CRF300L: tubeless wheels 1

CRF300L Index page
Tubeless Wheel Conversion index page

Thinking of going tubeless on your CRF300L or Rally? This page might be a good read.

Since my 2008 XT660Z I’ve been converting nearly every project bike with spoked wheels to run tubeless tyres, using various methods. The main reason: ease of puncture repairs on a hot day in the middle of nowhere (like left, Mali), let alone the added bulk of tubes and levers. Bombing around outback Morocco isn’t always like a day ride on the TET with your chums.

I want the same for my 300L which I might keep for longer than normal. One annoyance is that even the rear 18 x 2.15 wheel (right) is not an MT type rim needed for a secure tubeless tyre seal. Up front, Jap OEM 21s are rarely MT, so it means new wheels all round.

Third one along is ‘drop centre’ MT type with the all-important raised lips suited to TL tyres.

In my CRF TL MT quest I learned that ‘250cc’ bike wheel widths – typically 21 x 1.60 and 18 x 2.15 – are below the size where MT rims are commonly offered, especially once you factor in the Honda’s spoke count of 32 rear / 36 front. I did the usual scan on ebay looking for used rims that might work, but for the rear couldn’t find anything in MT with the width and spoke numbers needed.

Buying used rims
For the front in 19 inch (see below) I found a couple of MT contenders at 2.50 wide with the right spoke count (holes) and diameter, but buying used you also might need to consider the drilling pattern in the rim. The angle that holes are drilled through a spoked rim relates to the line of a spoke hooking up to a hub. There must be some leeway as the nipple can pivot in its seat/socket and new rims are sold drilled with no bike model designation but, broadly speaking, a rim drilled for a big bike twin-disc hub won’t match the dinky 300L’s hub. So, on top of the cost of the hubs, that leaves the following choices:

Slightly wider new Excel front 21 x 2.15 rim in MT, £170
Or a new wide Excel 19 x 2.50 MT front. £220
Same as above, used from £70
A rear Excel 17 x 2.50 32H MT with a wider adv tyre choice than stock 18″. £220
Wheelbuilding a the above rims onto new Honda hubs – £130+ each
Optional Airtight sealing at CWC, £125 a wheel

That will mean slightly bigger tyres all round, but they’ll wear slower and lightness is regained by ditching tubes (I’ve already junked the rim lock). A mate who regularly experiments with his TTR wheels tells me a stock front 21 with tube weighs the same 10kg as an 18er in tubeless (left). And on a CRF there’s just enough clearance in the swingarm for fatter 130 rear tyre*. He tells me offsetting the rim away from a chain by 5mm is actually a thing in wheel building and says you won’t notice the slight wheel misalignment.

Shopping
A used 300L wheel goes online for over 400 quid from breakers – all to dismantle just for the hub. Best UK price I could find for a OEM rear hub was over 200 quid. Meanwhile on ebay, outlets from Thailand (left; where 300s are made) sell front and rear hub combos for £270 plus about £55 tax.

So I returned to Partzilla in the US who I used while repairing my XSR700 a couple of years back. US-sourced Jap OEM parts with shipping and UK tax can still be up to half the cost of UK, EU and even Thai prices, depending on the item.

New hubs come assembled, no need to buy bearing and collars. Drat!

OEM rear hub $120; front hub $60. Add another $80 of collars, bearings and seals (actually not needed; the hubs came fully assembled) + $80 air freight and it came in at £340 taxed on my doormat 10 days later, with a spare air filter for luck. So that’s the same as Thai hub combos but with a full set of spare bearings and an air filter for free. Mistakenly buying the bearings and collars was an annoyance; I assumed the OEM hubs were bare. But wheel bearings are consumables so it’s not a total waste. Fyi; CRF250L 2017-20 hubs are the same; there might be more chance of finding those used from a breakers.

That all potentially comes in at around £1200 for a tubeless, Airtight wheelset ready to roll on new tyres. A lot of money to save on a sweaty puncture repair. I could save £250 by laboriously sealing myself, as I successfully did on the AT (left). This DIY method is better than proprietary Airtight or BARTubeless smotherings, in that individual leaks can be isolated and repaired. I might get 500 quid for my stock wheels if I’m lucky. I’m not sure there’s a cheaper way of doing it.

