Well my "Adventure" is over, and I'm happy to announce that I survived the 2180 Km (1362 mile) motorcycle marathon, over 4 days. I'd had the laser kidney stone surgery on Monday the 21st of March, and then went back to hospital so the surgeon could knock me out and pull the stent out on the 29th. I was surprised that as soon as he removed the stent I stopped pissing grape juice, something that I never got used to in the week between the surgery and the stent removal, but I'm guessing that the stent was making something bleed? If you're eating your breakfast as you read this, my apologies.
The trip didn't start well. I got out to the airport on Thursday (31st of March) morning in plenty of time but when I attempted to check in via the QANTAS kiosk, it couldn't check me in? I got the attention of a lovely young thang who ran around and checked me in at the check in counter then checked my bag (with all my bike riding gear) in, then took me over to the bag slide to drop off my bag, but the reader wouldn't read the bag tag, so pissed off, she grabbed my bag (28 pounds, probably a quarter of her weight) and told me to go to the gate and she'd drop the bag down the chute. I offered to carry the bag, but she just smiled and told me to go to the gate.
I got on the plane (I'd paid extra for an emergency exit seat because I'm tall and want the extra leg room) and then sat for 30 minutes while they tried to get an automated baggage loader working. We finally got in the air, but then the problem was that the 45 minute buffer I had between adjoining flights was now down to 15 minutes when I arrived in Brisbane. We were told to head to gate 1 (from gate 23 on the other side of the airport) but I had to stop for a piss halfway, and when I got downstairs I had to go thru security again, fcuk! I could hear them calling me from the loudspeakers in security, but the security folks didn't give a #$%*, and proceeded to pull my day pack apart so they could take a peek at my laptop computer. I asked them if I was gonna miss my flight, and the big ugly biatch just shrugged her shoulders......
I ran (not well, I'm 62 and my health isn't magnificent) to the gate, and it was closed, with no QANTAS staff to be seen. The "Dash 8" plane was still on the tarmac so I ran to the nearest QANTAS desk and told them who I was, and they were nice enough to tell the baggage handlers to put my bag back on the plane and a pretty young customer service lady escorted me out to it. Luckily they were still loading baggage and mail onto the plane, so I was able to climb aboard without being tarred and feathered by the other passengers.
The plane landed on time in Hervey Bay and Gil, the bike's previous owner was waiting for me. He's an odd character but nice enough, and he'd even filled the bike up and ridden a couple of miles on it, and he'd admitted to me that he'd only ridden it 400 miles in 10 years of ownership? That did give me pause to wonder what the recent service history was like, but I didn't want to think about it, so I did the paperwork with him, and rode off to the hotel. He'd warned me that the front brake was "spongy", and it was, but still pulled the bike up fine, and the engine was lovely, it's an 1100cc "Boxer" twin with around 90 BHP, so while no powerhouse compared to big Japanese "Sports Tourers" like my 147 BHP Yamaha FJR1300, it'll cruise on 100 MPH all day, so more than enough grunt for this trip.
The resort hotel that I'd booked myself into was fantastic, the receptionist was lovely, when I told her that I was a bit worried about not being able to park near my room she put me in a room right at the end of the estate where I could park the bike under the verandah outside my room. I'd intended to go into town for dinner but as I was walking over to reception to get a cab into town I discovered that they had a huge Bistro and a gaming room (slot machines) so I had dinner with a pint of ginger beer, and played the slots for an hour or so, winning 65 bucks, which paid for my dinner, and my next tank of gas.
BMW R1100RT 31 Mar 2022 1 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
I jumped on the bike early next morning and met up with Gil at the local bakery for breakfast, as he'd texted me a message that he'd found the owners manual that he wasn't able to locate the day before. I bought him breakfast as a "thank you". and then took off towards Brisbane. I'd checked the oil before I left with the bike on the centre stand and whereas the oil level should have been halfway up the sight glass, I couldn't see any oil, so took it off the main stand and out it on the side stand and the level came up halfway. I stopped at the local Repco autoparts store and bought a litre of oil, a bottle of fuel system cleaner and a roll of "Gaffer Tape" which I like to carry on long rides, as it really is very handy. I'd brought cable ties up from Melbourne for the same reason.
