Author Archives: Chris S

Tested: Mosko Moto Ectotherm jacket review

Updated March 2025

IN A LINE
Warm and smart puffa jacket with built-in controller which almost makes the 12v heating redundant.

WHERE TESTED
Chilly December mornings on Jebel Saghro, then plugged in for a very chilly morning in the High Atlas up to 2200m/7200′ but not below freezing. Then back across chilly Spain (above freezing).

COST & WEIGHT
Currently the revised v2 version is €395. My 2021 v1 jacket supplied free for review by Mosko. Weight 672g + battery wiring lead.

A smart, wearable puffa jacket, not just a wirey liner
PrimaLoft insulation is warm and compact – and ‘body mapped’
Packs into its own pocket
Three useful pockets
Looks cool; no naff graphics
Thumb hooks to get snug on the arms
It’s not black!

Controller function unexplained on v1

What They Say (v1)
We added carbon fiber heating elements to a kick-ass technical puffy, and the ‘Ectotherm’ was born.
When you’re sitting around the campfire or lounging in your tent, it’s a super warm insulator with 100g body-mapped synthetic PrimaLoft Gold insulation with Cross Core Technology. Connected to the bike, it adds a 6-panel carbon-fiber 3.5Amps/42w heating system powered by the bike. That extra warmth takes the edge off long, cold, wet, pavement stretches, keeps you warm on high alpine passes, adds new enjoyment to early spring and late fall trips, and ensures you’re ready for anything a multi-year/multi-season RTW journey can dish out.

REVIEW
Riding for a week up to 2200 metres in December 2023, I was pretty sure I’d need my Ectotherm. Around Nekob (1000m) the forecast was down near zero some mornings, but by leaving for my day rides two hours after sun up, I dodged the most biting chill. In the end, used under my quilted Carhartt riding coat and over a merino long-sleeve top, by the afternoon, even unplugged the Ectotherm became too warm and got stashed.

3rd party heat-troller; not really needed

Only on the last day, heading over the High Atlas via a high-elevation route at close to zero did I plug the jacket in. I assumed like my previous heated jackets the Ectotherm would have no temperature controls, so used my old dial-operated Heat Troller (above left).
No heat that I could tell so I rummaged around by the jacket’s output and noticed an on-off button which it turns out, has three levels of heat. It cycled red, orange, green then went out. Was it on now? Full power or low?
I know 12-volt heated jackets are not night and day, but you sure notice when you turn them off. I stopped again to fiddle with the button and at one point definitely had the impression of warmth across my back. I notice that it’s rated at 42w where my Aero was 75w and the Powerlet 60/105w. But they used wires, not carbon fibre panels which you like to think need less power to do a similar job.
Whatever the heating technology, with these jackets close fit pressing down on your body greatly increases efficiency, which was why Aerostich’s inflatable bladders where actually a clever idea for maximum efficiency. On other jackets I’ve wrapped straps around myself to press it down on freezing rides across northern Spain in winter. The Ecto was helped a little by my Kriega Trail 18 pressing on the coat.
I did also wonder if wearing something thinner than my thick Ice Breaker merino may have produced better conductivity, but by that time I was over the highest cols and working my way west to Zerkten. A little disappointingly, the day had proved to be nowhere near as cold as forecast.
So, not a conclusive test of the Ectotherm’s heating ability which I bet is in there somewhere. I need to find out how those buttons sequence (nothing in the online blurb. I contacted Mosko: no reply. But see Colin’s comment below) and may be able to dispense with the Heat Troller (which might also be affecting the output).
Fyi; all is explained on the v2 model.

One thing’s for sure though: as a regular puffa the Ecto works very well (though at a price). It’s a smart garment you can wear off the bike, not a liner that just takes up space when not in use, or has little sartorial value when not plugged in.
Whatever the carbon fibre heating panels are, they’re unobtrusive; only the LHS pocket with the wires and the control button adds any bulk.
March 2024 I rode my CRF back home but didn’t think I’d need the Ecto. Spain was as cold as I’ve been on a bike in many, many years. Even wearing all I had plus regular stops for hot food and drinks, I could feel myself going weird following sleet showers towards the end of the day. Another example of my minimalism turning round and kicking me in the nuts!