Rally Raid UK do sell an Asian-built low wheel 17/19 wheelset for just £600. RR spell out the low-wheel rationale here, and I agree with what they say. But even though the front 19er is a slim 2.15, neither wheel is MT type. John at Rally Raid runs a mousse on the front of his 300L low wheeler. I’m not fully convinced by mousses (see below); or should I say tubeless is more suited to road speeds; it’s no big drama to fix when flat and pressures can be varied if needed.

I’d actually be interested in a low wheel 300L as a CRF has ground clearance to spare and a chunky bashplate when it hasn’t. I’d also be interested to try a do-it-all 19 on the front as the light 300L wanders about a bit on the road and, like many 21-inch bikes, won’t cut through road turns so sharply. A 19er would feel more planted on asphalt, mostly down to a fatter and heavier tyre than claimed reduced rotational forces from a smaller diameter. On an agile bike and the sorts of easy trails I ride, I can live without a 21 incher.

To go full tubeless on 19 means getting a 19 X 2.50 MT Excel rim. The 2.50 width would limit the fitting of slimmer 19 inch tyres which I’d prefer, but puncture-wise the bike would be bombproof.

Mousse-tubeless combo?
I had a thought: seal up the non-MT Rally Raid rims then stick a mousse in there for back-up, even at £120 + fitting aggro, added weight and lube issues.
That way I could run normal 25psi road pressures in the tiny air space which is way above a typical 15psi mousse rating, The mousse would keep the tyre bead on the rim in the event of a flat, like they’re supposed to do. Meanwhile, you’d hope at 25psi and a typically moderate 60mph max cruise on a 300L, there’d be less tyre flex to heat up and degrade a mousse. Of course that assumes cool conditions and light payloads.
Part of the reason mousses get hot, soften and crumble or even explode, is that they’re not psi rated for road riding. On the Dakar Rally they used to get changed every day (maybe still do). Low low psi in a tyre means much more heat at higher speeds as the carcass flexes and unflexes on each wheel revolution (the same reason we get hot exercising; muscles flexing). Higher pressures from a tubeless sealed wheel might limit flex, especially on a light and lightly loaded bike.

I could even glue the tyre in place for good measure. I know TL pushbikes use some bead breakable (non-permanent) glue and there is one for cars with rusty wheel too (right). Of course cars have TL wheels with bead-seating lips and I’m pretty sure TL pushbike rims have some sort of sealing lips too. Without that lip to retain the tyre bead, back-up from a mousse is important.
This TL/mousse/[glue] idea seems a better idea than just shoving a lubed-up mousse in there and hoping it will survive a long road stretch on a hot day. As always, if it plays up, just stick tubes in there and anyway, I rarely drop pressures below the low 20s on stony Moroccan trails. I prefer to get traction from a suitable tread pattern, not ultra-low psi which is more suited to competitive events, not travelling.
But thinking this mousse and tubeless idea over, it’s all a bit far-fetched for travelling when added to DIY rim sealing. Too many variables. Better to keep it simple stick with a tried and tested tubeless (DIY or proprietary) for what I do. Less weight, less expense, no mounting and lube aggro.

* Fyi: the CRF’s skinny stock 120/80 rear IRC is 117mm wide and has 22mm clearance on the chain guard side, over 30mm on the other side and about the same up to the front of the swingarm shock guard. So add 22mm each side means anything up to 160mm wide ought to fit and which sounds loads.
Then again, on the left JMo fitted a 130/80×17 Bridgestone AX41 on her 300L DIY converted to TL with not much room to spare. 130 sounds fine; the lighter the better for a measly 28hp to turn.

CRF300L: Midsummer ride: saddle, screen & mpg

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Project 300L Index Page

You probably know that feeling at the end of a long day’s ride in the UK. You’re tired and butt-sore but the bike is warmed right through and after hours in the saddle you’re in the zone and fully at one with the machine, darting through roundabouts with a flick of the hips and tuned in to the hazards around you.