The temps were in the 90's and humidity was in the 90's as well, so I'd elected to leave my bike jacket in my bag and rode in T shirt and jeans. After 80 miles or so I realised that I was getting sunburnt so #$%* it, I stopped and had a drink of water and put my jacket on, but only zipped it up halfway to get some air inside the jacket, and was surprised that it worked pretty well. I arrived in Brisbane around mid afternoon and filled the tank, and was impressed that I'd been getting around 20 Km/litre (47 Miles Per US Gallon) for the 200-odd miles from Hervey Bay. I rode to my sisters place but she wasn't home yet, and as I was sitting there deciding on my next move, Ken sent me a text to invite me over to his place, so I jumped back on the bike and rode the 10 miles to his place, stopping at a bottle shop along the way for a 6 pack of ginger beer. It was great to finally meet Ken and look at his bike collection whilst replacing my sweat with good ol' alcohol.
I bid Ken goodbye around 4pm and rode back to my sister's place, which is a fancy mini-mansion in Brisbane's "Leafy Suburbs". Really nice house with a pool, it was on a TV show "Love it or list it" and she liked it so me they bought it. I had a quick shower, changed into shorts and flip flops, and we all went out for dinner at the Breakfast Creek hotel for dinner. Magnificent steak and another pint of ginger beer and a day of motorcycle fun all worked to give me a great nights sleep, and after a quick breakfast and goodbyes, I took off again, hoping to get to Dubbo, 540 miles closer to Melbourne by nightfall.
By this stage the front brake had gone AWOL. I'd figured out what the problem was, as I had the exact same issue with my 1992 BMW K1100LT back in 2009. BMW brake hoses of the era weren't real good, and would rot from the insides out. Little balls of rubber would travel down to the calipers and block the flow of brake fluid to, and from the caliper. I could "pump" the lever to get some lever pressure, but I only had pressure in the lines, not the calipers, so I'd grab the brakes, and nothing would happen. What became worse though, was if I continued to pump the lever the front brake would work, but wouldn't release for a minute or two, so sitting at a green light with locked on front brakes and angry car drivers behind me was so scary that I decided not to use my front brakes for the remaining 1200 miles.......
Anyway, always the optimist, I politely ignored my sisters offer to take me to the airport and store my bike until I could organise a truck, and sped off into the distance. My iphone had been really handy on the ride in GPS mode, and I'd used it the previous day to navigate from Hervey Bay to Brisbane and to and from Ken's place, and once again proved excellent to get me from the inner suburbs to route A39, the road home. I stopped after a couple of hours and 100 miles or so for another tank of gas and a cup of coffee, and a toilet break. The BMW was just loving the ride, humming along at 80 MPH but when I rounded a bend I hit a massive pothole the full width of my lane and became airborne, momentarily, fcuk! I hit so hard that the right hand side mirror/indicator pod, which is clipped onto the fairing, and the iphone, in it's "Motorcycle specific" holder, flew off and bounced down the road.
I wobbled to a halt, so I could retrieve the mirror and phone. I put the bike on it's side stand, but it either sank into the gravel on the side of the road (single lane country road, not nice wide freeway) or it just folded back up, but whatever, the bike fell over with me half on and half off, so I took a minor tumble. No biggie, I managed to get the bike back up onto it's main stand and then went looking for the mirror and phone. I saw what I thought was the phone, so ran over to grab it, but it was just the soft plastic protective cover. Bugger. Further up the road I found the mirror pod, less the mirror, sadly. Still the blinker part of it was still intact, even the bulb was OK, so I clipped the pod back in place, and using my roll of gaffer tape, taped both mirrors to the fairing, just in case I found another wading pool deep pot hole. I kept wandering up and down the road and eventually found my iphone, smashed beyond repair. Fcuk.
BMW damage 2 Apr 2022 6 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
I threw it into one of the panniers and rode on another 60 miles to a tiny town called Millmerran, where I bought a ridiculously expensive Samsung phone (all they had at the one gas station in town that was open) and a $100 sim card, because the phone was locked to a different network than mine, so I couldn't use the sim card out of my dead iphone. By this stage I was wondering whether I was gonna make it to Dubbo, as I'd wasted a good hour or so with the days shenanigans, but was happy enough that by 6pm and after close to 10 hours in the saddle, I'd done 440 miles when I was on the outskirts of Coonabarabran. It was getting dark, so I rode into the first motel I saw and paid for a room.
