My current 300L came with Acerbis handguards so I’ve decided to recycle my trusty old Aussie-made Barkbuster Storms (see ebayuk). Looking back, I realise what a great life of adventure they’ve enjoyed! Proper handguards based around a metal frame clamped to the handlebar are a no brainer. A simple fall over can snap a lever or mount. That’s never happened to me since I’ve been busting the bark.
I bought my set in 2008 for my near-new Yamaha XT660Z to research the first edition of my Morocco Overland guidebook. Turned out I needed them too when I look a piste too far up Jebel Saro (right). The 660Z was also the first bike with which I experimented with DIY tubeless tyre spoked rim sealing. I’ve got better at it since. And the XT was my first bike with efi. What a miracle that proved to on a big single; smooth running at low rpm and over 80mpg possible. Where possible, I’d never go back to a carb bike.
Yamaha XT660Z – barked!
Next bike was another near-new CRF250L I bought in Arizona. Over the years right up to my current 300L, I’ve profited from new owners’ selling on bikes with barely four figures on the clock and at a massive depreciation. The L led me on a fabulous 3200-mile clockwise lap of Southwest USA through northern California, across Nevada, into amazing Utah and back down into AZ via the ‘do-it-before-you-die’ White Rim Trail. Road and/or trail, SWUSA like being in your own road movie, a trip every rider needs to tick off.
CRF250L barking on the White Rim
The BMW XCountry was one of my periodic breaks from reliably reliable Jap machines. I used it in Morocco on my first Fly & Ride tours which have also got a lot better since. It’s a shame BMW ditched these X bikes. This one had a grand’s worth of Hyperpro suspension – on the road you’d not notice much but off road riding was believing. The X-tank too was an ingenious idea since picked up by Camel tank and an easily replicated DIY job.
Taking a dab on the BMW XCountry. Photo David W
Soon after they came out I got myself another near-new, low miler; a Honda CB500X. I barked that up along with adding prototype kit from Rally Raid who also saw potential in the twin and went on to produce a popular line of 500X-ccessories. For years my 500X page was the most viewed on this website. I used the X in Morocco on tours and for researching my Morocco 2 book.
CB500X RR barking up in the High Atlas
I went back to Arizona and this time got a KLX250 – basically like a CRF250L but for some reason never as fashionable and with better suspension out of the box. Unlike Europe, it was a carb model that ran horribly on low octane back-country fuel. I ticked off another memorable tour of the American Southwest, including a dream visit down to Baja and Mike’s Sky Ranch with Al Jesse of bevel luggage fame. Below, barking along on the amazing WRT in Utah again: ‘the best 100 miles of dirt you’ll ever ride‘ as I wrote in Bike magazine.
White Rim Trail again – Heaven’s Dirt
On that KLX ride I met a chap on a WR250R near Death Valley. I never fully realised that Yamaha’s WR250R was actually a well-spec’d but expensive trail bike, not a dirt racer like the near-identical looking 250F or 250X which put out 40hp or more and so need regular maintenance. Yamaha imported the R for a few years into the UK but they proved an overpriced dud and by 2016 when I was looking, good ones were hard to find. So I bought one off Hyperpro in Holland just before Brexit confounded the whole import process, did it up and and set off for Morocco, the Dig Tree and edition 3 of the guidebook.
WR-ing about
A 135-kilo WR-R makes the same power if not a bit more than my current 300L, but it’s located up in the stratosphere beyond 10,000rpm. As a result the bike didn’t work on well the road and left me with a back ache for months after. As a result I decided to suspend my search for the 250 unicorn. Back home I bought a smashed up XSR700 with the creamy CP2 lump. I repaired it, jacked it up a bit and added the usual protection, including my trusty busteros, now on their 7th outing. I still wish Yamaha would make a more serious 19/17 scrambler using their brilliant CP2 motor.
Barks and volcanoes
Next, I got some pals together on a supported tour to Algeria where I rode a lot in the 1980s. The tour finally gave me an excuse to buy an XR400, the all-time classic trail bike from the mid-1990s which was always too skimpy of subframe to make a serious travel bike. Sadly mine turned out to be skimpy of piston rings too and began guzzling oil, but was a joy to ride in the sands of the Grand Sud. The old Barks were needed, navigating through the tussocky oueds.
Barking at the border
The Himalayan came out and following teething problems it looked like it was worth a punt; a low saddled trail donkey that was perfect in Morocco, if not so much the getting there. We tried to reach the fabled Dig Tree again, but tyre problems saw to that. Still, at least my mate got a nice cover shot of the Bark-clad Him for the current edition of AMH.
For barking out loud!
Fermed
Barks on the continental shelf.