I left Dorset for the 130-mile ride to the ABR bike show armed for discomfort and a low average speed. The two-lane A350 covers half the ride and there was less than ten miles of dual carriageway on the whole run. Instead it was old-time motoring with frequent roundabouts, occasional traffic lights and small town bypasses, plus the odd individual who thought it best to keep under 40 just in case. Fine by me on a slow bike. With the 300L’s limited ability for decisive overtakes, I sat back and watched the mid-summer verdure inch by and the mpg creep up to over 100.

In just a few years the ABR Festival has deservedly become a hugely popular event. And as a regular speaker there, it’s also one of the best organised of its kind with loads of things to actually do and a switched on admin crew inviting some serious people, not the usual Adv-UK suspects like me.

Nearly four hours later I rolled into Ragley Hall much less crippled than I thought I’d be considering my diverse musculoskeletal ailments – aka: getting old. These were the benefits of an enforced slow place. Narrow saddled ‘two fifty’ trail bikes are notoriously uncomfortable over long distances but my one-hour presentation and subsequent chatting proved much more draining, not being used to that either.
I spent the night in a garden in nearby Upton and next day headed off towards mid-Wales to rediscover some of the backroads I’d walked and cycled on the Glyndwr’s Way last summer. At some point I’d need to head back for another ABR talk at 4pm. After yesterday’s ~200 miles, this time the thinned-down seat soon gave rise to that familiar discomfort, a feeling as old as all my biking years. But also one that’s fixable.

Rhayader – Wales’ trail-biking Mecca, such as it is – proved to be that turn-around point, but rolling through the town, no cafe jumped out at me invitingly. So I followed a single track road out towards Abbeycwmhir on the GW and where a back way wound its way on to Llanbadarn Fynydd (GW) which I knew had a cafe.
Walled in by lush summer hedgerows, a narrow country lane turned to gravel which led into a forest. Is this a rideable trail I wondered? Why no prohibition signs or locked gates?

My Garmin is loaded with OS mapping which showed this was ~~not~~* a green lane (‘BOAT’, etc). But it led less than two miles to Bwlch y Sarnau on the Glyn’ Way, a deserted hamlet at over 1000 feet whose name evoked pre-Christian Wales and where there was a self-service ‘porch cafe’. It also saved a long diversion, so unexpectedly I found myself outlaw off-roading in mid-Wales. How thrilling! There were a few MTB tyre imprints in the earth but nothing from a moto. Doing this is bad form and not something I’d knowingly do again, but in just a few minutes I reached Bwlch via a couple of gates. There was no one around, same as last year walking and pushbiking in this area.
* Turns out it was a green lane after all – a UCR or ORPA. Explained here.

At Bwlch cafe I chatted with some bikepackers having a brew during a three-day tour. This is such a great region for that as I found last year. But for legit trail biking, a quick glance at the OS map on my Garmin didn’t reveal many permitted green lanes much longer than what I’d just illegally ridden, In search of uninterrupted off-road adventures, that’s why I went to the Sahara in the first place way back in 1982.

Byways around Rhayader but read this first. Then again, there is always the Welsh section of the TET which will probably be quiet backroads with occasional off-asphalt excursions and doubtless a very nice ride across rural Wales.

By the time I’d selfied myself and finished my cuppa, the Garmin’s ETA back to the ABR show was cutting it a bit fine. Sod the mpg – I’d have to crack on!

Mamils & Saddle Sores
In getting lowered, my seat has lost some padding, and the slippery Cool Cover saw me slide forward on a downslope; a common annoyance with some bike saddles.
As a back up I’d packed my padded lycra cycling shorts which they say can improve moto saddle comfort, but first I pulled out one of two slabs of 20mm rubber foam (neoprene) last used on my Himalayan, and sat on it for the two-hour ride back to Ragley Hall. The anterior agony slowly subsided but the bare rubber was too grippy so I slid around inside my loose trousers which wasn’t so comfy either. Plus I couldn’t up stand to aire mon derriere as the pad would’ve blown away.