I'll refer to this motel as the "Bates Motel" from here on in, as it was a creepy old place in pretty run down condition a couple of miles out of town, but I didn't care at this stage, I'd had two slices of toast at 8am, and after "The Pot Hole Incident" and riding in 90+ degree weather all day, all I wanted was food, booze and sleep. I rode the Bavarian Murder Weapon into town and went to a really nice Chinese restaurant, where I chatted with some other "Old Farts" (Ulysses Motorcycle Club guys on their way to a club rally in the hills) about bikes while wolfing down a couple of Jack Daniels and Coke while I waited for my food that I took back to the Bates Motel.
Next morning, Sunday, I went out to pack the bike and thought I'd check it for damage. With the bike on the main stand the front wheel is up in the air, so I gave it a spin, and discovered that I now had a dent in the rim. I sat on the bike and looking down the forks, could see that they were either slightly twisted, or maybe they're bent? Fcuk. I fired it up and being that it was much cooler (7am) the bike conked out without the "Choke" on, so I put the choke on, fired it up again and walked back into my room to grab my bike riding gear. When I came out I could see fuel dribbling onto the concrete, not from an obvious overflow pipe, but for some reason, over the bottom of the fairing, from places unknown. Fcuk.
Do I go, or do I stay? No front brakes, no right side mirror, possibly bent forks, (or worse, bent front sub frame....) dented rim, unknown fuel leaks, it was becoming ridiculous. Fcuk it, I didn't want to stay another day in Coonabarabran, so I went. I took off again, watching the fuel gauge. Riding thru town I saw my old mates from the previous night, so tooted the horn and gave them a wave. The driver in the pickup truck in front of me must have decided that I was tooting him to speed up, and brake checked me..... Luckily for me I was able to ride around the idiot, because with no front brakes, I would have buried the silver bullet in his tailgate. The fuel must have stopped leaking as I got another 200 miles out of that tankful before I needed to refuel, out the other side of Dubbo (where I'd stopped and bought a "blind spot mirror" for a truck and taped it to my empty mirror pod) and still had a couple of gallons left over, so with a new mirror and no fuel leaks, I felt marginally better. I stopped in a bigger town a couple of hours later for lunch, then rode on to Albury, on the Victoria/New South Wales border and 450 miles from Coonabarabran, pulling in just as it was getting dark again.
The first motel I went into didn't have a vacancy, but the owner was lovely and she rang the motel next door and got me a room there. These motels (in the middle of Albury's central business district) were fantastic, modern, well appointed, clean, just the opposite of the Bates Motel from the previous night. The manager asked me if I'd like a full cooked breakfast and I jumped at that, breakfast is my favourite meal. I wandered across the road to a Farmers Market where I bought some corn chips, Camembert cheese, pork crackling and Ginger and Agave (whatever "Agave" is) cider to wash it down.
I was lucky that I'd set the alarm on the new phone as if it hadn't goone off I would have slept thru breakfast, once again the days ride had worn me out. Breakfast was magnificent, poached eggs, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, sausages, hash browns, buttered toast, great coffee.
BMW Breakfast 4 Apr 2022 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
The motel manager had let me park my bike under the canopy in front of reception, which was good as it had rained overnight and I'd left my army kit bag and sheepskin seat cover on it the night before. I threw my day pack into the top box, and took off for home. The last leg was uneventful, 200 miles of smooth 2 lane freeway from Albury to Melbourne, apart from filling the bike (maybe for the last time, due to the damage, not sure if the insurance company will fix it, or write it off) in Albury and stopping just outside of MeIbourne to put on my wet weather pants as it was drizzling, I had a great run, and did 200 miles in 3 hours flat. I unpacked the BM, and drove my car over to the shopping centre and bought a new iphone as I need it for work.
All in all it was a great adventure, not perfect obviously, but the BMW is a fantastic bike for a long ride and hopefully it'll get fixed so I can do a lot more miles on it, we'll see.
BMW R1100RT 2-4 Apr2022 9 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
