Ahh 's great to be back on the bike.

[avion]

Haven't managed a breakfast run for a while now, due to work and health.

Had a decent ride today on Mila, and nobody tried to kill me. Makes a change.

Well apart from a dog in the farming area and then some baboons in the Cradle of Humankind.

Met up with DaveB at the brekkie place had some laughs.

...

 

[otherwise]

No photos ...... didn't happen.

 

[avion]

Oh dear, I'll just have to do it again then.

...

 

[Dilligaf]

Good to hear it, hope it was a fun ride.

 

[DaveM]

Oh dear, I'll just have to do it again then.

...

That you sure will

 

[CarlS]

Glad to hear you got a good ride in.

 

[DaveB]

OK, so you okes changed this forum. It's only taken me 6 months to work out how to log back in and I managed it all by myself .

The weather forecast for today was terrible so we didn't expect to ride and didn't arrange anything, but it dawned OK and then improved. My buddy from England (he has a Sprint ST 9551 there) is here at the moment on holiday and we were on my Tiger & Daytona and we met up with avion during the ride . A couple of pics were taken, so I'll see if I can get them and I'll post them here.

Sorry I've been missing for so long. News? Yeah, I've bought a Yamaha .

DaveB.

 

[DaveM]

Hey Dave nice to have you back with us and we won't hold the Yamaha against you

 

[DaveB]

Hi DaveM. It's nice to be back.

It's been a busy year (a good thing for which I'm very thankful). So I've bought a six year old XT660R cos I want to try offroad riding. The proper adventure bikes, even the very impressive Tiger 800XC, are simply too big and heavy for me- I find them a bit intimidating. So I got a thumper ! 100mm bore, fuel injection, 200mm suspension travel, balance shafts, 47hp & it makes glug-glug sounds off tickover- nothing wrong!

 

[Dilligaf]

Cool

 

[DaveM]

Well as much as I would love the Tiger 800XC if I was going to do the off road riding I used to do I would one again look for something a bit smaller myself. I always road Yamaha when doing off road and loved them

 

[devo]

Dave b
good to see you back.

Gareth
I hope you got a pic of the baboons for the photo comp.

 

[DaveB]

devo, he's going to need something bigger than a baboon to stand a chance in the photo competition .

 

[devo]

devo, he's going to need something bigger than a baboon to stand a chance in the photo competition .

wot, I suppose you've got an elephant.

 

[DaveB]

No, not an elephant.

A panthera leo .

 

[Dilligaf]

Won't beat my American Buffalo !

 

[DaveB]

Probably not.

But it would eat your buffalo .

 

[devo]

No, not an elephant.

A panthera leo .

good one

 

[CarlS]

OK, so you okes changed this forum. It's only taken me 6 months to work out how to log back in and I managed it all by myself .

The weather forecast for today was terrible so we didn't expect to ride and didn't arrange anything, but it dawned OK and then improved. My buddy from England (he has a Sprint ST 9551 there) is here at the moment on holiday and we were on my Tiger & Daytona and we met up with avion during the ride . A couple of pics were taken, so I'll see if I can get them and I'll post them here.

Sorry I've been missing for so long. News? Yeah, I've bought a Yamaha .

DaveB.

Welcome back, DaveB; we have missed you. Congrats on the the Yamaha.

Hi DaveM. It's nice to be back.

It's been a busy year (a good thing for which I'm very thankful). So I've bought a six year old XT660R cos I want to try offroad riding. The proper adventure bikes, even the very impressive Tiger 800XC, are simply too big and heavy for me- I find them a bit intimidating. So I got a thumper ! 100mm bore, fuel injection, 200mm suspension travel, balance shafts, 47hp & it makes glug-glug sounds off tickover- nothing wrong!

I agree with your assessment of the dual sport bikes. While I love my Tiger XC - it is the best all around bike I have owned in 53 years of riding - it is not a dirt bike. It is good for unpaved roads, two path roads and some single tracks; but it is definitely too big and heavy for real off road riding. That said, I can comfortably ride 600 miles to North Carolina, take the panniers off and hit the forest roads and trails in the national forest. I am looking to buy a small dirt bike for the ranch where I am sorking. I need something that is manageable in dry sand.

 

[DaveB]

Hi Carl & thanks.

I suppose I ought to apologise to avion for shamelessly hijacking his thread but, hey, if you snooze you lose !

I considered a used BMW 650 GS Dakar but these are relatively expensive or a used latest model Kawasaki KLR650. I journey from sea level to over 10,000 ft asl on my travels and the carburretor Kawasaki might not be ideal for this. Those are the reasons that I chose the (fuel injected) Yamaha. Most of our dirt roads are hard-packed sand, unless it's raining of course. I did try some off-roading on the Tiger 955i that I had a couple of years back, but that was a bit of a brute and I never felt comfortable on it off-road.

Dave.