an Adventure Bike!
150hp – 127Nm – 240kg – 79cm Seat height – 21,2 L tank
In 2013 BMW introduced this naked superbike! And when I saw it in Helsinki Motorcycle exhibition I simply had to have one! It was my first motorcycle I bought as a new one. Then 2015 came the XR with same engine but totally different bike and the generation 2 was introduced first to the XR and now 1 year later comes totally new S1000R:
S1000R 2021
It has same engine that XR has. So no shift-cam technology. Same 165hp and 114Nm torque. But it is lighter than previous S1000R (199kg)! So when Kawasaki & Ducati made super naked bikes with over 200hp -BMW decided NOT to go along in this kind of race. BMW thinks the real race is on the racetrack or in the streets.
Basic White YellowM Motorsport paintwork
This new S1000R has some nice options in it! Here’s the list: Three riding modes, Dynamic Traction Control (DTC) and ABS Pro as standard. Optional equipment “Riding Modes Pro” with riding mode “Dynamic Pro”, Dynamic Brake Control (DBC), engine drag torque control, MSR, “Engine Brake” and “Power Wheelie. The swingarm comes almost straight from S1000RR so this is one step closer to a racebike. And BMW promises it will be very fast and enjoyable ride! Who are we to question this?
Took a short testride today. Even I knew this is going to be great bike I was still surprised! What an amazing bike! The engine is marvellous! It gives smooth power already from 2000rpm and it sounds very nice too.
Already OffRoading…
The suspension is totally with manual adjustments but it seems it made me very happy with the factory defaults (I’m 120kg’s!) And that is rare. I was also very happy with the riding position even when I was standing. Maybe I would add 2cm’s to the height of the handlebar if I would be the owner of the bike.
The bike doesn’t look very special… Except the spoked wheels are very nice!
This bike would be big enough for me and for my wife. The power is ofcourse much smaller than in XR but I think I could manage with it. I did find ONE thing I didn’t like! When you’re filling the tank the lid of the tank doesn’t stay up! So when you take the gaspump you have to lift the lid up with your other hand to get the gas to the tank… Not very big thing but it made me think how easy it would be to change this! One interesting thing was the rpm meter in the TFT-screen! There was 2 of them!!! One on the left side and then another on the right side of the TFT… It seems they had (too much) space in the TFT screen to put it there twice 😉
Today I took the testride with the S1000XR (New 2020 model). My wife was there with me so she could give some opinions about the rear seat and how the bike feels from her POV.
IceGrey BMW S1000XR
When you sit on the bike you can notice right away that the seat feels quite different. It’s more narrow and the edges are too sharp. Luckily I’m quite tall and my knees are coming quite high so I don’t feel this sharp edge almost at all. In my 150km testride I didn’t feel uncomfortable and I could ride longer trips easily!
#OneWorldOneXR
Then I notice the narrow handlebar. But it doesn’t bother me at all! Maybe I should’ve gone to some heavy traffic where you need to use the maximum steering… But in this kind of normal street riding it didn’t bother me (Even I like the wide bar of the old XR!)
Boxroad in Sipoo Finland
The bike feels maybe little bit lighter, it feels like it wants to take the corners tighter and faster -it reminded me about S1000R that I was riding back in 2014. All the buzz or vibration is gone from the handlebars but there was few times when I felt a little bit of buzz in the bike itself -somewhere around 4000rpm.
Spjutsund pier
Since I have owned already 3 XR’s it makes me think “Is this bike really so much better than my old XR?” The price of the new bike is about 4000 euros higher. Is it worth it? I think there is 2 correct answers to this question! 1) No it is not worth it! Keep the old one and you will be very happy with it! 2) Yes definitely! They made it little bit better, little bit more unique and little more nice in every way (except maybe the seat!)
Bike by the sea
My wife didn’t like the backseat of the bike. She thought it was too short and the handlers for her were too short also. They should go further behind the seat. One thing I found very interesting! There was 1 page in this new TFT screen where you can see the leaning angle of the bike… I think I would be staring this page only… all the time! Or at least when I’m riding in the curvy road.
It will be mine, someday!
Thank you Biketeam Vantaa for making this testride possible.
We don’t have a lockdown in Finland. We are allowed to go out but meetings with more than 10 people is not ok. There was only 4 of us in a beautiful sunny weather and almost +10 degrees celsius. This time I didn’t choose any difficult tracks… and I finally made a video of this interesting route:
Old railroad track
This was a narrow railroad in Finland and it stopped working in 1967. But the track has stayed and it’s kind of in use as a road. But for example now in spring it can be tricky if there is still snow (and there was!!) Unluckily my riding ended with the flat front tyre in Karkkila (65 km’s from home).
I was lucky that there was one big bike (KTM 1090 Adventure) so I could take a ride with him back home and then I picked my bike with my big car…
GoZa Mite 