Test 2 – 2024-25
I’d not given up of the Ecto, and in November 2024 set off across Spain on my CF Moto with the 12-v Mosko puffa under my thin Mosko Surveyor. By February 2025 I was back for more; winter 24-25 was a lot chillier in Morocco and I wore the unplugged Ecto every day, even down in the desert, along with my AD-1 over-trousers.

Coming back across Spain late February, I knew I’d need to plug it in, and this time did so direct – without the heat controller. For some reason, this time the operation of the Ecto’s built-in controller tab became intuitive: a long press for on, then short jabs until red (max) came up.
For the leg north of Madrid, the Ecto sure made the day more bearable. It wasn’t freezing at around 800m, but the 100-kph wind chill made it feel like it. This time I was wearing an old Klim Aggressor base layer, plus a shirt and the skimpy Mosko Surveyor jacket over the top.

This was much more like it, even if at times the thing either auto switched off or went to a lower setting. Riding along you can just about grab the controller tab and check that the red icon is glowing reassuringly. I rolled into a Picos mountain posada, chilled but not stir-crazy with cold.
Two days later it was another brisk late-night ride off the Portsmouth boat, which a pair of proper, intact gloves would have made more bearable. I counted off the landmarks until I was home, numb fingers fumbling with the keys. Riding along I thought: heated grips or 12-v jacket. Both are allowed, but I think 12-v jacket trounces the grips. They say a warm core supplies blood to the extremities better than grips warm the core. I’ll be keeping my Ecto until the ice caps melt.

Read about the v2 Ectotherm here.

Triumph Scrambler 400X and other travel contenders

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Everybody loves a scrambler, always have, always will. It’s no new thing, just an old trend coming back round. Street scramblers were invented in southern California in the 60s; Mojave desert racers – cool as you like. Slap on some wide bars and trail tyres, lower the gearing and you’re street scrambling for real. On Any Sunday.
Project XScrambleR 700

Triumph’s new Scrambler 400X caught my eye at the Birmingham bike show. And I wasn’t the only one. Every few seconds another individual closely resembling my mature demographic swung a leg over the Scrambler to bounce up and down and twiddle the controls.
Like me, they may have been fondly recalling their teenage Triumph days in the 1970s. Along with its modern triples, the reborn brand has successfully capitalised on that proud heritage with a line of modern classic big twins. Matching that visual ‘DNA’ very closely, the smaller 400s are said to be pitched at attracting image-conscious young blood into biking, but judging by the leg-swingers above, most customers may prove to be more bike-in-a-shed oldies looking for a lighter ride than well-groomed Bike Shed hipsters.

Along with a road-oriented Speed 400 with 17-inch wheels and a 45mm lower seat height, the 400X Scrambler gets a 19 inch front with a bigger rotor, 150mm of travel, switchable rear ABS and largely cosmetic protection. The stock alloy sump plate is a necessity to disguise and protect the low-slung coolant reservoir.

All that somehow manages to cost an extra £600 (£5600) over a Speed 400 – as with Honda’s 300L/Rally price chasm, the off-road aspirational look always costs more.
Claimed wet weight varies even within the brand’s source material: the show board left claims 170kg, the Triumph website says 179kg and Indian reviews (see below) come in at 185 kilos, though it’s said Indian spec tyres and wheels will be heavier to cope with the sub-continental pounding. Both bikes get switchable traction control – for 39hp? – and lengthy 10,000-mile service intervals.

The 400s are being assembled in India by Bajaj who among other things, also produce KTM’s 390s while probably selling more of their own branded bikes in a year than all European manufacturers combined.
I read 400s will also be made in Thailand (where bigger Triumphs are assembled) and Brazil. Wherever UK units come from, if the 400s’ durability proves to be anything like the also-Indian-made BMW 310GS we use in Morocco – some now on 80,000 rental kms – there’ll be little to worry about.