For the kind of riding I like to do I’m not a fan of giant ‘adv’ bikes but many are, so I thought I’d take the popular Africa Twin down to Mauritania in search of manageable pistes. ‘Hotel Sahara’ I called that trip, and the outbreak of Covid 19 put an early end to it, close to the Mauritanian border. I raced back north before Morocco locked down, but punctured the engine and had to dump the bike and fly out on the last plane. Corona went on longer than we guessed, and it took me a year and a half to recover the AT from Morocco.
AT at the Tropic of Corona
Back in London the Barks were removed for next time just before they pinched my AT. Now I feel they’ve paid for themselves many times over so it’s time to let them go. There’s easily another 15 years of protection left in them. Who ya gonna call? Bark Busters!
Dropped and bouncing the desert highway like a tumbleweed, submerged unnoticed in a Scottish burn, like the unkillable TG Hilux, my Olympus TG never stopped working.
You’ll have read it again and again: the best camera is one you can whip out and shoot off in a jiffy. On a bike, that won’t be a bulky 3/4 mirrorless or DSLR stuck in the tankbag. It’ll be a back-up P&S in a quick-access chest pocket or mounted on your belt or daypack strap. The exposure of bike riding means it wants to be weatherproofed if it’s going to last, chiefly against dust, but if you can use it in the pouring rain, so much the better.
For this waterproof ‘diving’ P&S cameras with an enclosed lens are ideal. Rain, shine or sandstorm, you never have to worry about missing a shot or ruining the camera, and the sealed lens – tiny though it is – is protected. Over the years, along with lots of blurred rubbish, I’ve grabbed many great, one-handed shots while riding with such cameras. With it tethered to you (as right) or attached via a neck strap, just pull it out, switch it on (thin or finger-chopped gloves help), Point &Shoot. Switch off and re-pocket.
I used Panasonic’s Lumix FT2 ‘wet’ cameras for 13 years or more, a simple, slim, one-handed, all-weather P&S which didn’t have to be mollycoddled. In 2011 we even used them to make a packrafting movie. Later models seemed to lose the functionality of the FT2 so as mine died or sank, I replaced them with used ebay cheapies until they got too hard to find.
Desert, pocket or sea, I’ve always liked the Lumix range’s preference for a wider 24mm-ish lens. Ridiculous zoom levels are far less important because with the tiny lens, picture quality dives. But after a really old FT1 burner unsurprisingly failed to survive a few minutes of snorkelling, I decided to try a used OlympusTG-5 (left) recommended by some paddleboarding bikers on one of my tours. The Olympus TG-5 and Panasonic FT7 (right) got rated as the best waterproof cameras you can buy but they seem expensive for what they are. And when you consider the tiny zoom lens tucked inside the inch-thick body you’d think you’re never going to get great shots, especially in low light or at full zoom.
Even then, my old FTs always needed to be tricked into slightly lower (correct) exposures by half-clicking on the sky, pulling down and composing the shot before full-clicking. It was only when I got a Lumix LX100 a few years back that I realised a: how handy an EV Comp dial (right) can be; I use it on almost every shot (usually to under-expose a bit) and b: how relatively crappy some of my FT pics were. My photos improved greatly with the LX and I used the FT less and less.
With all the essential controls – actual buttons and levers on the body, not buried in a digital menu – the compact LX was very nice to handle, but wasn’t really suited to ride-by one-handers or paddling. Like all such cameras with extending lenses, each time you turn it on the lens sucks in dust which eventually gets on the sensor and appears as marks or smudges on most images. It drove some LX owner-reviewers nuts, though it’s far from unique to this model. You can’t easily reach the sensor as you can on a mirrorless camera, even if the marks can easily be erased in iPhoto. But here’s a great trick: zoom in and out as you hoover the lens via a bottle (left). It really works.
After a few years of mostly desert trips my LX dials got grittier and grittier, and the deployment of the lens and the zoom got slower and slower. Eventually, it needed a tug to extend fully and a push to retract. The 2018 LX100 II got some improvements, but sadly weather-sealing wasn’t one of them, so I flogged my crunchy LX before it seized completely and bought a slightly larger but weather-sealedSony 6300 mirrorless (here’s a great list of similar cameras) which, with a 24-105 Zeiss lens I’ve started using more and more. But it’s not pocketable, is heavy at 800g with the tele, and that lens is not sealed so dust still gets to the sensor every few days in the desert. The great thing is, it’s easy to remove with the lens removed.
Back to the TG-5. Watching one of the vids below I learned an unmarked control dial in the same, top-right position can work as an EV Comp dial. That alone is worth the price of the camera. No more point to the sky to expose correctly. Having even been inspired to RTFM, I now realise the TG-5 is actually much closer in quality to the LX than I realised, not least in terms of the staggering number of things it can do – most of which go way over my head.