I rolled up to the Bridgestone tent with 10 minutes to spare and did my chat with Simon & Lisa (left), but apart from the fact that it was another lovely mid-summer’s evening, I wasn’t looking forward to the four-hour ride back home. So I decided to do something about it and set about shoving the foam pad underneath the Cool Cover. If it worked well I’d trim it all properly later.
It made me wonder do you want a grippy seat surface or not? I do notice grippy seat covers for trail bikes on ebay. It must be related to riding – active off-roading or low-energy road touring plus what you’re wearing too; how close a fit and the fabric’s own grippiness. With my baggy cotton cargo pants, the Cool Cover is slippery which can cause friction, but sat directly on the neoprene pad back from Wales, the grip was massive and I slide around inside my trousers which was as bad. I do seem to recall leather trousers which I wore for years helped prolong comfort, whether down to good grip on seat vinyl or the close fit.
Heading home with the neoprene underneath the Cover, the saddle was levelled off and I slid about less on deceleration. It was all round a big improved on the sore morning’s ride and a few days after I got home I trimmed the two pieces of foam to fit the 300L’s seat, glued them together and fitted them under the Cool Cover. The seat is now about 35″ (890mm), 14mm more than before (half being the airy Cool Cover mesh) but a whole lot more comfortable. See more bottom of the page.

Other comfort matters
Leaving Morocco in March, I retired my old X-Lite X551 after ten years. The vent never worked well (wrong angles for upright trail bikes), the sun-visor lever fell off years ago and after multiple removal and washing, the lining was coming adrift.
But I’m a longtime big fan of this type of lid so got myself an HJC i30 for about £110. Grey comes shiney not matt as implied online but so far so good. It fits snugly with quick-clip chinstrap, the sun visor lever is much easier to operate and the top air vent is more effective. It remains to be seen how long the lining fittings will last after regular washing. But the HJC not quiet or, to be precise, I’m a bit too tall for the 300L’s unadjustable screen and the buffeting makes a racket, even with earplugs. Crouching down puts me out of the turbulence but is unsustainable.

Back home I remembered I bought myself an MRA XCreen adjustable draught deflector (left) for the Him but ended up not needing it.
I dug it out, made sense of the instructions and decided to clamp it to the screen with a view to drilling and bolting it on if it proved effective or necessary (you get both options in the mounting kit). Articulated arms on adjustable splines lock it in position so you can set the optimal angle at a standstill. It looks like it ought to work funneling air up and over my head and looks better than the simple spoiler Touratech still sell and which I tried on my XT660Z 15 years ago. You can view my meticulously annoted Mileage Diaries here.

Other than that the ride back with just a refuel break was great. The pad under the Cool Cover soothed the posterior on what ended up being 500 miles of two-lane blacktop over two days. On a bigger bike I don’t think I’d have been that much quicker on these types of roads without lots of speeding and other risks.
I never rode my 300L stock but the Rally Raid suspension definitely keeps the bike in shape darting around roundabouts. I got in about 9pm, visor and screen thick with bug splatter but still with energy to pre-wash the bike with Muck-Off and lube the chain while it was warm. It all bodes well for the long ride to Morocco later in the year.

True mpg
The 300L has one of those handy average fuel consumption displays and my ride up to ABR saw it settle at 102mpg as I rode through the gate. Pretty good but this is an estimate. For the true mpg I evaluated the bike’s odometer error off the GPS over 200 miles. Result: the bike indicated 205.6 miles over a GPS recorded distance of 200 miles. Not bad but 2.5% over.

Somewhere on the ride up I topped up with 11.8 litres over a corrected (true) 221 miles. That’s 355km which divided by 11.8 = 30.1 kpl or only 85.5mpg (see table on the left) – over 15% out. On the bright side the two litres left in the 13.8-L Acerbis tank meant another potential 60km which gives a possible range of well over 400km. That will do nicely, whatever the mpg is. It sure is great not having to think about fuel twice a day.
The next fill up on the way home included the rushed ride back from Wales with the display now indicating ’91mpg’. I put in 11 litres over a true 217 miles, which is 350km. That was 31.8kpl or 90mpg. A lot more accurate and oddly, a big improvement on the slow ride up, despite the faster pace. I suppose a full tank’s worth at steady pace may have helped, or could the bike’s computer be ‘learning’, as I’ve read they can do? We shall see but I am still hoping to get a true 100mpg one day.