For me scramblers have always been Goldilocks travel bikes – fine on the road, at home on gravel and OK on the dirt. And they look like a proper motorbike. So along with its cool retro look, the 400X ticked a lot of boxes for me at the NEC: tubeless wheels, adequate suspension travel, basic metal bash plate (an uprated £130 accessory is fitted on the green show bike) and a ‘portrait’ aspect radiator tucked out of the way on the front down tubes, like an RE Interceptor. The seat looks promisingly wide, though CTXP (below) found the forward slope annoying. You do wonder if the pillion perch is detachable. If yes, it could be removed to sit a tail pack lower, another win. At a potential 90mpg (32kpl; 75US), the 13-litre tank will return over 400km. Most of these stock features were mods I had to make to my current 300L to make it a functional travel bike, not least a £300 tank and some £200 crash bars to protect the vulnerable radiator. I’ve not managed to improve the seat.
Interestingly, UK-based Rally Raid, who a decade ago found a wide audience with their popular CB500X upgrade kits (which I used myself in prototype form in Morocco), are planning to develop kits for the 400X too: tubeless spoked wheels, suspension, sump guards, risers. They already run a range of such accessories for the similar G310GS.

Some reviewers grumble about the lack of spoked wheels to complete the retro look. Spoked or alloy, I’m not bothered as long as they’re tubeless for easy repairs. These days just about all alloy wheels are tubeless, but to make spoked TL wheels requires expensive assembly and tensioning of outboard spokes, being optionally offered on the new Himalayan 450 (left). I’ll take the Scrambler’s 10-spoke alloys; with a good set of tyres and location-appropriate riding they ought to resist leak-inducing dings. Got a bad leak? Bung in a tube.

There are a couple of actual riding reviews from BHP India and Autocar India matched with equally wordy video reviews. A couple of months back US-based Common Tread XP took a pre-production Speed and Scrambler on a 2000-mile round trip from Delhi via Zanskar Valley to the ‘highest motorable [asphalted] road in the world’ which these days is the 19,024’/5798m Umling La in southeastern Ladakh (left) close to the Chinese border.
This was not another of CTXP’s goofy, Top Gear-like stunts, but a proper travel adventure that snatched some of the wind out of Enfield’s 450 Himalayan sails – and maybe sales too. RE also chose Umling La as the destination of their Final Test, and their drone heavy YT vid (see below) trounced CPXP by a couple of weeks. Currently both vids are neck-a-neck at about half a million views.
Watch the Triumph Himalayan vid here or listen to Zack C’s honest, post-trip appraisal of the Scrambler below. It’s not all rosey – no small bike every is once you’ve ridden big – but the aroma’s promising enough. Both are on about half a million views right now.

Other things I saw at the NEC
I’d have liked to have had a closer look at the new Chinese-engined, water-cooled 350 Beta AlpX which had been presented at the EICMA show in Milan. They claim about 155kg juiced up, but Beta didn’t attend the NEC and tbh, it’s probably on the tall side for me and dynamically no better than my sported 300L.

A few years back I got on well with my old 400 Himalayan in Morocco so I cast a look at RE’s much revised water-cooled 450 Himalayan which will doubtless soon be pitted against Triumph’s 400X. Same price, same claimed 40hp at 8k, but with 10% more torque at 1000rpm lower down. Front and rear remain 21/17 (greater rear do-it-all tyre choices) and with tubeless spoke wheels an option. It’s at least 15 kilos heavier than the 400X, though that includes a centre stand, 50mm more travel (200mm all round) and those nifty tank racks alongside the 17-litre tank. The small 4″ console/dial pairs with a phone to show Google Maps or similar; though it’s on the small side let’s hope that proves to be as seamless and reliable as it could be.

My old Him 400’s gimmicky digital compass rarely pointed north. But as one tester observes in the vid below, he’s lost loads of smartphones clamped to the bars as nav devices; for me that’s always been a sketchy idea. I feel they’ve lost out on the great look of the old 400 (right); Triumph’s understated style works better for me, but the drastically improved 450 Him will be a travel contender for sure. Read impressions from a two-day Himalayan test ride from AdvPulse or my chin-rubbing preview here. It’s great to see the ‘400cc’ class opening up at last.

For nearly three times the price of either I could have a beautifully made, 150-kilo CCM Tracker or any of their other scrambly iterations around the pokey, ex-Husky 600-cc motor. There are loads of low milers on sale now for around half the new price which, not matter how good they are, suggests they’re weekend playthings.

What a shame Honda’s CT500 scrambler spin on its 500 platform looks a bit too much like their Rebel cruiser or just not as good as it could have been. There’s no doubt it would be a better all-rounder than the Triumph, with effortless cross-country speed, near-as-good economy and low, flat-seat comfort. But it would need the usual grand or more of extras to be a traveller. And that gigantic pipe!?

