Category: Gear

Slow riding in Ireland

Three weeks, it sounds like a long time in a small country like Ireland and one can easily make the assumption that within that time we could complete the Wild Atlantic Way. However, doing things in a rush is not our style, we like living slow and there were a lot of things we wanted to do. I was happy to be out and about on my bike, camping, running and getting some good rest after a stressful year. Christopher was happy to be out and about checking out old stuff, like stones and taking photos and more photos. We also wanted to sample some ciders and eat some tasty food.

I arrived ahead of Christopher – I came over from France with an overnight ferry and arrived early morning while he ferried from Wales and arrived in the afternoon. This gave me a good opportunity to run some errands, more precisely to check out the Knox Urbane Pro riding shirt at the Overlanders in Gorey. The Knox gear is not yet available in Spain, so this was good use of time for me, and I could have coffee and scones while resting a bit after a sleepless night on the ferry. Business done, we headed up to the Wicklow Mountains for camping and riding, a highly appreciated recommendation from the guys at Overlanders.

Our aim had been the the southwest coast but the Wicklow Mountains were a pleasant surprise and we fully enjoyed riding there a couple of days taking in the diverse landscape. The contrasts in nature between overgrown thick forest and nearly tropical look, to barren fields and mountains made for great photo opportunities and we found some small roads where we were nearly alone. It was rather chilly so I layered up with my rain jacket on top to keep warm – but it did not rain, which was great.

The Guinness lake.

Over on the southwest coast we set camp for a few days and explored some very small rural roads on the Beara Peninsula and the smaller peninsulas to the south. The smaller the roads the happier Christopher is, and I must say that not all roads were easy on the BMW, although if I’d still had the Kawasaki I probably wouldn’t have even tried. We had had some very mixed weather, none of it what I would call summer weather, but especially when riding along the coast we got some sunny moments and I could occasionally pack my rain jacket away.

Cold, windy and rough, but believe it or not, this road is part of the Wild Atlantic Way. On our way to Sheep’s Head, west of Bantry.
I love the cliffs and the waves breaking against them causing the water to foam and look turquoise.
On local recommendation, we headed to Garnish Point where you can take the cable car to Dursey Island. No way would I ever get into the cable car, and although sheep are no longer permitted it did look small and claustrophobic. The view was awesome so we enjoyed a coffee stop before riding on.
There are lots of these little roads to enjoy.
On our way to Moll’s Gap and Gap of Dunloe. I found the generous colour marking of the sheep perplexing, on the other side of the hill they were purple.

While I don’t have any photos to show from our riding on the Iveragh Peninsula and the Ring of Kerry, I do have some from seeing extremely old footprints on Valentia Island. One of the perks of travelling with Christopher is that he does research and finds out about cool stuff to see for free, like these footprints from a tetrapod. These footprints can only be seen in a handful of places in the world and they are 360 million years old, tetrapods were, in fact, the very first vertebrates to get out of the sea and live on both land and water. This was so so cool to see!

We moved up one peninsula and explored the area around Dingle. The town itself we tried to avoid, as it was packed full of tourists (hey, no – we’re not tourists, we’re travellers!) Our only reason to venture into Dingle was to buy camping gas and new sporks, as we kind of had run out. Foxy John’s, the only hardware store with a pub I’ve ever been to, got us sorted on gas (FYI, he stocks click, screw and pierce cannisters).

We had some amazing weather here and we enjoyed exploring the area and taking lots of photographs. We also had some clear nights where, even though we were not in the Kerry Dark Sky Reserve, we could see the stars very very clearly – like I have never seen them before. Unfortunately we had no clear skies while in Kerry, so that is still on the list to come back for.

The view from the hiking trail at Clogher Strand, near Barryferriter.
  • I was fascinated by the rock formations.

One of our quests on the Dingle peninsula was to find the Ogham stones. We circled around quite a while without finding them, the GPS and map both clearly marked the spot. Well, the farmer had also marked the spot, they were in a field with a “Beware of the bull” sign. Hmm, seems the farmer wasn’t happy having a national monument on his land. Ogham is an early medieval writing using lines used in this area.