For riding, you can easily screw on a clear filter over the lens window to stop it getting scratched. It may not show up on photos, but a filter is easily wiped by a cuff or replaced for a few quid. To mount it you need the Olympus CLA-T01 adapter (£20; or a £6 JJC knock-off; right) to which you then screw in a regular 40.5mm filter: UV, polarised, whatever (left). Add a piece of screen guard over the LCD and the Olympus Tough can now be treated Olympus Rough, with both screen guard and UV filter being inexpensively replaceable.
Note: towards the end of my TG’s life I dispensed with the 40-mm filter to make it slimmer in the pocket. Within a few months the stock built-in lens cover glass/plastic (left) had become scratched to the point of ruining pictures and finally finished off the still-working camera for me. Moral: fit a quality UV lens filter; the stock cover is not up to it.
I used the TG for a month in Morocco on my Himalayan and again in November loved the Mr-Whippy-like accessibility. It too has a wide 24mm so you know you’ll shoot something, and closing the EV Comp down to -0.7 means great exposures. On very bright days -1.
It also has an easy to use custom self-timer, a blessing for us adventure-riding singletons. Normally I’ve had to settle for 3-shots-at-10 seconds, or simply shoot video and extract a cruddy still or a more complicated 4k. On the TG you press the sequential shooting dial and set: delay time, # of frames and shooting interval. With this I was able to grab some of the key riding shots which magazines require. (Even my Sony hasn’t got as good timer options.) At 4000px width resolution, that’s enough for a magazine full pager. And when shooting others, the 20fps burst speed is staggering. And all this without having to fuss about knocking the lens, dropping the camera or crap getting in it.
The battery is a slim 1270Ah which still did masses of shots – a week or more – and can be charged in the camera which means one less thing to carry. But for 20 quid I bought 3 clone batteries plus a travel-friendly USB- (right) charger, which will work off a laptop, battery pack, USB wall plug or a solar panel. I’ve hardly used them. I always use a tether while riding, but one time in Morocco the chunky red Olympus strap unknowingly came undone just as I chose to let it go… It should have dangled from my wrist but instead fell on the road and tumbled along. I swung back expecting the worst but, apart from a small hole bashed through in one corner, it still worked fine! Its snorkelling days may be over before they began, but that was amazing. A bit of duct tape kept the dust out of the hole. Focus remained sharp. Another time it quietly fell out of my pocket while sat on a slatted footbridge in Knoydart and dropped 10 feet into a stream while I watched my stove boil. I fished it out and removed the card and batt but slowly the functions died off as water seeped through and I thought that was it. Back home I bought another immediately but before that even arrived the dunked TG had dried out and recovered fully! Stick that in your tractor shed, Jeremy Clarkson!
Once I’d have said GPS position, elevation and a compass in a camera were gimmicks. Now I’d admit they add some redundancy when a proper GPS unit goes flat. The Olympus accesses this data with a simple press of the Info button with the camera off (left). Up it comes for 10 secs, north by northwest. The TG-5 also takes great pictures.
Easy to turn on and zoom one-handed EV Comp dial in the usual position Battery charges in the camera Spare 3rd-party batteries from £4; USB charger from £8 Good hand grip Rated at 15m of water so ought to survive some splashes Slim and light (260g with chunky wrist strap) GPS, elevation, compass, and even a tracking app, with the camera off Easy to access and configure custom self-timer Red; easy to find on the river bed or by the roadside Now used from £150
A baffling new menu to master – sigh LCD text is a bit small Wrist strap undoes itself in the wind Stock lens cover is scratch prone Annoying ‘OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA’ meta data needs to be manually removed Discontinued by Olympus – current TG6 at 400 quid.
In a line: Didn’t miss a beat over a month; no one was more surprised than me.
• At £4000, with the stock equipment it’s a bargain
• Low, 800mm seat – at last a travel bike not limited to tall people
• Enfield build quality stood up to it
• Efi motor pulled smoothly up to 3000m (nearly 10,000′)
• MichelinAnakee Wilds (run tubeless) – great do-it-all tyres
• Low CoG and 21-″ front make it agile on the dirt
• Rear YSS shock showed up the rather harsh forks
• Yes it’s 190kg, but road and trail, it carries it well
• Subframe easily sturdy enough for RTW load carrying
• Economy went up and up: averaged 78 mpg (65 US; 27.6kpl; 3.62L/100k)
• 400km range from the 15-litre tank – about 250 miles
• Weak front brake on the road (fitting sintered pads is a fix)
• As a result, front ABS is a bit docile
• Stock seat foam way too mushy for my bulk
• Tubliss core failed on the front; replaced with inner tube
• Centre stand hangs low – but can be raised
• Valves need checking every 3000 miles (according to manual)
• Small digit dash data hard to read at a glance
• Compass always out
• Head bearings notchy at 4000 miles, despite regressing @ 1200 (replaced on warranty @ 5000)
Review
Following a test ride, I bought my Himalayan just under 1000 miles old. Following the make-over detailed here (summarised in the image below) I picked it up in southern Spain with 1300 miles on the clock. So, like many of my crudely adapted project bikes, I’d barely ridden the thing or tested the modifications. With a Royal Enfield this did feel a bit more of a gamble than usual and, on collection near Malaga I was all prepared for the worst.