Austin Vince was on duty on the Honda stand and showed me round his Adventure Spec Magadan 3 panniers now with Molle strapping and non-black fabric, but no longer featuring the novel slash-proof aramid lining. Right now they’re on sale at 20% off at ASpec. That’s about 260 quid.

Being a fan of DCT but not its 10-kilo added mass, I also had a look at Honda’s new E-clutch. It’s an ingenious system of ECU-controlled servos to enable clutchless foot changing and even pulling away (while retaining a clutch lever), but as others have noted, it stills look a bit clamped-on and bulky. It’s only on the CB650 for now, but you can be sure it will spread to other models if it goes down as a smooth operator. I bet I’d be a convert.

Nice also to see an example of my late 70s Ducati 900SS. What a machine to have at just 18 years old!

**Mosko Moto** have a snazzy new range of colours in their apparel. I like this **Rak** pullover anorak idea as a bombproof, no-front leakage solution with a big roo pouch and other thoughtful detailing. For the last few weeks I’ve been wearing my MM Surveyor softshell jacket in Morocco which works just right in the warm temps down there. I’m considering going softshell on my trousers too – my sun-bleached, 6-year-old Klim Outrider jeans are now on ebay. I’ve deduced it’s not just the weight of the jeans, but the *drag* when getting on an off the bike. Stretchy fabric will see to this but without armour, won’t quite offer the same feeling of rugged Cotton-Cordura protection.

Tested: £20 USB rechargeable tyre pump

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September 2025. After less than 2 years the pump’s battery would
not hold its charge. I suppose that was my 20 quid’s worth.

Robbo put me on to me this unbranded 4000 mAh USB rechargeable tyre pump. You’ll find the usual clones of clones of clones on ebay from around for even less now. Tbh, I don’t know exctly what 4000 mAh means in the grand scheme of things – battery capacity probably, not power, but it worked well for me.

Mine came with a bunch of unneeded nozzles and a Samsung-type USB-C? recharge cable. You turn it on, set the pressure you want (which stays in the memory) and press the middle button. Off it goes, pumping up a G310GS rear tyre from zero to 27psi in about 5 minutes without getting hot and while being dead easy to read. There’s a torch, too. It weighs 420g. A handpump fyi, weights 100g.
Remember, with pumps ignore some notional ‘150psi!’ figure which they might manage in a small-volume pushbike tyre. It is the much less often quoted flow rate or cfm that counts. This one is probably a lot less than < 1cfm and all pumps will slow down as they pass 1 bar or so. It’s how fast they can keep pushing to a typical 25-30 psi (2 bar) that counts.

I also used it daily to top-up the slow-leaking rear tubeless tyre on my CRF. Yes, a bike-battery 12-volt powered compressor like my 2002 Best Rest Cycle Pump (left; 760g) is about the same size, weight and power, but for quick, cable-free top-ups it’s one less thing to wire-up or plug in. It vibrates less and makes less noise than my old Cycle Pump too, and recharges off mains in a couple of hours. I’d guess it would take at least 30 minutes of pumping to flatten the battery. I never got close, and of course you could do it on the move via a bike’s USB plug or off a power bank.

The elephant in the pump house is of course the durability of unbranded Chinese gadgets, but that applies to 12-volt pumps too, if not everything. I tumbled one time in front of some impressed village boys and rolled on my back which cracked the pump’s housing but it kept going fine. On a long trip I’d pack a manual back-up pushbike pump (search ‘Crank Bros’ and go from there). But for what I do in Morocco I retired the Best Rest and relied on this handy USB pump in the tank bag until it dies on me.
That day has come: two years in it’s not holding its charge. But the 20 investment has paid back. Next one will be a bit more compact

I can probably dig the pump out of the dead unit and wire it to the bike battery.

CRF300L: Ready for Morocco

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CRF300L Index page

After a summer of tinkering and trail riding, my desert-ready 300L sits in the corner of a foreign carpark that is forever Malaga, washed by fluorescent lighting, blest by the suns of Andalucia.
Ahead of me, weeks of piste logging broken up by a couple of tours to help pay for it all.

