Tuesday 7 February 2012

The Work Continues!

Good evening all!  The work continues to try and get myself ready for this trip.  So the plan is fly to Mexico City, hangout for a couple days, then fly to Tijuana to meet up with my good friend Scotty, who is kindly delivering my bike for me.


The last couple days I've been buying things, packing, putting together a tool kit (thanx again to Scotty for helping me with that), sorting out my garage so I can leave it a decent state and trying to get some last visits with my good friends here on the Island.  Oh yes, and I can't forget scanning documents endlessly, because I love that sooooo much! <---that's sarcasim btw


I did manage to get out for a sweet little kayak yesterday with my bros Gerald and Ron.  There was great surf on the river for what was probably the last paddle before I leave.  I'm thinking it was most likely a good thing I slept in and missed the paddle on the Gordon River Saturday.  Apparently one paddler with a dislocated knee and another with busted ribs. OUCH!  That would be the last thing I need right before leaving on this grand adventure.  Oh well; sorry again Adam and hopefull sometime in the future.  But for now old Clay's knees are still intact for Operation Grand Slam.


A couple more pics for you guys.  At this point, I've mostly just packed my camping essentials ie. tent, mattress, sleeping bag,etc.   I'm still fiddling over what exactly is going to go in my other pannier.
Anywho...here is what the bike is looking like with the sweet ass extra fuel rotopax mounted.



Thanx to Lejeune Performance & Fabricating for the slick job on the mount.

                                       

This adds an auxillary 2 Gallons (7 Litres) of fuel to the bike giving it a range of over 500kms-ish!
Very nice to have when wanting to go a little off the beaten track.


I think I'm going with this -20c bag.  Takes up a load of room, but once I get further south I'll never have to worry about freezing my ass off.  I guess us Alberta boys are paranoid of being cold even when we're heading to Central America.



Here's some pics of the gear strewn about.  I'd like to say I'd well organized, but I'm too honest and the pictures don't lie ; )

When I was overseas with the army we took anti-malaria pills once a week that gave me really nasty nightmares.  We called it "Wacky Wedneday".   On this trip I decided to take something different along...a daily med called Doxycycline;  but I won't start taking these babies unil I get into Malaria territory.


Here's a pic of the tool kit we organized.  Looks pretty good, but I just noticed there two screw-drivers which is a little redundant.  I think I'm gonna lose one of those before I leave.





I put the pro-taper cushion on the bars and it seems to match the Tiger nicely.  As you can see, I put the GPS mount as far back as I can under the windshield since it's a great place to keep an eye on it and my GPS isn't waterproof!  Probably a huge mistake, but I'm pretty cheap and it might give me something to write about later.  Guess for now I'll keep my figures crossed that Dan has one too.




Ok, I have to get my ass to bed.  Huge day tomorrow as I have a million things left to do and I'm running out of time.  I'll be writting more soon with more details of the very tentative plans and hopefully tell you guys a little bit about myself and Dan.  Good night!



3 comments:

  1. hey Clax a few points and questions . I see that the fuel cell sits where a pannier did does it now sit outside of it? I would lose the stock black cheezie screwdriver. wheres the multi use cresent hammer? a bit of old school baling wire and zap straps also. i would also take a small pill vial sized package of nuts and bolts

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  2. Good points Mr. Mann. The hammer would be really tough to pack, but I did replace the screwdriver with a really nice one. I have a crap load of zap straps under the back seat of the bike, but the extra nuts and bolts is a good idea. Looks like I'll have to try and pick that up on the road. Thanx for the feedback!

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  3. Forgot the mention. The 2 gallon cell is mounted inside the pannier bracket...and that's where I have it from the start. Not sure if it looked different in another pic.

    C

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