Andymann

I often have to remind myself of this - I'm not their target market. Did the Prime View Sprint Triathlon this weekend - used the Multisport function on my Garmin because that's what a Triathlon watch is for right? 600m swim - 10mins. 12km MTB - 27mins. 3km run 14mins. Total time - 53mins. Total points - zero. 3 activities, high HR but all under 30mins. Luckily I'm an old hand at this and cycled with my Bike Garmin which I left running in Transition for an hour to get 300 points. Crazy that you should have to game the system, but yup - not their target market. Crazy how you can do a sprint triathlon which is proper exercise and get Zero points, yet you can eat KFC sitting on the couch watching TV at a Virgin Active Gym and earn 100 points.....

Took the XTZ to work on Friday - a nice 140km round trip from Pta to Krugersdorp. I got to experience a little bit of why big trail bikes are so popular - you sit nice and high in the traffic and even though they are big and heavy you still get to filter through traffic easily. Well easier than the TRX. The 660 is not going to win any races - it's very comfortable at 100kph but you can't get past the fact that it's almost 200kg - so acceleration is fairly leisurely. But for a 29yo dirt bike it's very solid. Nice and smooth and winds hardly affect it. The previous owner fitted some MITAS Enduro trail tyres which I believe are very good off-road. They didn't feel too bad, but are noisy as hell. My offroad riding is going to be limited to gravel roads so I will probably change them in time for something a bit less aggressive. Other than that, it's a typical Yamaha from the 90's - feels like it's going to run forever. I'm really looking forward to November when I use it on the Fairest Cape - we're based in Rawsonville and apparently the roads they take us on are beautiful. The 70kph speed group might be a bit slow but I'm riding behind my Dad on an old Velocette so I'll just have to chill!

Well there we go - in all it's odd blue front mudguard glory. It's actually been quite fun just slowly getting things back to standard without going overboard. And the nice thing is that with genuine Yamaha parts everything fits perfectly. I do however have a whole margarine container of odd bolts, roof washers and Walmart screws - perfect for my spares tin. The only thing I need to do now is just try and clean up the Yoshi silencer - I was told it was a full system but clearly it's been cobbled together with crap welding. Other than that, time now to enjoy it!

Haha. But you can't buy it, because apparently you have now bought your last bike 😉 The funny thing is, I actually was considering selling it because it isn't that comfortable for my wife on the back, and it was very unpleasant in town due to what I thought was just the nature of the engine below 2000rpm. But since I put the new system on, well wow. I think I might just hang on to it for a bit

So the only thing I have heard about the T7 is that he silencer bracket is a bit soft so if you unintentionally bump it, it moves the silencer inwards and then can wear a lovely mark on the swingarm......other than that, it's a winner that bike

His price for my system was very reasonable hey - under R10k for everything.....

And finally it would be remiss of me not to mention the SM610 which I finally got running really well and I'll be damned if I have grown a bit attached to it. It's still on the market, but lets just say I haven't been entertaining any time wasters!

As for the XTZ I've committed to riding it with my Dad in the Fairest Cape Rally on the 5, 6 and 7th November so while he will be on a Classic, I will be on the XTZ. Definitely not the roads it was designed for, but still going to be fun. So the last month has just been getting it neatened up a bit and just replacing a whole bunch of non-Yamaha stuff. The most expensive being the choke. There was something not quote right with the choke - really tight, hardly any movement and the position on the dash surround seemed right but the plastic had no support which was very unlike Yamaha. Anyway I suspected the cable was wrong so ordered a new OEM cable and then saw that some of the choke mechanism bits were missing so just bought a whole new choke kit. One of the parts I ordered - a bracket is discontinued and I figured that was probably the support under the plastic so wasn't too stressed because I figured I could make a plan. When all the stuff arrived the new cable was way too short so after some Googling I realised that the cable goes nowhere near the dash and actually mounts on the handlebar saddle. Which is where the bracket was needed. Anyway I had to make something out of SS plate for now, but today I ordered another random piece of Yamaha exotica off ebay - a R500 piece of metal......

An update on two of my bikes - the first being the TRX850. I've never really been happy with the silencers on the bike. They had nice Akrapovic stickers but were definitely just stickers and the system was still the OEM system. A new OVER racing system from Japan was R30K and I definitely wasn't going to spend that. A few months back I ran past a house near to where I stay and saw the guys were working on bikes. Turns out the Stealth Exhaust guys now work from home. Got chatting and Jaco reckoned if I could get him dimensions of the OVER system he could build me one - those were easy to get so dropped the bike off last month and got it back on Friday. What a difference - it's a completely different bike. I can only think that at sometime in it's life it must have had a full system on because the jetting is spot on - it runs so well and really sounds great. Even more like a 748 now than ever. Just missing the Ducati the rattling clutch!