For nearly a year I’ve been scouring aerial images and OSMs while building up Google My Maps to five new regions for my next Morocco guidebook. I’m amazed how many pistes there are out there if you look closely. Many lead into areas where I’ve long thought ‘I wonder if there’s anything down there?’. Usually there is, as well as a number of new asphalt backroads not yet on any maps. I won’t be able to cover it all in the next few weeks, but I’ll leave the bike in Marrakech and come back for more later in the winter.
Although I cheated and got it trucked across Spain, once in Morocco the 300L should be the ideal bike for this job. Sure, less seat height would be nice. but it’s light, economical, nimble and should be reliable. Let the winter games commence ;-)

CRF300L: Tubeless wheels 3

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CRF300L Index page
Previously on 300L Tubeless Wheels
Tubeless Wheel Conversion Index page

Note: I rushed this job below and had a manageable slow leak from the 17, a meltdown on the 19 front arriving in hot Marrakech (fitted a tube), but the 21 I left at home has held its air fine for months. In Marrakech the mechanic re-sealed the rear in between my trips, cleaning then applying a continuous band of Puraflex. He’s doing the same to my 19 front. Summary: technique works if you take your time – days of curing – and do it right.

Note: I rushed this job

Rims are smaller but the 300L is no lower and rests the same on the side stand

It took so long to get my three new tubeless wheels made I’d forgotten quite why I did it. Oh, yes, the clear desirability of tubelessness, plus some experimentation with wheel sizes, notably a 19-er front which is 38mm less tall, 7mm wider and the same weight as the stock tubed wheel. Wheel builders seem to have long lead times, rims are not in stock, custom spokes need to be made and holiday needs to be taken. Once everything was in place and my slot came up, the actual job took a couple of days.

The Fly & Ride transporter was leaving for Malaga next week so I had to get cracking. Ideally I’ve have had a month or more to sort any sealing issues and get a feel for the new sizes.
The 19-inch wheel arrived so I got stuck in but rushed it. I didn’t wait a day for the glue to cure, then fatally used slippery 303 UV Protectant to help mount the very stiff AX41. Works great on tubed wheels but I suspected it was a bad idea for MYO tubeless. Once mounted, when I spotted 303 bubbling out of a spoke thread I knew the game was up.

With the tyre off, my glue blobs had gone soft (left, from 303 contact?) and peeled off like soggy plasters. To be fair, one problem with this used 19-inch rim was that the pre-existent spoke holes (from a KTM?) had to be reamed and re-angled to fit the Honda hub. It made for bigger gaps so I tried to seal the outside of the nipples with Stormsure where water might run in, but should have done a better job all round.
This is the gamble of marrying pre-drilled rims with non-matching hubs. Angle-wise, there can’t be that much in it, but in this case it was enough to misalign the pull of the spokes. Some wheel builders like CWC keep drilling patterns or templates to precisely drill a rim to match a given hub. This used Excel rim saved me £150 which I easily paid back with re-drilling and custom spokes. Oh well, the perils of experimentation.

Next day I needed to get my ducks in a row. Typically for me, I wasn’t repeating the proven system from the Africa Twin, but trying a new idea suggested by a mate. I spent a couple of hours in Poole sourcing components and by the time I got back, the other two wheels had arrived. After cleaning the 303 off yesterday’s mess, I started over.

**Wire brush** each spoke nipple. Didn’t really do much as rims were in good shape but worth a go. Mini drill brushes on ebay.

Rough up the rim’s black painted well with **sandpaper** then wipe it down with gas-o-lene.

**Mask** off the bead and lip with tape (did this a bit late).

Drip **runny Superglue** around the edges and into the thread hole of each nipple. Should pre-penetrate the cavities.

Spray the rims’ well with etching primer. Halfords were out so I paid £21 down the road. All for 60 secs of spraying ;-/ I presume the idea is the sealant sticks better to the primer than the glossy black rim.

Once dry, apply a blob of **Puraflex 40** to each nipple. That’s 104 blobs for 3 wheels but still < half an £8 tube, fyi.
**Individual blobs** as opposed to a continuous band like here are better for isolating leaks, as will soon be shown. But a **continuous band** ought to mean a guaranteed and complete seal. Decisions, decisions.

Let the Puraflex cure overnight, light a few candles and hope for the best.