Update:
I set off to the Isle of Wight a few days later with the seat padded to full length and the MRA fitted. I soon noticed I was not dropping my helmet visor as soon as possible. With a guesstimated angle set at my eye level the MRA was working just right, shoving the windrush over my head, not into my face. Now all I heard was muted tyre and engine noise instead of wind and a steady 60 was much more tolerable.

But fix one thing and another flaw becomes more apparent. My glued up join between the two bits of old neoprene was noticeable. Can’t be having that. I have time so may as well spend it trying to get it right.
I replaced it with a single piece of 20mm neoprene: a 250mm x 500 slab was 20 quid. Note, even with a sharp knife or scalpel it’s hard to get a smooth cut. Scissors are better, but anyway the grubby edges are hidden under the Cool Cover.

CRF300L: old tubes and dirt bike rims

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Project 300L Index Page
See also: Tubeless conversions

After less than 20 miles I’ve already got myself a rear flat, luckily at home. At some point I was going to remove the stock IRCs, seal the rear rim for tubeless tyres and fit some proper tyres for the ride to Morocco. May as well do that job now. While I’m here, allow me to give my usual shout-out for Motion Pro Bead Breakers, an alternative to standing on or otherwise levering the tyre bead to achieve the same result.

I spun the wheel on my exciting new stand you just read about but couldn’t see any nails or similar. I did wonder if I pinched the tube a couple of weeks back, but if I did, it only gave out now.
Pulling the tube out I was shocked to see a huge gouged hole like a mouse had got in there. Maybe I did it just now removing the tyre, but can’t say it was a struggle. Who knows, but I also noticed how the folded rubber tube cracked like it was ancient. Then I clocked a date stamp from November 2014. Yikes, nearly 9 years old! Well I suppose I should be impressed that a: Michelin date-stamp their tubes (can’t say I’ve ever noticed this feature before) and, b: that this tube lasted nearly nine years without a repair (assuming it had any use in that time)! Obviously the tube isn’t worth repairing. Good thing I noticed now. I just picked up some old Mich tubes from 2017 and they are nowhere near that far gone (nor do they have that date stamp). Could it even be a fake Mich tube?

No lip so unsuited to DIY tubeless sealing ;-(

When it comes to sealing the rear rim, I was also bummed to see the stock Excel J 18 2.15 rim has no safety lip, which complicates a TL conversion. That’s odd as, like I’ve mentioned over the years, I recall actually grinding the safety lip off a rear DID rim on my tubed XT600 way back in 1985 to make desert tube repairs easier. I assumed such safety rims had become defaults on all spoke/tube rim as they help a tyre stay on the rim when it loses pressure. But not on smaller sized rims, it seems.

This means I’ll have to lace a new lipped MT rim onto the hub to get TL – a couple of weeks and a few hundred quid. And while I’m at it I may get professional CWC Airtight sealing (left; as on my Himalayan) instead of my labour intensive DIY efforts, as on the Africa Twin. Or I could just live with inner tubes. On a travel bike (as opposed to a weekend trail bike) not sure I can go back to all that potential puncture repair aggro and added toolage.

I also noticed there’s no cush drive on the 300L. It makes me think this is a dirt bike rim from Honda’s MX bikes. A part number check would reveal all. Cush drives add weight and expense and absorb a little power, but reduce drivetrain lash to the transmission including the chain.

The thing is, at 28hp and however few torques, a 300L hasn’t got enough grunt to strain the components that much, so I can live with no cush. Apparently my old XR650L was the same but I never even noticed. A mate who’s currently importing one has, and dug up various rubber-insert sprockets (left) to reduce the lash from the much torquier 650 thumper. And in fact the 250L I had years ago didn’t have cush.