The Scott Plasmas from 2006-2009 had ISP's and their clamps might also fit - look at the one from the Plasma 22 http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?id=photos/2006/tech/reviews/scott_plasma_pro/scott_plasma22

While I'm waiting for Yamaha parts to arrive I turned my attention to this again - I did get it running but it was backfiring quite badly due to a leaking inlet manifold which as you can guess is discontinued. So I'm making a new one out of Aluminium. I will say it's quite a scary ride when it gets going so not sure yet what I'm going to do - I might keep it just to clear out my head on the odd occasion.

Nice bikes at 10:17and 10:32. I wonder who they belong to 😉 And for those who were wondering what was the most valuable bike there - the bike at 10:03 is probably worth around R900k......

Who remembers that old book - the Postman always rings twice. A couple having an affair conspired to murder the woman's husband by staging an accident on a particularly dangerous mountain pass. They get away with it and after some time end up getting married only for them to have a genuine car accident where his new wife is killed in the same way as they killed her husband. He is convicted and sits on death row. How ironic would it be if her second positive test was really due to contaminated meat........

I had injections to cure my Tennis Elbow and they gave me 1 Tramadol pill. I took it at about 12:00 that day and then because it was my birthday my Wife and I went out for lunch and a few beers. I have no recollection of the rest of that day from about 18:00 until the next morning - if I hadn't seen the videos she took of me dancing on tables later that night I would never have believed it. That stuff is crazy

F-it. I tried really hard but eventually I couldn't ignore glaringly obvious things! So off to the powder coaters for some stuff and another order placed with Yamaha for missing parts It needs a good wash anyway - probably last had one 10 years ago.

New XTZ660 mudguard that arrived from the Netherlands yesterday, and there's a whole bunch of spares on back order from Yamaha. The mudguard is the wrong color for the bike, but its almost brand new so not sure I actually want to paint it.... I'm trying my best to resist the urge to pull it into a million pieces and restore it, but it's proving difficult!

Exactly - which is why I am not going to do anything crazy to the Tenere. I spent thousands on my DT200 getting it perfect and then from Dec 15 to Jan 23 I did a grand total of 800km - that's 114km per year because I was too scared to ride it. stupid stupid stupid

And today's most random part ordered for a motorcycle goes to....... I don't classify myself as a Anorak or a Rivet counter but I like to think that when anyone buys one of the bikes I have rebuilt they notice the small attention to detail. Like tiny side cover rubbers that stop the side cover from vibrating against the frame and cracking....

I might have told this before somewhere on this thread but I tested our demo 660Z out on the Boschkop road and went through a dip and broke the rear number plate bracket and rear mudguard off. We needed the bike for press pics so my dad and I welded up a quick steel brace and riveted it in place - unless you knew where to look it was a perfect repair. We mentioned this weak point to the Japanese who were very offended that we broke their bike and dared to suggest there was a design fault - they were also less than impressed with our repair. Except when the second batch of bikes arrived in SA they all had a nice steel brace behind the number plate mount that looked a hell of a lot like the design my Dad and I came up with a year before.....

I did a bit of work on mine this weekend before taking it for a quick ride - I'm actually quite impressed. It's got nice torque but I can see why the guy didn't want it anymore - he was trying to keep up with modern BM's and KTMs that his mates have, and this old lump isn't going to get much over 120 - for what I'm going to use it for though, it will be perfect!

I remember we got a lot of abuse from the dealers about the 660Z Tenere's and their unavailability. Problem was they were all built in France at the MBK factory and we could not get our hands on one. They eventually sent us a single unit to show at AMID and then let us loose to test it but I think the first batch only arrived 6 or so months after that.

After telling everyone that I have all the bikes I've ever wanted and that I won't be buying anything again, I went for breakfast last weekend in Potch (with a bike trailer for no particular reason) and this followed me home. FB Marketplace I hate you.... Seriously though, after having so much fun on the Natal Classic on the little DT I realized that the future of Classic Rallies in SA with its terrible roads is a late 80's/early 90's bike with long travel suspension and a 21" front wheel. The 175 was just a bit buzzy so it also had to be a 4-stroke, and because I kick the Velocette's enough, and electric start would also be nice. And finally it has to be a Yamaha because the other bikes in the Garage are racist. It's always about race.... Voila! A 1994 XTZ660 Tenere - Used, but not terribly abused. Needs a few things - an OEM Screen, a new (used) front mudguard, and a bit of a clean-up, but generally it's in fairly decent condition for a bike which was used for what it was intended. Now, repeat after me - I will not turn this into Garage Queen. I will not turn this into a Garage Queen....

New timing chain and conrod every 10000kms or 24months says the manual. That sounds like a highly strung race engine to me. I'd be scared riding it too often I think

Clever - I should have seen that reply coming!

So next on the list of things my Brother bought for his collection and then left behind when he went to the UK is this. The Husqvarna, not my wife. Although if someone wants the slippers they are welcome to them..... I'm not quite sure what to make of it yet - it's pretty impractical and not really something I would want but I'll fix a few of the niggles and then see.....