Far from it. The Him started on the button, ticked-over like a diesel and after the ferry crossing and sailing the usual gale down the Atlantic coast, I arrived at a cushy hilltop lodge out of Asilah feeling moderately hopeful, while still braced for a kick in the nuts somewhere down the road.
Riding an untried, near-new machine, saddled with Enfield’s possibly outdated reputation led to stressful days, waiting for something to play up, either with the bike or with my mods. But riding my first piste: the lovely Assif Melloul gorge route out of Anergui inspired confidence. This was a great trail bike!
Engine and transmission
Much is made of the 410LS’s meagre 24hp because we’re so used to bikes delivering over 100hp per litre. Don’t forget Honda’s CRF450L makes about the same. It’s when you combine it with the strapping 190-kilo wet weight you’d think it can’t possibly work. Yet it does – and in a way that you won’t find on a similar powered and much lighter 250 trail bike like the WR250R, KLX250S or CRF250L which I’ve also used in recent years, as well as a 310GS. I prefer riding the REH to all of them.
It must be down to the way the long-stroke, low compression, two-valve motor delivers it’s modest power, like something from the apogee of Brit biking half a century ago, but without a millstone for a flywheel it revs more freely. The Himalayan may have the power of a CRF250L, but it has the torque of an XR400: 32Nm at 4250rpm (1150 lower than the XR). Combined with counter balancer and unexpected refinement, despite wide gearing it’s a very satisfying bike to ride. It won’t hurl you from bend to bend, it just chugs along steadily but without the sensation that you’re missing out or grossly under-powered. The key is to maintain smooth momentum which is very much the riding style I aspire to. It’s an easy bike to enjoy on the empty roads and even emptier trails of southern Morocco. Duelling with congested traffic or tackling busy alpine passes may not be such fun.
Until the end of my trip – by which time the valves were technically well overdue for adjustment – it started on the button without the ‘choke’, ticked over once warmed up (probably needs adjustment too) and fuelled cleanly up to 5000rpm and nearly 10,000 feet (3000m). A lot of it must be down to accepting the Himalayan for what it is, but there was never a moment on my ride when I thought ‘FFS! I wish this thing had more poke’. I tried some super grade fuel in Morocco but didn’t notice the difference that some claim (I know in the US fuel octane varies widely). However, once back on Spanish fuel, it did seem faster and smoother, or maybe I was just rushing for the finish line.
One thing the Trail Tech temperature sensor did highlight was how hot the engine runs – up to 240°C at higher revs with a load on. Note I say ‘hot’, not over-heating. On my bike it’s reading from the spark plug, about as hot as it gets in there. Running down hill it might drop to 160°C or so. Either way, especially with an air-cooled motor, it’s good to know how hard the engine is working an when it may be time to back off. Oil consumption was zero up to a pre-emptive oil change at 3000 miles. Straight 50W Moroccan was all they had (a bit thicker; better for hot weather) and I had the feeling consumption increased briefly after that, maybe 200ml in 2000 miles, but then it stopped.
The gearbox is a lot less clunky than some. Originally, I thought first gear would be too tall off road (a common complaint) but, helped by the low-down torque, it’s well matched to the Himalayan’s modest trail biking abilities which are governed mainly by its weight. One time in deep soft sand, the gearing was too tall to move the bike forward – the chain jumped on the front sprocket instead (see below). You can change up without, but I can’t break the habit of using the clutch when changing gear.
The chain had a hard time in Morocco: conditions too gritty to lube most of the time. On longer road stretches I hand-lubed with a toothbrush from small bottle of Tutoro oil. As a result I adjusted it three times in 4000 miles – more than normal, even for a stock chain. Again, you have to assume the stock chain was chosen for its price, not quality, but with a bit more care and lube it should last 8000 miles.
Suspension
Normally the suspension is where a budget bike shows its limits once pushed on rough roads, with heavy loads, or on the dirt. Plus I tend to leave my tyres at road pressures unless absolutely necessary, so as a result off-road the my suspension can feel a little harsher than it could be.
On the rear there’s only preload adjustment and nothing on the front, but the Himalayan surprised me with firm suspension. Before I realised this I’d fitted some inexpensive fork preload caps, (set at zero), and a YSS shock that had 1cm of length adjustment and 35 clicks of rebound damping. I had the YSS fitted on the settings out of the box (more here) which worked fine once loaded up and on the dirt. At one point in Morocco I screwed the rebound in 4 clicks (more rebound?) but can’t say I noticed any difference.