Next day I felt fairly confident I’d sealed all three wheels but had some heavy tyre wrangling to do. Sod it I thought, why not support the local economy and let my LBS mount the tyres. They’ll have a tyre machine and a compressor with enough poke to shove the tubeless tyres onto the bead before they know what’s happening.
With 30 quid well spent, the tyres came out the shop rock hard. But would they stay that way? No, the two fronts were losing air. Casting aside seal damage during mounting, what were the chances of 104 blobs and 3 valves all being perfectly sealed? Only about 98% it seems. I turned the leaking wheels slowly through a trough of water and isolated a leaking spoke on each. I marked the spokes and whipped off the tyres, much easier now they’d been pre-flexed at the shop.

On the 19er I spotted a millimeter wide hole in the Puraflex (left) which the dab of Superglue underneath had also not sealed. I’ve not used Puraflex before – it’s not like a bathroom sealant and is PU, not silicon, based. Not sure what that means – the stuff was good and hard but had shrunk a bit as it dried. Perhaps the hole had opened up on curing, or perhaps I should have inspected each blob with a magnifying glass or given them all a pre-emptive second swipe of Puraflex once dried – that would take another day to dry. On the 21 incher I couldn’t see the hole under the corresponding spoke’s blob which underlines the idea of a second coat or even a continuous band. So I second-coated all the blobs and left it for another night. Weeks later the 21 (left at home) had lost just a couple of pounds so I’ll take that as a win.

All bolted on and first thing I noticed was the bike leant the same on the side stand, so clearly was no lower. Not that bothered as it’s one less thing to meddle with and the narrow saddle means my feet touch down OK. I guess the AX41s have high sidewalls; good for off-road and rim protection.
I went for a lovely evening ride. On the road the fresh tyres didn’t exhibit any anomalies, nor did the handling feel much different. I think it might take a more spirited ride through some bends to highlight any improvements in the steering. In Morocco I know just the spot, several in fact. The 19 is only 7mm wider than the 21, while the back 17-incher is the same as the stock IRC.

In Halfords I’d bought some Slime for later, but also carefully applied a shot of similar Tru-Tension tyre sealant (left) in the front wheel, squeezing it up into the valve set at 12 o’clock so it would dribble down along the rim’s well. This stuff contains ‘carbon fibre and graphene’ which are such cutting edge compounds I fell for it. Slime or similar have helped permanently seal other imperfect MYO TL jobbies, even though it shouldn’t be necessary if the job has been done well.
I rode back to London and then on to Fly & Ride near Gatwick. Whatever fuel I picked up in Poole, the CRF (now with 2200 miles on the clock) belted along like it was on methanol, holding an indicated 70 much of the time. But both tyres were still losing a bit of overnight air so I may have to spend a day in Morocco sorting it all out. I’ve packed Puraflex, some more Slime and a pair of tubes and levers.

Robbo, a fellow MYO TL experimenter does wonder whether Slime etc can soften rim sealants. These goops work under pressure but also centrifugally, getting flung out onto the inside of the tyre where punctures occur, but away from the hand-sealed rim well where, in my case, it’s as needed.
Much as Sixties psychedelic guru Tim Leary proposed that enlightenment and self-awareness must eventually be sought without the aid of drugs, so MYO TL should endeavour to seal without Slime. Tune in. Glue Up. Ride out.

Robbo showed me a niffy USB rechargeable 4000MAH tyre pump (above right) which topped my overnight tyres up quickly. I have my aged 12-volt Cycle Pump packed on the bike, but if I’ll be topping up regularly until they’re fixed, the 20-quid hand pump off ebay will be easy to whip out and use each morning. Let’s make rumpy pumpies while the lithium lasts.
I left my 300 in Fly & Ride’s yard alongside a cool ’72 750SS Commando. The period image on the left exists solely to highlight Norton’s questionable use of an apostrophe. It turned out the nicely set up 300 Rally also parked up belonged to another Robbo who was on my tour a year ago and by now is halfway to Dakar, or however far suits him.

So, a bit annoying to be flying out to Malaga next week to imperfect wheels, but what trip ever kicks off without some T’s uncrossed and I’s undotted? At least I have the means to fix it.

Adventure Motorcycling Handbook

The Website of the Book