Packing the trailer, it’’s clear that Parkinson is alive and well. The thing is already full and I still have a few clothes to fit in somewhere. I know I shall only use half the stuff - only thing is, I don”t know which half.

The GPS is loaded with MP3s, and various touristy sites to see (it’’s a bit disconcerting to find that both Mapsource and my 2820 are not that clever when it comes to Irish place names - they seem to have trouble finding many of them) so I hope not to get lost and to have some amusement on the way. I must remember to get my Ipod wired into the bike’’s supply at present I rely on its battery and when that is flat, I am out of music.

Our guides were all local to the area and knew the plains like the backs of their hands, including the ranges and when it`s safe to cross them!

The rain ensured we had some nice puddles to play in..

We also forded one river that was quite deep and I wondered if the panniers would lifet the rear of the bike high enough to reduce traction! Evidently not enough to prevent me getting through and the panniers stayed totally dry inside. However, the topbox was a different story. I had put a full bottle of water in it and all the bouncing around destroyed it and all the stuff I had really wanted to keep dry and had therefore carefully put in the topbox, was suddenly not so dry! A valuable learning experience. Another was the fact that a road atlas made with a spiral binding can become a loose collection of pages as the spiral unscrews when subjected to a lot of bouncing around!

Problems started when I tried to fit the cross piece between the side bars. Brackets welded to the cross piece and designed to bolt to the front of the engine were too close together with the result that the bolt holes in the brackets and the threaded holes in the engine did not align. I telephoned Nippy Normans to explain the problem but was taken aback by the tone of the response which suggested (a) it was my fault and that I had to use the correct spacers and (b) if I sent a photo they could diagnose the problem. I explained that it was not a problem of spacers and a photo would only demonstrate what I had said. NN then said if I returned the cross piece, they would check it against their stock and if it was faulty, they””””d send me another. I bit my tongue because it is obvious the thing is faulty and I don””””t expect that checking against their stock will alter the fact. I really don””””t believe my BMW engine is at fault!

This is what I am supposed to bolt together…

I posted the darn thing off to NNs with this photo and will have to wait and see what they say.

Now all I need to do is to get a pair of specs that will enable me to see the thing clearly. After some experimentation using reading glasses I am going to get a pair of bifocals with a smallish area devoted to the near focal length - large enough to cover the instruments and nothng else basically and have booked a sight test for tomorrow.

What these production problems might be in something as apparently simple as a set of crash bars is a little hard to figure but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were one of these things where Touratech have designed something for BMW’s use and now want to produce their own label version with some sort of resulting conflict with BMW.

In any event I have decided that I might as well get a set of Givi bars which look pretty good so I’ll cancel my outstanding order and order up the Givi bars instead.

Tim Cullis fixed these on his 650

It started when I “upgraded” to Wordpress 2.5.1 and I started to get a couple of lines of php warnings before the blog proper loaded. I also couldn`t access the blog`s admin area. I haven`t yet tracked down a proper solution but I found that if I replaced a file (widgets.php) with an older version, I could at least suppress the garbage and get into my admin area.

I also find now that editing an entry causes any apostrophe to “attract” another quotation mark so we end up with something like can”"”t when trying to write the abbreviated form of cannot.

I am temporarily getting around this by using a backward facing apostrophe like this ` which looks a bit awkward but better than a set of quotation marks.

I shall go for a ride in any case. I got myself a little Action Cam today and have fitted it to the bike, so I hope to have fun tomorrow recording some nice lanes

It came with a mount designed to fit something like a bike’’s handlebars plus a couple of straps to fix it around a helmet or one’’s arm. I couldn”t use the handlebar mount as it was so made up a fixture to sit in my RAM mount (good job I had a bit of ally rod and plate as well as a lathe handy!)

Another neat thing I have come across is a plugin for my Tomtom Rider - I did not even know it could use plugins! This one is called Event Logger and amongst other things, it can record a track log on the Rider. The program is free and on a short test seems to work as advertised. I shall try a longer test on my ride tomorrow.

It just happens to be blocked by a rather large tree root..

Turning six bikes round in a lane narrower than the bike is long necessitates some rather hard work..

It was a brilliant day, organised by Mike Wilson at South London BMW. Six brave souls, including Mike - bravest of all for looking after us! - took to the Surrey hills and encountered most kinds of terrain from loose rocks to deep pools. Here is Mike showing the rest of us wimps how to do it..

I only fell off once which is a great improvement on my last outing! I had taken some precautions such as removing my mirrors - this made me realise just how much I use them as I felt completely blind for a while - and taking some spanners and the Torx keys on sockets. As luck would have it, the only thing that was right was the spanner for the mirrors. I could have done with a couple of other things after my “little off” but naturally, they were at home in the garage..

The problem with stuff on the back seat, as I found out last time, is that in my riding suit and motocross boots, I can””t easily lift my leg high enough to clear the extra height - I am not Darcey Bussell! - still I think I can just about manage to clear the tool roll. This problem is of course much amplified when one can””t stand on a piece of level ground or is up to the knees in mud. Both these situations also preclude use of the sidestand and then the problem is compounded by having to keep the bike upright and by the time this becomes necessary, the bike weighs a ton because one is absolutely knackered. At least, I am knackered. This is partially due to my advancing years but mainly because I am out of conditon and haven””t yet been back to the gym since my Italian trip - or if I am honest since Patagonia, apart from a few forays that didn””t translate into peak condition… Only those who have ridden off-road know how much hard work motorcycling can be!