Overall, I suspect the stock shock (inset above) would have been OK, but you have to assume the YSS must be an improvement because there’s more adjustment and it’s red. It certainly felt better than a twice-as-expensive Wilbers on the XSR last year. Over the trip it loosened up a bit and bottomed out maybe once.
If anything the front forks are now shown up by the YSS. YSS do offer a fork kit but in the UK it’s £330 (though it seems you can buy springs plus the emulators for half that). Bottom line: no great need to meddle with the stock suspension for normal riding.
Economy
It seems that even at a 1300 miles the air-cooled REH was still running in. As I added the miles the economy improved, eventually averaging 78.7mpg (27.8kpl; 65US). With the 15-litre tank that’s a potential range of just over 400km. Riding with some 310GSs for a week, my mpg was near identical to the more powerful and lighter BMWs. The gauge on the tank is pessimistic and the warning light plus a trip reset comes on with a good 100km left. Hot, cold, high, low the fueling itself was glitch-free. Fuel consumption data here.
Comfort
Thanks to a counter-balanced and non-ginormous capacity, the REH is very smooth for a single. I did feel some tingling in my right hand after hours at the bars which could have been from over-gripping a heavy throttle. I’d have used my throttle handrest had I remembered it.
One of the best things about the Himalayan is the low seat of 800mm or 31.5 inches. At 6′ 1″, it’s actually a bit too low for me, especially once my mass sinks down through the soft foam, but at last there’s a travel bike which isn’t limited to tall people, while still having useful ground clearance. I needed more height with firmer foam, inexpensively achieved with a couple of 20mm slabs under a Cool Cover. It enabled 500-km days with few stops, but on rough tracks still gave soreness, probably because I wasn’t standing up or letting the tyres down enough. I also thought the seat could do with levelling out to stop me sliding forward on the aerated Cool Cover. My seat bodge was not a night-and-day transformation, but by the end of my trip it didn’t cause any discomfort over long days on the road. I’m less convinced now that I need to improve it some more.
The 50mmbar risers managed to not snag the screen on full lock and nearly reduced my stooping when standing up – another inch would have done it. I might have cured that stoop by removing the footrestrubbers, but to be honest I liked the comfort when standing (in ordinary slip-on boots). Otherwise, for wet conditions, consider fitting wider footrests if you’re off-roading. I hear that DR650 pegs nearly fit.
Some say it will clock 80 but I set myself a self-imposed cruising limit of around 65mph (where possible). At this speed the screen did a pretty good job, even with my wind-catching Bell Moto III helmet. Others claim the mirrors create turbulence and are better moved or changed. I suppose this is possible but it’s a new one on me. Let’s face it: it’s a motorbike out in the wind, not a space capsule. Some turbulence will be evident.
On the dirt
The Him took to the dirt so naturally, I didn’t even notice it at first. The key attributes must be the Michelin tyres, low seat and firm suspension. The 21-inch front wheel must help too, as does the torquey motor, getting round the wide gearing. And the otherwise ordinary brakes are just right on the dirt.
The Him is a plodder, but then so am I. You won’t be pulling wheelies, launching of jumps or bouncing off berms. For that the bike is just too heavy and low-powered. It’s a travel bike, not a dirt bike and in all the miles I never ever had a sketchy moment on the dirt, nor wished the bike was something else.
I reached the Himalayan’s limit in the sandy gorge on Route MW6/7 in Western Sahara – same place I’d struggled with the WR two years earlier. This time I traced a better route along the valley but the flooded waterhole was now a dry mass of tracks in which the Himalayan would bog down for sure. I aired down, pushed around the side in first but stopped once I the chain jumped on the front sprocket from the strain: the torque had got the better of the weight and tall gearing. The Himalayan doesn’t have the agility or power to handle deep soft sand – for that you want an unloaded KTM 450.
Durability and problems It’s a short list. Apart from what’s below, nothing broke or even came loose, but I’ve not seen the bike since I left it at Malaga. A closer inspection may reveal more.
Stock bike
• Head bearings got notchy by 4000 miles, despite regreasing
• Chain needed adjustment every 1000 miles
• Exhaust guards dented
My mods
• Tubliss core leaked around valve stem, then packed up
• Michelin TPMS packed up – twice
Summary
The Himalayan is a rare type of all-road travel bike, one that not only looks fit for the job as many adv bikes do – but one that’s actually equipped for it and performs well, too. You might not think 24hp and 190 kilos (420 lbs) adds up, and for some it won’t. But for your £4000 or $4500 you get a lot of kit that’s no found on similar bikes. Don’t dismiss it as a shoddily assembled Asian cheapie or anything to do with the Bullets. The bike has caught on and in western markets the demand for the BS4 has outstripped importers’ expectations. If you’re curious like I was, try one. You might also be surprised.
