Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Burt Munroe Challenge: Preparation

Tuesday 24th November 2009.

Well, I entered the Burt Munroe Challenge online.
$50 entry and 2 cooked breakfast (Sat and Sun Morning) at $11 each. $72 total.
Then I booked a Cook Strait Ferry crossing getting a BMC discount. $73.

I am allowing 3 days to get to Invercargil.
Two days (Sat Sun) at the rally.
Then 3 days to get home again.
I expect to take in a LOT of gravel and out-of-the-way roads.

I got a new Mitas E-09 rear tyre from LMS in Palmerston North $160 incl freight. The odometer showed 53774km at tyre change. I love these tyres.
The old tyre (also a Mitas E-09) had 5mm of tread depth left, so I may well use that again at some stage. The old tyre was put on at 48365km. So has done 5409km for 9mm of wear. (601km/mm of wear) This is about 170km/mm worse than the previous 2 E-09's. Hmmm?
I got Wobbly to weld an enlarged foot on the end of the side stand just so that it doesn't sink into the dirt as much.

The carbueration on the XT400 was still not all that good.
I got two 100 main jets off a friend Jared and I borrowed the needle out of the CV carb on a mates TT600. I put them in and the bike went the best it has ever gone. It was a little lacking in bottom end but was very good in the top end. I was happy enough for now.

I took it in to Smithy's for a warrant of fitness; $28, and registered it for 3 months; $86.
I also bought a pair of black padded Lycra cycling shorts for $70 to wear under my leather pants. I hope these help to make the ride a bit more comfortable.

I bought 4 AAA batteries for my torch $9.60.
I also filled up with 98 octane from BP. This was a little interesting. I was carrying a 2 litre jerry can in the rack pack and was on reserve tank, so was not worried about running out of gas. It just so happened that I ran out of gas on the downhill approach to the Te Puna BP. So I was able to measure exactly how much fuel the bike held. To fill it up to the absolute top from completely empty (even the carby bowls empty) took 13.9 litres.

Yesterday I did about 100km and today I did about 70 km on the bike just to make sure everything was OK. And everything did indeed seem OK. Cool.
Well actually, ever since I had the tappet cover welded up, the RHS exhaust tappet has ticked quite loudly. I have checked and re-checked the clearance. I also tightened the tappet up until it stopped ticking, just to see what it would take. When I did this, the bike became very difficult to start and would not idle at a low rev. Hence, the exhaust valve was probably always open a little. I will just put up with the tick.

I will head off about 5:30am tomorrow morning. 53943km currently showing on odometer.
I will go via Waikaremoana, the Napier- Taihape Rd and eastern Waiarapa to Pete's place in Thorndon, Wellington. This will probably take a full 14 hours I expect. I will have to get up at 1:30am Thursday and get on the 2:30am ferry crossing. Arrive Picton 5:30am. Yes, I am on a mission.