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SORTING THE BUMBLEBEE FOR THE PARIS-DACRE
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| BMW levers and repair kit. |
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| Touratech spacer & Karoo. |
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| Fastway pegs. |
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| 2 x skid plates. |
Things break when you fall down. This is bad … Riding for sixteen hours in the woods is almost guaranteed to see at least one fall, so it’s important to not only protect your stead, but to have the important spare parts just in case.
Thankfully, an email to BMW Canada requesting help with acquiring some bits was met with a, “sounds like fun, I think we can help.” I’m guessing they were just happy to see us wreck our own bikes for a change …
Along with some spare levers, I even received a BMW tire plug kit, which was supplemented with a kit from Safety Seal, as I was quite concerned about punctures that have plagued my adventure rides in the past.
As for tires, knobbies were a prerequisite from the organizers in order to participate. As we were well into the season, by the time I got the thumbs up for getting a set of Karoos from the busy Metzeler folks, all that was available to compliment the correct Karoo front tire was a slightly wider than stock 140 rear tire.
Thankfully, Touratech came to the rescue with a wheel spacer that allows for installing just such a wider tire. Excellent! They even provided me with a bypass hose for my oil cooler – useful if a large rock punched a hole in the exposed cooler.
Given the ODSC’s penchant for water crossings and muck holes, the stock rubber-covered foot pegs needed to go. I found some beautifully designed and engineered off-road pegs from a company called Fastway. These pegs not only allow for two height settings, and a camber adjustment, you can even choose how much bite they have by selecting one of two offerings of setscrews.
Speaking of water crossings, the standard paper air filters don’t work so well when they get wet, so I managed to get a K&N filter from Kahuna Cycle in Woodbridge, Ontario (who also sell a variety of stuff on E-bay).
The final piece of the puzzle was engine protection. BMW Canada once again helped out with a centre stand guard that protects the exhaust collector and transmission. Sadly their R100GS PD engine skid plate is no longer made. Doubly sad was the fact that Touratech USA, and Touratech Canada were out of stock on their engine skid plates for the Bumblebee.
Fortunately, I discovered Ernie Bell who was advertising R100GS skid plates on ebay. Ernie designs and makes them himself in Dakota, Minnesota. A mechanical engineer by trade (can’t throw a stick without hitting one of these around here), he makes the plates for fun in his spare time.
LINKS:
BMW Canada for the levers, centre-stand skid plate and tire repair kit.
Metzeler and Full Bore Marketing for supplying the superb Karoo tires.
Fastway for the grippy foot pegs.
Touratech Canada and Touratech USA for the wheel spacer and the oil cooler bypass hose.
Kahuna Cycle in Woodbridge, Ontario for the K&N oil filter.
Safety Seal for the additional tire repair kit.
