Iceland - trail of tears

[Malcolm Leick]

Had a fantatsic month in Iceland, but the Trolls are now wreaking their revenge.

Damage so far ... rear bearings collapsed right at the end of the Sprengisandur 200 km desert trail. Pannier strut broke. A mechanic from the Akureyri motorcycle museum replaced the bearings and welded/machined the axle. Pin holding brake pads was cut in two by disc. He machined me a new one at 10 o'clock on a Sunday night. Then replaced front bearings on Monday. River crossings and volcanic sand had caused havoc. All work plus rescue in very large truck £400.

Having made it back to Denmark I had to jump start the bike every time it stopped, until I got to BMW Hamburg. Rectifier blown. On the job now. €800!

Just want to get back to Blightey now and have a good sleep. Still a great trip, but if you are thinking of doing the Sprengisandur alone...take the bus! I was actually lucky as the bike was horizontal in a river for 20 mins. It took me and two burly rescue guys to ger it out. Some water in air box and exhaust, but oil was clean thank god.

 

[Timolgra]

Shame the wrong choice of bike wrecked a brilliant trip

 

[red1]

Shame the wrong choice of bike wrecked a brilliant trip

How right you are!

Transalp would have cruised through that sort of trip!!

 

[Farmer Palmer]

My friend Suzie rode a £600 Hongdhou GY200 all the way around Iceland and back home again without a hitch(well the rear subframe fell off and got lost with all her camping gear and spare fuel on it but We found it again for her by the side of the road in the Westfjords)

That Chinese piece of crap cost less than a major service and two tyres for my GS

Doesn't matter what you ride or what problems you encounter Icelands always a brilliant trip........!

FP.

 

[Timolgra]

How right you are!

Transalp would have cruised through that sort of trip!!

Perfect Old Transalps were the most common bike I saw in Iceland.

 

[Malcolm Leick]

That's what I love about this forum. Whenever you're at you lowest ebb, you count on someone to make you feel worse! Lol.

Home again now and boy what a trip. What an astonishing and amazing country. No way ruined by mechanical misfortunes. Just left a big hole in my girlfriends credit card.

The bike is fine for the country...Biking Viking have been running them out there for ages.

I think I made a couple of big errors in preparing for the trip though. I actually bought new bearings before I went out and planned to have them fitted when I had the tyres changed the week before I set off. My BMW dealer and the guy who fitted the tyres both reckoned the existing bearings were ok. What they didnt say was;

How old are they? A: 20-25K miles.
Where are you going/what are you doing? A: Iceland: riding through deserts with fine volcanic dust that gets rights into bearings and glacial rivers that wash what's left away.
How many miles before you get back? A: Over 7500miles.

Oh and I am going to be battering the bike on corrugations for several hundred miles, and bouncing off huge potholes, and laying the bike in a river while I trudge off for help lifting it.

Given the above I was stupid not to say FIT THEM NOW!

Similarly, I had posted questions on here before I went out about battery problems, querying whether I needed to buy another one. Someone mentioned rectifiers and huge costs...and they were right. It was going to go completely at some point. But WTF do they cost so much? The final bill including the diagnostic was over E1000. I'm just glad I made it to BMW in Hamburg. If it had failed in Iceland I would have been totally f.........

A friend said he got a rectifier for his VFR for £50. Are the BMW ones lined with platinum? Do they actually contain small German people that rub wires and magnets together. And what causes them to fail?

That said, I have lots of amusing video of me falling off in sand and rivers and generally having a fabulous time. My girlfriend joined me on the back for two weeks, her first m/c tour, and also really enjoyed it. I thought that with her on the back we would stay on the tarmac, but we actually did a few mountain roads too. She even helped me dig the bike out of snow on one of them.

At some point I might do a little trip report, when I have had some sleep and food.

Final thumbs up to Biking Viking who sorted me out when the bearings collapsed.

Met lots of great people on all kinds of bikes, including two guys on 1966 Solex's, basically a very heavy French bicycle with a motor on the front wheel. Also a lovely Danish couple who both had the F650 GS twin, which cost them £17,000 each in Denmark! I have to say, the most hardcore people I saw out there were the cyclists. There were some ferocious winds that were tough going on a motor bike, but some of the cyclists were being blown all over the road. Halfway along the Sprengisandur I met a woman on a bicycle pulling a trailer. She was just about to cross the glacial river. Amazing!

 

[Malcolm Leick]

Oh and did I mention that they have three very attractive young women motorcycle engineers at BMW Hamburg. It was like bikers heaven...until I got the bill!

 

[v8legend]

Oh and did I mention that they have three very attractive young women motorcycle engineers at BMW Hamburg.

And now we all want pics!

 

[ricfrench]

Exactly, some pics or at least a link would be nice

 

[jackassdave]

sounds like a great trip ,apart from the bill ,as allawys i think you take your chances with bikes .
yes you could have replaced the bearings before you went ,but you asked advice ,and the advice was ,they were ok .
i replaced all my bearings ,when i had my wheel rebuilt ,had i not done that ,i would have probably kept the old bearings in .you never know
theres allways some one on here thats done thousands of miles with no problem ,and those that break down within days .
ive had 11/13 gsers cant remember ,some ive set off,on journeys with nothing more than an oil change ,others ive had MARK71 ,service the bikes for me.
dont let it put you off the bike ,the main thing is at least you went and did it.
well done ,lets see the pics ....dave

 

[thomo57]

Well done Malcolm and well said jackass dave +1
As Nick Sanders keeps on saying it's not a holiday, its an adventure!

 

[Bury_Dave]

Well done that man !!

You have to do a trip report !!

I'm sure you learnt more about yourself and the Icelanders than you would have had everything run smoothly.

Doesn't matter whether you ride, drive or walk, adventures are what happens when things start to go wrong or don't follow a plan. And its the unplanned that makes looking back over the trip afterwards seem so much more rewarding.

Again, well done and get writing