Finally a day where I could ride with only the Knox Urbane Pro shirt and no outer layer. Irish summer is not quite what I call summer, but I think the shirt will serve me well back in Spain.

The Dingle and the Beara peninsulas were my favourites, perhaps because we had the best weather and we found some interesting stuff and tiny roads to ride. Sadly, this was as far north as we got before heading back towards Dublin. We passed by Overlanders again, my bike desperately needed a new chain kit and I was very happy to get this done before taking on the next leg in my journey.

Our last night in Ireland was booked in Dublin. However, there was a hassle to find a place to stay, the hostel we booked especially for their parking in the back had no parking at all and could not see the problem of parking in the street and later in the conversation the receptionist conveniently had trouble understanding English. I lost my patience, demanded a refund and we went to stay near the police station where we parked and securely locked our bikes.

While locking the bikes, Christopher had his five minutes of glory – a guy enthusiastically commented on his British registration plate: “Have you come all the way from England on a 125? Fair play to you!”. I must add that he is a fairly seasoned traveller by now, although for him it is never a motorbike holiday, it is a photography holiday. So while I tried to slim down the packing, he brought two cameras, but that is a whole other story, not to be told now.

The photographer in action.

And life moves on

As summer continues here in Sweden, my Versys is stored away in Spain together with five boxes containing our possessions and I’m prepping my “new” Swedish registered bike. It is a 2002 BMW F650GS. The very same model I rode in Australia a few years back for the WIMA rally. But the history of me and BMW goes back further than that. I was actually close to getting a BMW years back when I instead got my second Ducati – I test rode a BMW Scarver and my brother was cheering me on wanting me to buy it. I wasn’t ready then, and I would even own a third Ducati before I again contemplated the purchase of a BMW.

The same year my brother died, 2005, I rode a BMW GS in New Zealand and absolutely hated it. My friend and I had both rented a GS and when hers broke down and she got a replacement Honda Transalp that she couldn’t reach the ground on I was happy to swap bikes. But life changes and so does one’s needs and likes. When I at last prepared to leave the Ducati world, the GS was back on my shortlist, along with the Suzuki V-Strom and the Kawasaki Versys. The vote fell on the Versys, as a secondhand GS was more expensive than a new Versys with cases and the V-Strom felt too bulky.

So finally, I’ve gotten myself the bike that I crossed path with so many times and I must say I love it, it is an absolute delight to ride, so light and easy to handle and the engine is so responsive. The engine runs so much smoother than the Versys and the weight distribution is so much better. I wish my brother could see me now.

My Versys was bought with panniers and top case, the only thing I had to sort out was the tank bag. My GS has a small top case and nothing else, so I’m busy getting stuff sorted. I would be happy travelling with just a pack roll if it wasn’t that I will be picking up Christopher and he’ll be pillion for part of the journey. Therefore, I needed to source out panniers for the bike, and to fit panniers I need pannier racks.

The amount of time that has gone in to searching for “the right” panniers and other equipment is ridiculous. In the end, the challenged proved to be the pannier rack, which not only is ridiculously expensive – 3795sek or roughly 400 euros for just the rack if I would order from Touratech! Besides, they have a 3-month delivery time. Instead, I sourced the pannier rack from SW Moto and ordered from Polo Motorrad – the cost was half the price. However, when, after some days, I called asking after the delivery date as they had not provided any, I was told they had a 3 weeks waiting time before they would get the rack into stock, that would be after I’d started travelling.  Following this, I found a Swedish company who would sell the rack and deliver within 10 days, so I bought it from them paying 2750sek.  The rack from the Swedish company has not arrived and no new delivery date has been given, in the meantime Polo has shipped my rack and with a little bit of luck it will arrive tomorrow so I can mount it on the bike. Fingers crossed… I was going to arrange for them to be sent along my route but they shipped much earlier than expected. The panniers themselves are yellow waterproof soft bags from Nelson Riggs and I’m really eager to put them on.