The new OS22 pannier from Kriega is the mini version of their OS32 I tried on a WR250 a couple of years back. The OS22 has the same proportions up-down, left-right but is 40mm thinner, reducing each bag’s capacity by 10 litres. It also retains the same uabrasion resistant Hypalon casing on a 1000D Cordura shell impreganted with aramid webbing to resist slash and grabs. An alloy block allows you to wrap a cable lock round the bag for added security. Each bag folds out to a formed box shape, costs £215 and weighs a hefty but durable 2.6kg. The OS22s just happened to be ideal for my Himalayan, destined for a similar trip through the Atlas and on into the deep south of Morocco.
• Slim
• Rugged, quality construction
• Easy removal from plate, or just lift out the liners
• Lots of exterior tabs for expandability or securing the bags
• Option to not use platform
• Expensive
Most riders don’t seem too bothered, but I like a bike to be as slim as possible and ideally never wider than the bars. Whether splitting city traffic, riding against the wind, squeezing through a hotel door and not least, teetering along a narrow and gnarly mountain track with a big drop to one side – in all cases excessive width holds you back. Keeping away from the edge of a drop is instinctive and increases the margin of error, but stray too close to a cliff face opposite and you risk snagging over-wide panniers on a rock, losing your balance, over-correcting and taking a dive, just like that viral bike-in-a-boat video of a few years ago (below).
High and fat silencers can force racks to be annoyingly wide (especially when attempting to be needlessly symmetrical from the rear). Soft or hard, add a plain, box-shaped pannier and the bike can be half as wide as it is long, like the F650GS fitted with Enduristan Monsoons (right), or my all time favourite, the GS500 on the left. On a travel bike, I feel panniers are best when ‘suitcase’ shaped: longer front-to-back than top-to-bottom and no more than a hand’s span wide. This helps centralise the weight but is an unpopular format because, presumably, it interferes with pillion riders. Many aftermarket racks don’t help either, being set too far back for optimal weight centralisation, as mentioned in this old post.
With Kriega OS panniers, an HDPE plate or ‘platform’ in Kriegaspeak (left) can be bolted to a rack. You may think it just adds weight and expense. Both true, but a plate is actually a smart way to fit any rack. HDPE (think: kitchen chopping board) is great stuff, too: light, rigid and dead easy to drill or even just poke with a red-hot skewer. The Kriega plate and its adapter clamps have been designed to fit just about any round-tube, 18mm/¾” rack and offer a broad, grippy surface for the hypalon-backed OS bag to cinch up against. Making your own fitting to fatted or square tubed racks would be easy enough. The Kriega OS bags use a cunning anchor on and strap-up system to make a very secure fitting while enabling easy fitting or removal – a key element when on the long road. Strapping the hypalon-backed bag to the grippy plate surface spreads loads over a broad area too, meaning no failure-prone stress points.
Like the 32s, the OS22s can be hooked on and lashed down to the Kriega HDPE platform or plate (see above). It’s a very solid off-road-proof mounting system which I also found dead easy to use. But this time round, on the Himalayan I chose to use the 22s as plain throwovers, like Adventure Spec’s Magadans, Doing it this way meant that once the bags were lashed down securely to the bike, I found it less hassle to simply remove the waterproof, velcro-rimmed white liner bags to carry stuff indoors when not camping, rather than unrigging the whole bag. As such, a couple of shopping bag handles wouldn’t have gone amiss on the liner bags. A rack is still needed to constrain any swinging and shuffling. I initially bought an Enfield rack from India but despite being cheap, I sold it unopened once I saw how heavy it was; it’s more suited to alloy cases. All I needed was something to support the bags, so Simon made me what I call C-racks (below) in one-inch tube. They’re only mounted at each end and are unbraced against so could bend in a heavy crash, but I tend not to do that so much these days.
Adjusting the strap length for the throwovers is easily done. A horizontal strap round the bag and rack kept it located and another (yellow) strap from the rear rack stopped the bags sliding forward. There are plenty of attachment points all over the outer bags to refine your strapping set up if not using the platforms, or of course to add additional Kriega bags.
It all worked well for me once I pinned down the strapping arrangement. Access was as simple as undoing or just loosening the two big hook straps then unclipping the side cinch-down clips. I never got to test the bags in prolonged rain, not did I test the rugged hypalon panels by sliding down the road. My load in the bags was about 15kg overall. The RHS pipe-side pannier was hitched high enough to avoid the silencer, but just in case, I had a long jubilee clip to attach some sort of metal heat guard round the pipe, had it been necessary.
