Friday, April 27 to Sunday, April 29, 2001    Orange, France

Having reached our destination for the Touratech meeting a bit early we took the opportunity to explore the town or Orange and the surrounding countryside. Couldn’t find much that excited us and as a result we don’t have pictures. There are a tremendous amount of Roman ruins in and around the town. We also tried to set up an appointment via phone with the BMW dealer in Avignon some 50 Km to the south to get Jim’s bike serviced. What with Jim’s French being nonexistent and no one at the dealer speaking English we tried to converse in Spanish. Didn’t work much better. Plus, Monday and Tuesday of the next week are holidays in these parts and not a soul was planning to work.

So, we decided that we would just take life easy for the next three days, meet fellow riders at the motorbike event and then make our way back to Alicante for the service work. We had to return to Alicante in any event because we needed to pick up mail that was being held at the post office for us. This also will make the service of Jim’s bike much simpler. Seems that every shop we stopped in in France wanted to use synthetic oil in the bikes. We are not ready for this just yet as we feel that they continue to be in the break in (run in) stage until well past 20,000 MILES and they have been consuming oil at an alarming rate (more on this later).

We checked in at the site on Saturday morning. Us with our English and the French with their, uh, French. We found a place to put the tent in the allotted space in a field with grass (OK, weeds) averaging 18 inches tall. We were not the first to arrive, nor were we the last to leave on Monday. By the afternoon we had met our neighbor, a chap who operates a small company that develops and markets software for the retail shoe industry in Germany, a couple who had left London at 1 AM that morning and the couple from Marseilles who own the yellow R1150GS we had photographed while in town. He works at the post office and that is why the bike was parked across the street.

Here’s another shot of it, at right. It turns out that he has done all of the body work himself with the exception of the gas tank and luggage. He does very good work! We also learned that the unique piece of metal attached to the brake lever that we mentioned in the previous article when we first discovered the bike is something that he has created to solve the problem he has with his right leg being just a tad shorter. He also had repaired all of the damage from the unfortunate slide he had taken which does show in this picture. There were also 2 coax cables with quick disconnects going into the top box. When asked, he explained that one was for the brake light mounted on the top box and the other (are you ready?) was for the lighted mirror inside the top box for his significant other!

Touratech had every model that they make at the event, including their version of the new F650GS. I managed to grab a months old copy (January 01) of Motorrad which had a multiple page article detailing all of the steps they go through to build it. Basically they rebuild the bike keeping the basic frame, engine and some electric’s but the front end, sub frame, stock gas tank, instruments, controls, seat, etc., etc. are completely replaced. You can have one for a mere 30,000DM!

Or, if the big GS is more to your taste you might like the Desierto II. This was used in a comparison article in the same issue with the “Moby Quick” GS from the GS Fun Factory. We didn’t realize that there were multiple after market companies competing for this market. There is a whole culture in Europe for Adventure Motorcycling and the industry is cashing in on it big time. The availability of equipment and the variety of items available is amazing. For each new thing we saw during the event Jim was heard to mutter, “We must have one of those!”.

We have never seen so many large gas tanks at a motorcycle event as we did in Orange. This event was unique in a much more important way as well. It was the first time Touratech has orchestrated an event such as this. On Sunday they led four organized rides, three of which were off road with varying degrees of difficulty and one on road. We opted to pass on all of them and drove to the coast to a national park where numerous white horses run free. Beautiful! But, windy. And cold. The beautiful warm weather we had experienced Saturday was gone.

The nicest thing about the event was how quiet it was at night. It would seem that these boys and girls take their bike riding seriously and get lots of rest so they can ride the next day. No loud parties (interpret this to mean no drunks!). It was the first event we have attended in so many years that we truly enjoyed because we were able to sleep. Wonderful. Hmmm. I guess we are showing our age.

Two evening meals and two morning meals were included in the price of admission and after dinner each night there were slide shows and discussions about travel in distant lands. Saturday night also saw Andrea Meyer appear with her mechanic (a woman for those of you not in the know). Andrea must be made of tough stuff to ride as she does in events such as the Paris-Dakar for the BMW factory team. She is really quite small physically but we suspect that is must be extremely strong. She told one story about her career where prior to a race one of the male competitors threatened to quit racing if she beat him! It was difficult for us to understand as all of the evenings programs were in German and/or French, neither of which, we speak. Someday! Soon.