The tank bag is another story. I generally don’t want to spend money on a fantastic tank bag as it could easily get stolen, so I’d rather buy a cheap one no-one is interested in. I have purchased a large tank bag from Biltema for very low cost and I re-constructed it to fit the tank which is made of plastic. All I needed to do was to attach straps to the bag and remove the magnets.

Along with the pannier racks, I’m also awaiting the RAM mount for my phone. It seems impossible to ride while reading maps and street signs after being accustomed to following the GPS – for good and for bad, it saves so much time and effort.

Anything else, yeah, right, my tablet died – but I have ordered one to be picked up at an electronic store along the route.

Gear up – keep yourself safe

Visiting Altberg, the boot factory in Richmond, has been a dream of mine for a few years. Ever since I replaced my race boots some 5 years ago I have tried to find good waterproof boots with a thicker sole which would reduce the vibrations transferred from the foot pegs. This summer, when travelling up to Scotland, we found ourselves rather close to Richmond so we decided to pop by. The shop is actually in the boot factory and you can see the boots being made there, something rare these days when most things read “made in China”. Another thing that is unique with Altberg is that they measure your feet and can make alterations to the boots if they don’t fit your feet. Being, of necessity, a fan of tall boots I had two versions to choose from and I was trying them both, pacing around the shop (I hate shopping, remember). I wasn’t too keen on the lace up boot since I thought that would be too warm in summer (in Spain especially) but the other model, the police boot, were so uncomfortable. The salesman – actually not a salesman, a bootmaker by his own words “we’re not salesmen, we’re bootmakers, we don’t tell people what to buy we tell them how things are” – patiently explained to me how boots work and listened to my thoughts. As a response to me saying “it feels counterintuitive to buy a boot that is uncomfortable” he simply took my riding boot (the leaking ones I got in Germany in July, as a replacement for the other leaking ones I bought last year) and scrunched it up like a bare foot running shoe and said: “this is why your boots are comfortable, they have no protection”. When Christopher and I had recovered from the shock, I bought the police boots and off we went. One week later the boots were broken in and are now a superb fit, I absolutely love them.

Altberg police boots, warm, dry and stylish
Altberg police boots, warm, dry and stylish

When it comes to safety in gear I’m willing to spend a lot of money for the right stuff. Having said that, I must also point out that the Altberg boots are not any more expensive than other upper-range boots, and will last many years. At least according to my many British friends who wear them and swear by them. Another piece of gear where a perfect fit is an absolute necessity is the helmet. My helmet is 4 years old now and does not need replacement by age and, by washing the interior, I got rid of the smell of wet dog caused by a combination of sweat and rain. However, the view through the visor wasn’t all that good and the helmet wasn’t a snug fit anymore. During an outing to Fowlers in Bristol, I took the opportunity to try on new helmets for fun – I was only planning to buy a new visor and pin lock. The new Shoei model was a perfect fit and I was tempted to simply get it but I told the salesman that I was actually only looking for a new visor and I showed him my helmet while admitting that it did feel a bit large these days. The amazing thing here is that this salesman didn’t jump at the opportunity of selling a customer a well-fitting helmet but instead said that my helmet would have a life length of 5-7 years and that he could see if he had any cheek pads in stock to improve the fit. In addition, he offered to clean my visor and see how damaged it was. Instead of selling me a new visor and pin lock he showed me that the visor was not too bad, if I just got a new pin lock it would be quite ok. He changed the cheek pads, put in the new pin lock and let me try the helmet and decide what I thought. The fit was snug again and I had those nicely puffed up cheeks that a well-fitting helmet gives. In addition, the vision had improved with the replacement of the pin lock. He also put some silicone on the opening mechanism so the visor opens and closes smoothly a ain. All in all, he charged me £50 for that. That is what I call good service! In addition, not only did I save a lot of money by prolonging the life of my present helmet, which is still undamaged and safe, I avoided overconsumption and acted environmentally friendly.

Ah, look at these lovely puffy cheeks, helmet is snug and comfy again
Ah, look at these lovely puffy cheeks, helmet is snug and comfy again

How are you gearing up to keep yourself safe on the road? What is your  favourite gear? I’d be happy to know – please coment below, lets share tips and ideas!