Lomo Crash Bar Bags
Forty four litres may not sound enough for a month-long trip involving camping, but the Himalayan benefits from tank racks which are ideal for adding a pair of small bags like the tough, 7-litre PVC Lomos(£40 a pair). In this position they’re easy to access from the saddle, and up to a point protect your knees from an oncoming downpour or chilly wind. They also help give the bike a soft landing when you don’t quite swing your leg high enough while getting on or off. Access is roll top with clip down sides, like the Kriegas. Two additional horizontal straps fix or pull the bags in, but I didn’t use them.
The combination of Lomo and Kriega gave me a massive capacity of 58 litres and meant no bag was ever jammed packed and I needed no bulky tailpack other than the trusty old Touratech zip pouch I’ve reused over the years from bike to bike. Add the small Giant Loop tank bag and my Himalayan always had room to spare. One drawback with several bags hanging all around the bike means there’s more to empty and take in to a hotel of an evening. But on the road having the load spread evenly across the bike is better for access and weight distribution.
The Kriega and Lomo bags were supplied free for testing.
After problems with the original 2019 kits (explained below), Fit2Go (who sold the Michelin branded product) updated their TPMS software for 2020. They also redesigned the magnetic mounting following negative reviews on amazon. In 4000 miles of riding on and off road, the magnetic fitting wasn’t a problem for me. I tried the seemingly identical Mk2 version in March 2020. See pros and cons, below.
Update October 2021: The UK Michelin link is here but the Fit2Go page is a 404 so it seems this product has been discontinued following some scathing users’ reviews. You can still buy the remaining stock in some UK outlets for the full £80, and maybe elsewhere.
Where: Spain and Morocco 2019 and again in 2020 and 2021
Cost: £80 (kits suppled free by Michelin for review)
Weight: Negligible
In a line: Once you discover TPMS there’s no going back. (More here)
What they said Introducing our first tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS) for motorcycles, mopeds, scooters and all two-wheel modes of transport – bringing new levels of safety to riders for whom tyre condition is paramount. MICHELIN TPMS – Bike detects a tyre in distress through loss of pressure, fast leakage or an increase in temperature – often the sign of an impending blowout. Its compact display flashes as brightly as a mobile phone torch if it detects an issue, plus identifies whether it is the front or rear tyre affected. Our patented solution can be fitted in less than two minutes, bringing the same direct TPMS technology already proven in the passenger car and van markets to two-wheels for the first time.
This wireless system needs no programming and features a compact LCD screen which fits into a magnetic mount placed on a prominent part of the bike. The fully sealed and buttonless device can be quickly removed for security and is small enough to fit in a pocket. The display offers a battery life of up to three months, with the USB-powered inductive charger making it simple to top-up. Once fitted, the unit displays the pressure of both tyres, in either psi or bar, toggling between the front and rear at set intervals. Riders will see a low-pressure warning if a tyre becomes under-inflated by 15%, an enhanced alert when the pressure either drops by 25%, or if over-inflated by 35% or more. There are also alerts for high tyre temperatures or fast leakage (at least 2 psi per minute).
What I think:
• Real-time tyre pressure data at last • USB rechargeable – should last a couple of months • No hard-wiring so fits in a couple of minutes • Magnetic retaining dish secure off road • Reads bar or psi • Rated up to 7.5 bar (100psi+) • Various warning displays • Mk2 2020 kit paired up fast and worked seamlessly
• In 2019 original and replacement units played up after a few days (see below) • Doesn’t live-read from a static start (e.g.: overnight). Wheels need to turn first • Expensive at £80, but there are both less elegant kits and pricier kits out there • Green/yellow on black background hard to read unless under your nose • Valve-cap lock-nuts complicate tool-free topping up of air • The valve caps can be too shallow (not enough threads to grip the valve body) • On the 2020 version the F&R display interval was too slow for a quick glance
Review There are some metrics I like to know while riding: speed, engine temperature, speed, fuel level are the obvious ones. Now wireless technology has enabled inexpensive TPMS kits to display live tyre pressure readings, too. This is something that’s really useful to.
I only realised how much I missed my Michelin TPMS kits once they both packed up mysteriously after a few days in Morocco. A few days later I hit Tubliss tyre troubles in the middle of the desert. Luckily I wasn’t alone, there was a road 25kms back, and I was able to ride on the flat tyre slowly for hours to the coast and fit an inner tube. But being forewarned of low pressures or other tyre anomalies is what TPMS is all about. I headed back north and a day or two later the tube slow punctured, then went suddenly after a dirt road short-cut pushed it over the edge. This time I couldn’t ride the collapsed tyre ten feet. Cue more laborious roadside repairs. This is why we like tubeless. Because you never, ever get just a single puncture, I’d wisely bought a spare tube and was back on the road in 40 sweaty minutes. But especially with a slow puncture, with a TPMS I’d have been aware of it much earlier.