So net result of today’s puncture:

it pays to verify you inner tube’s age (if you can) as well as old tyres (all have date indexes). Or just get new tubes.
If I want a tubeless rear I’m going to have to get a new wheel built up on an MT rim, in which case I may as well have a proper sealing job done like CWC Airtight™.
OMG there is no cush drive ;-0
Is it time to consider mousses? A light, slow bike like a 300L is suited to them, but afaik they come rated at no more than 15psi which to me is on the low side for road riding, even at only 60mph.

CRF 300L: Acerbis tank, crash bars, USB

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Project 300L Index Page

My Acerbis ’14-litre’ tank finally arrived from Italy, not as fast as some crash bars from Guang Zhou in just 12 days. So high time for a day of spannering and probable gnashing of teeth. Rally Raid are also sending me their trail wheel wrench with a 24mm ring for the rear and 14mm hex for the front.
Rally Raid suggest that from new you may want a full-size socket and tool to undo the axle first time so the hex is another tool to buy – an afternoon wasted locally before I submitted to amazon ‘next day’. But the idea of a recessed hex fastener in the front axle is actually quite clever – I’m sure the AT had one too and car gearboxes have similar drain plugs so there’s no protruding bolt head getting rounded off by rocks and kerbs.

The other day after swapping the front tyre back to OEM IRC, I wore myself out trying to refit that front wheel axle with the bike perched over on a log. A lip on the axle shaft makes shoving it over to reach the thread on the other fork leg confounding.
I like to think an upright, stable bike sat on a bike lift will make life easier. Luckily there was one an hour up the road for just 99p. Years ago I’d have scoffed at such decadence and just used a milk crate. But when’s the last time you saw one of those?

Acerbis tank
In the old carb days, Acerbis plastic tanks had a reputation for not always fitting well – like so much aftermarket gear, tbh. And now in the efi era you have to swap a huge fuel pump assembly with associated hoses and wiring.
But it seems Acerbis have upped their game in the 20 years since I fitted a gigantic 37 litre whale to the back of my XR650L (left). With none in the UK, my black-only tank cost me £320 imported from Italy. The finish looked a lot better than I recall, and the complex shape suggests a nod to the precision potential of CAD. Here, J-Mo describes the Acerbis tank job in meticulous detail, including tips and possible traps. Time to follow her lead.

New tank adds 6 litres to the 7.8 stock without looking massive.

After years I [re]learned syphoning. Use a **thin long** hose; shove it all into the tank to flood the hose; then pinch the end and pull it out and down way below the tank to the container, then release the pinch. It will flow at more than a litre a minute. A good skill to know in the post-fuel tap era.

Subframe not suited to falling on big panniers

Once unbolted, to release the tank pull off a vent hose coming up from the emissions canister (it pipes up through the tank to the fuel cap so fuel will not pour out). Then unclip white electric plug and unclip thick fuel line (can be a bit stiff). All explained on J-Mo link.

Acerbis tankside protuberance may protect radiator on RHS a bit?

In black you’d hardly notice the difference. Nice job Acerbis!

I also fitted a Cool Cover. Will improve comfort and easy to add padding underneath, if needed.

A calibrated refill revealed the tank holds 13.85 litres or A tad over 3 UK gallons which is a figure I’ve seen elsewhere. That will do me – at a dependable 85mpg or 30kpl = 415km or 260 miles range.

Protection

A slim bike like a 300L doesn’t need engine crash bars – a well spec’d bash plate like the Ad-Tek the seller fitted to mine does the job.
But CRF-Ls have a vulnerable rad (like Africa Twin 1000Ls, as I found shortly before D-Day). The 300’s rad sticks way out into the RHS breeze so when you fall it takes the impact via some plastic. I think they’re all like this these days but what a crumby design for a small trail bike! Adventure Spec make a radiator brace (left) which bolts a sturdy frame round the rad and looking again, it’s actually seems OK for £66 and 240g.

