Ride Report

[oldktmdude]

Wow!! Fantastic trip and amazing pics.
I guess that proves that FJs are not restricted to paved roads.
Maybe it'll become the next fashion in Adventure Bikes :-)

Arnie, I thought that we'd already proven our FJ's are a good choice for Adventure riding. NUNDLE springs to mind.
Great pics and ride report Noel. Would have been great to have been with you. My style of riding!
                                                                                                                                            Regards, Pete.   

[Arnie]

   Arnie, I thought that we'd already proven our FJ's are a good choice for Adventure riding. NUNDLE springs to mind.
Great pics and ride report Noel. Would have been great to have been with you. My style of riding!
                                                                                                                                            Regards, Pete.   

I'm not a dirt rider.  Didn't grow up riding in the back paddock, nor in the woods that made the JackPine rally so famous.  I even bought a trials bike that I rode around my property here, but never got much good at it. 
That said, I've ridden more unpaved roads on my FJ than I really care to remember.
Some were good hard packed clay, some were sand, some were gravel, and one was even baseball sized gravel.  On none of them was I comfortable. Not uncomfortable enough to cause me to turn around, but enough to cause me to tighten up, which I knew was the wrong thing to do, and made me less safe and more tired once I got through it.
The biggest problem I had at Nundle was being the tail rider of the 4 or 5 of us and dealing with all the dust.  You, with your riding style of "close eyes and give it heaps" were in front and didn't have to deal with the fog of camoflauge  you were causing.  No matter, we all got through and to the destination.


Arnie

[oldktmdude]

The biggest problem I had at Nundle was being the tail rider of the 4 or 5 of us and dealing with all the dust.  You, with your riding style of "close eyes and give it heaps" were in front and didn't have to deal with the fog of camoflauge  you were causing.  No matter, we all got through and to the destination.


Arnie

Sometimes tunnel vision can be a good thing. Many a time I've led a group of mates up the local coast road (race track) and when we arrived home, they'd ask me if I had seen as many roo's or wallabies as they had. Usually, I honestly reply
"what wallabies? if I had seen them I would have slowed down".
                                                                                             Pete.   

[jo-sommer]

Just awesome! The trip, the scenery and the ride report! Thanks for sharing!

We've got a mate up here in the German Forum who uses Conti TKC80 on his FJ during the winter. The right stuff to make those slippery passages comfortable; he reports those rubbers aren't too bad on paved roads up to 160 km/h.

Cheers Jo

[Jeff0308]

What a great story Noel. Brilliant pictures and story. Would love to do that one day.  Certainly had the FJ loaded up. How long did you go for?  Jeff

[X-Ray]

Mmmm, nice photos Noel, would have been a great trip. I bet that FJ of yours was back to its pristine condition the day after you got back, any stone chips? 

Would I do that trip on the FJ, I doubt it. I would think the low profile rear tyre plus short travel suspension would make it a very uncomfortable ride? Give me a nice Tenere or similar and I'm there though. 

[The General]

Awesome ride report mate!

So great you shared that ride with a brother.

One of the best adverts I`ve seen for putting the "Australian Outback" on a bucket list!

(Pretty "Central" and would make a great FJ rally destination for 2017!)   

[Pat Conlon]

Thanks for the great read Noel, wow.
How was the fuel situation? Did you have to carry any to get to your fuel stops?

With country like that, it's good to travel with a buddy. Who knows what could happen?

Amazing, daunting and beautiful.

Cheers.

[ribbert]

Mmmm, nice photos Noel, would have been a great trip. I bet that FJ of yours was back to its pristine condition the day after you got back, any stone chips? 

Would I do that trip on the FJ, I doubt it. I would think the low profile rear tyre plus short travel suspension would make it a very uncomfortable ride? Give me a nice Tenere or similar and I'm there though. 

Yes Ray, it was back in pristine condition but not the next day, took a week and half. The mud and dust doesn't just cover everything, it stains it. Normal washing hardly touched it. Everything needed scrubbing and polishing.

I took it out yesterday for the first time since I cleaned it and was about to ride into a 10,000 ft high wall of weather so I pulled over and took one shot of it clean just before riding into the storm. I did 650 km's on it today in the rain and it's filthy again, but nothing like before.

No stone chips, they mostly come from other vehicles, and there were none. The mud protected the leading edge of the belly pan and interestingly, the underslung caliper which is the one part that does cop a lot of debris, still doesn't have a single chip on it with the polyurethane paint.

The ride was very comfortable. The preload was backed off to within a couple of threads of it's limit. If the roads had been worse, I would have dropped the tyre pressures to 25psi, that makes a huge difference.

It was interesting to see when cleaning the tyres, the marks left in the sidewall from distortion over rocks, some of them almost to the rim.

Overall, it wasn't that demanding on the FJ and the roads were the best dirt roads I've ever ridden.

Noel

[ribbert]

What a great story Noel. Brilliant pictures and story. Would love to do that one day.  Certainly had the FJ loaded up. How long did you go for?  Jeff

Good to hear from you Geoff.

I could only manage 6 days, 2 or 3 more for the same ride would have been great.

I fully understand your feelings on the RT. I have been trying to buy one for a while and have travelled interstate twice to look at them.  I love that boxer motor. My brother's done a 180,000km's on his since '09, having ridden a bike for the first time only a year before at age 60! and he doesn't commute.

The last one I rode had a Sargent seat which looked hideous but was incredibly comfortable, dropped pegs, raised and pulled back bars and a better screen. You could not only ride this thing to Queensland,  but if you could find some way of taking a leak, you could turn around and come back again without even getting off it.

Gold wing comfort but light and with sporty handling. The sale of the FJ would let me buy the year model I really want, but it's going nowhere, I could never part with it, so it will be a slightly older RT.

Who cares if they break down, I know a good mechanic.

Noel