Michelin TPMS The Michelin kit was made by Fit2Go TPMS, an official global licensee of Michelin. It was composed of two over-sized valve caps marked F and R. You screw them on finger tight to the appropriate wheel and lock them off with a valve stem nut (yellow tool and nuts supplied; left). The round display module sits in a stick-on magnetic dish fitted wherever suits your eyeline and an appropriate surface. Putting the module in the dish activates the display: usually battery level (said to last for 3 months) plus front and rear pressures which flash up alternatively every few seconds. You may not get a pressure reading until the wheels are turning. There are no buttons or switches; place the module in and out of the dish three times and the display changes between bar and psi, though it may take a few minutes to read.
Playing up The first kit I had was fully charged by me, but on fitting in Spain took many hours of riding to pair up and show pressure readings. That would be inconvenient if you regularly removed the module to save it getting pinched. Once things worked, I left it in place. (As I was only out for a month, I’d not brought the USB recharge dish.) Fitted flat like a plate on a table, it didn’t budge on rough tracks but was hard to read at a glance; at an angle like the bike’s clocks would be better, and probably still secure. Or there’s always the tank bag. I’d also find black digits on a light background easier to read – like my Trail Tech temperature gauge, below right. Ten days in, after briefly removing it, the module went blank. A replacement kit was brought out to Morocco, appeared to show a nearly full charge, and this time paired up in seconds and flipped to psi with no bother. But it also went blank after just five days. Neither unit was more than half discharged. I decided to put the original unit into the USB recharging dish from the replacement kit on the off chance, and it responded by charging from ¾ full (as it had been when it went blank). After just half an hour it was fully charged. Back on the bike it showed pressures in the original bar, and on changing to my preferred psi, displayed that too after about 20 minutes of being blank. This suggests the display modules might discharge in a few days rather than three months, but while still indicating they’re more than half charged. Popping it in the recharge dish revives it, but it can be slow to pair up. This discourages you from removing it, if it indeed discharges when immobile. The blurb doesn’t advise removing it when not riding, but if it does discharge unused, it’s not reflected in the battery level status display.
Especially when travelling in the AMZ where – as I found – tyre troubles can leave you up the creek, knowing the state of your tyre pressures is less a convenience and more an important safety measure. Now, when I could swear I have a puncture, I glance at the TPMS and relax; it’s just the road surface and my paranoia. Very reassuring. Best of all, the easily fitted and recharged Michelin TPMS kit now makes maintaining your tyres at optimal levels a whole lot easier. But because my two kits seem to play up, I’d wait a bit before buying one. They sort of work, but not as they should. I sent both kits back to Fit2Go for analysis and will update this review with any news.
Updated kit – 2020
Fit2Go sent me their revised kit which I used on my Africa Twin ride in Morocco in March 2020. The kit was welcome as again, I’d DIY converted my rear tyre to tubeless and so wanted to keep tabs on pressures. (The wheel lost 20% over a few days – fixed by adding Slime). The kit looks identical but no problems at all this time. Without making an angle bracket, I couldn’t find a secure and legible position on my AT (red arrows, left inset below) so put the display and dish inside the clear lid of my tank bag (below right). The opaque vinyl made it hard to read easily but there was no danger of it falling off. Had that ride not ended prematurely I’d have worked out some legible-angle bracket in the cockpit or stuck the dish on top of the tank bag.
The only complaint is that the display intervals seem slower than before: 10 seconds on Front then 10 on the Rear. It means you need several glances to ascertain both pressures, whereas a higher flip-count might mean you catch both in one glance. I still think the display could be brighter, too. Other than that and the high price (which dropped for a while), all good.
Update 2021 I got my AT running again in October 2021 and needed to recharge the TPMS unit which after 18 months would have been flat. It recharged in less than two hours. But when it came to topping up the tyres after 20 months, I had to faff about with that cheap valve cap locknut removal tool, and then found the rear TPMS valve cap wouldn’t screw on to the rear tyre’s valve body. I remember having this problem last time I topped up in Spain, February 2020. It felt like the TPMS valve cap was too shallow: there were not enough threads to bite onto the tubeless tyre valve before the pin in the cap pressed on the tyre valve stem and let the air out. It could be a problem with whatever TL valve I have on my tyre. In Spain I’d managed to over-inflate the tyre and then cram the cap on before too much air escaped. This time in baking hot Marrakech, I didn’t have the patience to re-learn the knack and gave up on re-fitting the TPMS. But travelling alone on road and trail over the next week, I sure did miss not knowing what my tyre pressures were doing, just as I’d miss not knowing what my fuel level or engine temperature were. I’m not finished with TPMS yet: in a few weeks I may give it another go.
Easy to turn on and zoom one-handed
A baffling new menu to master – sigh
Adventure Motorcycling Handbook 