Adventure Rider Training

If your riding takes you far off the beaten track through water and/or for long periods of time in dusty conditions, you will soon find the limitations of the standard paper air filter. It is near impossible to clean a paper element filter if it gets too blocked in dusty conditions. Most likely you will put a tear or hole in it and thus render it useless and if you continue, catastrophic damage to your engine will result. What is more impossible is to dry out a wet paper element filter if you happen to get water in your airbox from crossing very deep water or dropping your bike in shallow creek crossing.

Get yourself a good quality reusable (Foam) air-filter and save yourself the drama. They are easy to clean on the track and can be washed out with fuel and dried if you drown your bike.

This is how you do it, no tools but the stock toolkit under your seat!!

(The more elaborate way back in the shed see here)

 

If you ride/park your bike in the rain or through water often, get fuel at 'unknown' sources or live in a humid area, the best way to keep the water from collecting in your tank (and rusting it if its a steel tank) or blocking your filter if you use one, is to drop a cup of methylated spirits into your tank every few weeks. The metho' will draw the water into the fuel solution and allow it to be pumped out with the rest of the fuel instead of collecting in the bottom and turning your reserve into a useless layer of sludge your bike will not run on.

If you have any Allen (Hex) bolts on your bike, and lets face it who doesn't, and the key your using is one of those 5 inch long jobies that is too short to get good leverage, then the easy way is to get a small ring spanner say 10 or 12 mm and put the ring around the end of the key and use the spanner as an extension handle. easily doubles your leverage.

If the bolt is in a tight spot where you can't get a decent turn and/or reach, use the handle (long section) of the key as the bit and the short section as the handle effectively extending your hand/working area out of the job and use a slightly longer spanner (to effectively still double the long section leverage) to turn the key with.

WARNING!!... the same method can be used to do them up but you SHOULD NOT need any more leverage to do them up than you can get with the key on its own!! Using the spanner to tighten them is going to result in you needing a bigger spanner to undo it next time and as they are predominantly used in Alloy components, you WILL eventually strip the thread and have to get it helicoiled to fix it. Not cheap!!

Some times if your brake lever/pedal has a spongy action it could be some air that won't bleed out. Hold the lever back toward the bar with a zip ties or rubber band over night will help the air out of the system If that does not work might be time to change the fluid. If you ride in the rain or through water often then you should change the fluid twice a year.

When you get/change a tyre on a tubed rim, make sure you leave the valve stem lock nut loose. This helps stop the stem and the tube parting company when the going gets hard, particularly when you run low'ish pressure.

If your riding a Dually that is liquid cooled and runs a thermo fan, make sure that after a step-off in the bush that you check the fan spins and is not jammed by sticks , leaves or rocks etc. They are very expensive to replace and will leave you stranded in the bush if you can't maintain a reasonable speed to create air flow.

As riders we spend alot of time avoiding things. I don't just mean kangaroos and potholes. I'm talking about locking brakes, spinning wheels, obstacles and the like. Well I think it's better to practice these things when we want to under controlled situations rather than dealing with what is an unusual situation when it happens to us in daily riding.

Take some time, find a safe place and practice locking front and rear wheels, getting a bit of wheelspin, riding of dropoffs and over logs etc. That way your muscle memory and reflexes are trainied to deal with it automatically when it does happens for real on a ride!!