Ghetto brake pedal repair

Bent my brake pedal all out of shape in a minor crash last fall. Bending it back into shape after the crash seemed to have created a couple of small hairline cracks in the marshmallow-soft metal. My fear was that I might jam the brakes on quickly and snap it off.

Yes, I could replace the pedal with an OEM part for about €70, or upgrade to the beefy Rally Raid pedal or the one made by CleanSpeed Racing. Those are both nice pieces. But the damage didn't look too serious, and I think a sturdy repair job may do the trick.

For less than the price of a latte, I bought a long piece of aluminum flat bar, and scrounged some machine bolts and nylock nuts. I spent about 15 minutes to cut the flat bar, then bend and shape it to piggy back alongside the original piece. After drilling three holes for some nuts and bolts, the test fit seemed to be quite strong. I slopped a bunch of JB Weld all over it and let it cure for a day. Definitely stronger than the original piece now.

In case you're wondering, that's a Touratech spring loaded folding tip.

Better than new.

Poland - Forest Trails

Way back at the end of October, I went for a weekend ride into the southwest part of Poland with Jussi (a.k.a. The Rolling Hobo). Great weekend of riding forest roads, easy terrain, and an all around fun weekend. A few photos from our mini-adventure:

Making Starbucks instant coffee with a camp stove.

An abandoned military base building

We saw 4 or 5 of these buildings.

They were used to manufacture munitions

Took a minor spill and folded up my rear brake pedal, 

and buggered up my shoulder a little.

The next few photos were taken by Jussi:

Photo Op - Berlin Landmarks

Been meaning to take a couple of photos of the bike parked in front of some famous Berlin landmarks.

Got up early on Sunday morning and beat the tourists to a couple places for a quick photo op.

 Brandenburg Gate

Berlin Victory Column

Factory Pro Shift Kit

In an effort to rid the KTM 690 gearbox of the dreaded false neutral between 5th and 6th gears, I spent $140 USD on a shift kit from Factory Pro. According to their website and many of their customers, it makes shifting the 690 feel more precise. For the most part, the 690 tranny is pretty good, but I do find you need to shift like you mean it when going from 5th to 6th gears, otherwise, you may just find a hidden neutral. We'll see if this solves that problem.

Left to right, bolts removed in clockwise order, starting with 

the bolt closest to (and slightly above) the swingarm pivot. 

Note that bolts #1, #6 and #7 are longer than the others, 

with bolt #6 being the longest of them all.

Fortunately the clutch cover gasket did not tear and I was able 

to remove it in one piece. The engine was stone cold, 

and I have very light taps with a rubber mallet.

Here is the OEM shifter detent arm 

Note the difference between the OEM and aftermarket detent arms. 

Specifically, the OEM spring is lighter (less tension) and the roller 

is just a disc riveted onto the arm. With the Factory Pro arm, the roller 

has small ceramic bearings (rolls way smoother) and t

he spring is stronger (higher tension, supposedly -- but I could not tell) 

Installation notes and observations:  Installation was pretty easy.  I did not drain the oil, or bother to do a full oil change for this... An oil change with new filters was done about 1,500 Kms ago, and I will do it again as winter approaches in the coming weeks.  I did lose about 750 mL of oil during this procedure, which I replaced with fresh Motorex 10W60.  I did use a new oil filter on the same side (the small oil filter needed to be removed in order to remove the clutch cover .... there's no way I'm going to re-use an oil filter).

Conclusion:  Does it work?  Does it do what they say it does?  Well, it definitely made an improvement -- but not huge.  I still find that shifting from 5th to 6th gear requires firm input from my boot -- more than other gears require.  I have not found the hidden neutral which previously happened on occasion, but it doesn't really feel like a night-and-day difference. Shifting generally feels like there has been a small improvement, yes but not vastly different.  I was hoping for a magic cure, one that would transform the feel of the shifting. Yes, I'm a little disappointed.  Worth $140 smackers?  Probably not.

3-day solo ride in Poland

Had 3 day weekend so I decided to explore some rural areas of Poland. Back roads, logging roads, forest trails. Tried to stay away from big highways.  Excellent trip overall.  Three full days of riding, average 300 Kms per day, about 1/2 of it was non-asphalt surfaces, with the exceptions being the main ride from Berlin to the Polish border, and back again. Most of the riding within Poland was dirt roads and grassy trails.

Paid a small fee for safe parking beside the 24/hr guard hut. 

Worth the peace of mind.

Google Maps sent me to this hotel, which has been closed for some time, 

but now under renovations. A local guy told me it hasn't been operating for a few years.  

Thanks Google.

Ended up staying at this sketchy looking place, which turned out to be fantastic.

The woman who runs the place is very friendly and helpful. 

She arranged to get me an iPhone charger after I learned that I conveniently forgot mine.

Saw this at the gas station. 

Honda NSR125 two-stroke