Monday, April 30 to Tuesday, May 1, 2001    Top of Page

Just as we were about to depart on Monday morning under overcast skies Jose, from Madrid, stopped by and introduced himself. It was nice to see someone from Spain at the meeting. It had rained a few drops as we packed the tent but when we got on the road the rain had not started in earnest. We were treated to a complete afternoon of riding in torrential downpours and fog as we wound our way through the back roads of Provence and South Western France. This was a heck of a way to test the temporary fix Jim has applied to our Jesse Luggage to stop the water leaks. The good news is that the fix does work! Al Jesse has sent us e-mail (finally) telling us that he has a fix for the problem and that he has mailed it to our mail forwarding service. Check out “The Bikes” section for further updates.

We arrived at a hotel outside of Carcassone just before dark. We spent about and hour riding about the countryside in the rain and growing darkness prior to finding this hotel searching for a Hotel cum B&B that specializes in accepting motorcyclists that we had been told about at the meeting. Couldn’t find it but did find this one some kilometers away and immediately jumped in the shower to warm up. Did we mention that the electrical connectors that we need to connect our new Gerbing electric gloves are in the mail in Alicante? Heated grips can only do so much.

Our return from Orange led us through just about every type of weather that can be imagined. The only thing we missed (not really) was lightning and snow.

Traffic also presented its unique way of reminding us of our mortality between Barcelona and Valencia where we encountered a multiple car/truck accident with two fatalities and “stuff” all over the road. This stretch of road also visited us with high winds and about four inches of hail which the news later reported completely destroyed this years peach, apricot and nectarine crops in that area.

As for the bikes, the use of motor oil diminished dramatically on the return leg of our journey. This was done over two days, as we left Orange Monday morning and arrived in Alicante Tuesday evening. We think that the initial seat of rings and upper cylinders may (finally) be reaching fruition. We did not consume any oil of note between Orange and Alicante, about 800 miles (1500 Km) as we drove it. This included varying and sustained speeds (0 to 130kph), weather (sun, rain, hail, fog, cold) and varied terrain (0 to 3500 ft {1200m}). Overall mileage for the trip was more than 4,000Km.

Also, after some 13,000+ miles the Michelin T66 tires have reached their wear marks on both bikes and it is time for new tires. While these tires will never win any prizes for being sticky on the road they certainly will win prizes from us for high mileage without compromising overall handling. The front tire on both bikes is showing some signs of cupping and excess wear due to the crown of the road but this it to be expected given our weight and the suspension of the bikes. We are quite happy with these tires given all the weight we are carrying and our propensity to explore all kinds of roads. We will never move quickly as we travel but we will see a lot and arrive in our own good time.

We see new Ohlins shocks (front and rear) for both bikes in our future. When riding in a spirited fashion the current OEM units are not capable of providing the stability necessary. Not surprising when you consider that we are carrying some 35 kilos in the gas tank when it is full as well as 25+ kilos in each of the rear bags. Living full time on the road is fun, but it is tough trying to leave things behind. We know we need to lighten our load. We do so each day but we don’t think we will ever be able to get the weight as low as we would ultimately like.

We also want to replace the OEM clutch with a ceramic clutch available from Touratech. We have already experienced the wonderful smell of the clutch burning when on steep hills and having to go slowly from a stop. Or, worse, when the road is covered with loose objects like sand and/or stones. We must lighten our load - easier said than done. Any rate, this should be the last clutch the bikes will need for many miles of travel. We will do the clutch and the shocks late in the season or early next spring.

The external placement of the fuel filter on our bikes drew quite a bit of attention at the meeting as did the Jesse Luggage. Ours is the only luggage we have seen in Europe that does not look like a rectangular box. Everyone we spoke with at the event was quite taken with the shape and design of the luggage.

To everyone we met at the meeting, thank you for your kindness and help. We look forward to seeing you again.

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