WIN!

(partial)



This is a £720 (+ pimping) Chinese bike half way up the 20% gradient Applecross pass, shortly before tailgating a Jeep up the rest of the way.

The Issues that dogged day #3 seem to be in hand, and minor. Here's the story.

I dropped the bike on day #3 (while dismounting, obviously) and later that day, it started missing pretty badly when it was hot and under throttle. It also had real problems pulling away from a stop, backfiring and dying in 1st gear unless I thorougly thrashed it (like, 7000rpm) and let the clutch out verrrrry slowly.

Fix attempt #1 was to pop the rocker cover and check the tappet clearances, which seemed fine (i.e. there were some, but I didn't bring feeler gauges). I loosened both tappets another 1/2 turn to be sure, and checked that there was an audible buzz.

The bike was just fine when cold, and started off strongly. However, when it had heated up, the problem came back in spades, and I this time I noticed that it was missing noticeably whenever it hit a bump in the road. Very curious. I suspected fuel issues because of that.

Fix attempt #2 was to strip the carb, check that fuel was getting to it, that the floats were free and the jets weren't blocked. While I had it apart, I richened the idle mixture a little more, and raised the needle one notch - I'd previously put it back to the centre position. All seemed fine, so again we carried on.

Oh dear. The bike hopped and staggered its way on to the remote village of Kinlochewe, where I charmed the natives into revealing that there was a Man Who Fixes Motors round the back of his (unsigned) farmhouse just up the road. After another cooldown, I thrashed the bike to within 200 yards of said house, when it just up and died. It was then a push-job to get it to the surprisingly well equipped little garage, where the spanner monkey highly skilled professional initially said "I don't do bikes" until I engaged his interest by assuring him that it was really primitive and old skool, and going through the things that I'd tried.

We had a good fifteen minutes of prodding and poking, with the bike (again) starting and running absolutely fine while cold, and refusing to misbehave. Eventually, the Man Who Fixes Motors noticed that the spade connectors on both the coil and rectifier were loose, and crimped them up. Off I went for a quick test run, expecting the bike to die any second, which it absolutely... didn't.

RESULT!

So just crimping the connectors seems to have sorted the missing problem, at least while running, and at least when I'm sitting towards the back of the seat. Yes, it's that weird. When I shift my weight to the front of the seat, the bike stumbles. You know what I'm thinking? The accursed side stand cutout switch, which I'd "cleverly" relocated under the seat...

Unfortunately, my confidence had taken a knock, so we bailed on our John O'Groats aspirations and headed back for civilisation, in the form of Inverness. You can tell that it's civilised because there's nowhere to park. We made it there, and slightly past, to Fort Augustus on day #3, then pushed the other 150 miles home on day #4.

There's not a lot to tell from the last day, since it was almost all on the A82. It's a nice enough road, with some stunning sights, but the winds down Glencoe were just vile, and it was a relief to get past there and into the central belt.

I'm confident that once I get the seat off, there will just be a bit of loose wiring to find and fix and the bike will be pristine again.

Overall, I'd say it did very well. It was caned on and off for 4 days solid while carrying a significant load, often in excess of an indicated 50mph with the throttle pegged up Ben and down Glen. The only wobble in the whole trip was when I hit a wet cattle grid at a slight angle and was forced to correct. Contrast with my chumrade's CBR125 which was reportedly quite twitchy in the bends, especially in a crosswind, so that said chumrade was slightly slower through the twisty stuff. On the other hand, while I was pegging it in 4th up a hill trying to reach 50mph, he got bored and just zoomed past, so fair play to the little Devil Machine.

We both had a blast, enjoyed our bikes, met some interesting people (fully half of whom weren't nutters) and saw some astonishing places. I've lived in Scotland all my life, but haven't seen more than a tiny part of it as an adult, mostly the central belt and A9 corridor. There's much more to see, and a bike is a brilliant way to see it. What are you waiting for?