What I really wanted were currently unavailable Outback Motortek bars (above right) which protect the rad, not so much the lower engine which a good bashplate does. Plus I could mount my Lomo sidebags on them; not be possible with the ASpecs. Looks like the OMs may be back sooner than I thought, but in the meantime I bought some Chinese no-name crash bars (above left; 4.2kg). Tellingly there was no fitted image but they looked similar to the Outbacks, or maybe I just saw what I wanted to see. They’re well made but turns out they fit low and the bashplate would have to go. Bash is non-negotiable so I sold them on.

Wrong bars. **Or are they?** Bags would fit nice and low. May have a re-think and revise bashplate.

As it is, unlike an AT etc, a 150-kilo 300L has much less self-destructive mass when it tumbles, So I think 22mm ø tubes at 2mm thick as used by China bars and Outback Moto are a bit OTT. I bet 18mm would do fine, as on the Himalayan’s tank racks (left). But 22 is what we get – possibly because of a shortage of well-braced/spaced mounting points to securely support a thinner structure. That’s how it seems on the China bars. My weldy chum who made my Him’s rear ‘ear racks’ was insufficiently motivated to tackle a complex pipe-bending task for anywhere near direct-from-China- let alone Outback’s prices.

Another reason for wanting tank/rad bars is to carry luggage up front where you can see it and get to it from the seat. That way you dispense with a rear pannier rack so the weight penalty can balance out) and just use a tailpack. ‘Fishform‘ they call this in kayak hull design – ie: more width up front. This way the engine/radiator bars double up as pannier racks.
I tried this idea with the AT (above left), and when I got back noticed serial RTW-er Nick Sanders had done the same on his T7 RTW bike (above right). A side benefit with soft bags on tank-side racks is the bags absorb impacts before the rack, leaving the rads asleep in their beds. I do wonder if these low Chinese bars with a wide frame are to mount a pannier may work well after all.

Later I lined the bars up under the engine and it was clear for small panniers the mounting would be way too low and probably drag on corners. Back on ebay they do go.

The Outback Motortek radiator crashbars arrived a few weeks later. They’re hefty at around 4kg with long, carefully shaped 5mm plates clamping to the engine mounting bolts on the downtube. As mentioned above, it all feels OTT for a light bike that doesn’t have the mass to destroy itself, as if they’re just transposing ideas from heftier bikes which do need heft. The design has the entire top part unsupported apart from cross braces and so depends on the strength in the plates to resist the deforming leverage. Were there a single mount somewhere on the headstock the whole set up could be half the weight, like a 400 Himalayan, above.

USB power plug
I took the chance to fit a USB power plug. You can buy them on ebay pre-wired with a fitting matching a spare switched socket somewhere behind the headlamp. ‘Switched’ means it only powers up with the ignition on. Annoyingly mine turned out to be just a USB adaptor fitted into in a cigarette lighter which means another layer of electrical connection to play up, but I suppose the USB plug can be easily inspected changed. Not all work or for long I found in March.

First I had to remove my GP Kompozit screen which weighs just under a kilo, fyi. Next, undo a pair of allen-head rubber mounts either side of the headlamp assembly and remove the whole thing. The auxiliary socket is soon located among the black spaghetti and the over-long USB plug lead clicked in.

Annoyance. Or is it just getting the knack?

But to quote the late Haynes ‘assembly is not a reversal of dismantling’. Is it ever? The lower mounts wouldn’t line back up. I assumed the new wiring was in the way and pulled it through but still no luck. Rubber grommet spacer-washers get pulled off as you try and shove the headlamp onto the mounts. Then I enjoyed a bolt dropping down onto the mudguard top. I managed to flick it out and resumed alignment; it did seem like the mudguard top was fouling the cowling – as John Cooper Clarke might have said. I removed the mudguard (loosening might have been adequate) and loosened the top headlamp mounts: that did the trick. It all went together like it should.

Next: will the Garmin charge off the bike once the ignition is on or go into mass storage mode. It did the later when the USB gets in a muddle. Go to Garmin Menu > System and change from Serial to Spanner mode. The Garmin will switch on as normal and a sign that it’s working is a flashing charging battery icon, as below.

Barkbuster Storms: 15 years 10 bikes

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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!

Adventure Motorcycling Handbook

The Website of the Book