Ok. I planned to do take out the Pig this week, but on pre-ride inspection I found that my frame was cracked, again, where the sub-frame connects. I've stripped the girl nekked from the engine back, and am now waiting to get a TIG welder to do his magic. I'm gutted, but what to do? Answer: Ride your other bike!
Several months ago, I was gearing up for Kenya’s Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride (link for that ride
HERE) by preparing my 1981 XT500 “Nairobi Thug” special. A friend of mine and I had been working on a slipping clutch, and we’d managed to fix it, but when re-filling the oil I neglected to properly tighten the oil weep screw. The next day I rode the bike and about 20 minutes later it died a horrible death at 100kph on the road. All the oil blew out and covered my leg, but wearing boots I didn’t notice it. I was gutted. There was no way to get it back up and running by the DGR, though we tried.
Above: Oily boot, dead bike
Above: Child labor doing engine removal
Above: Engine out, continue tear-down
Above: Toasted con-rod and chewed-up piston
It took a while to organize the spares I needed to put the bike back together, and then to find engineers in Nairobi capable of doing good repair work. I needed a con-rod installed and the engineer I took it to left the pins out of alignment by a millimetre. I mean come on! It looked like it was flapping its wings! I also needed a new cylinder because I was already at max overbore with the old one… the list was pretty long and it all had to be shipped in from the USA at volumetric shipping prices.
Above: Re-assembly at Uncle Rick’s
Above: Back together, better than ever: New con-rod, piston, cylinder, valves, clutch assembly and kickstarter
Anyway, this week she finally got buttoned up and I had time to work on breaking in the new engine. The sun has been shining and I’ve been stuck in my home-office working, so I was very keen to take my girl on safari down into the Rift Valley and back up. First day I hit the overlook spots on the Mai Mahieu road and picked up a new sheep fleece for the seat. Ended up coming home and putting the old one back on, but it never hurts to have a spare (this one’s in white… for formal gatherings perhaps). Put about 100km on the new piston and was keen to do more once the seat was more forgiving.
Above: XT500 in sexy mode (aka brutal mode) above the Rift Valley, Mt. Suswa in the background, the dust from the new Chinese SGR railroad’s construction below
Above: Mt. Longonot in the distance
Above: The 3rd World Curio Shop… a tourist trap institution for years. They sell sheep fleeces along with the soapstone and wooden trinkets and I managed to get one for a fifth of their asking price… could have done better.
Couple days later, I set out again. The road down to the valley is actually a joy on the bike. Tar is in good shape and the traffic, though insane, is slow enough grinding down the steep pitch that the bike just chews it up. So, I repeated and extended my previous ride’s itinerary, descending past the lookout spots for the Italian POW made church at the bottom of the hill. The chapel was empty and quiet (apart from trucks Jake-Braking in the background) and much smaller than I’d always thought. Not much of a Catholic myself, I dropped some coins in the collection box anyway hoping to appease the road gods… be good to my resurrected XT!
Above: Cooler morning light with Longonot in the distance, my sheep-fleece adventure saddle cover completing the anti-social look of the XT
Above: The Italian POW chapel at Mai Mahieu
After the chapel and a horrible cup of tea and mandazi at a nearby roadside “lodge”, I split down the arrow-straight road toward Naivasha, overtaking lorries on both sides and singing a song, trying to keep the RPMs moderate for the new piston, which isn’t easy cause the old girl likes to run when the road is smooth. I turned past Longonot village on a rough dirt road toward Njabini, connecting with the Nakuru-Nairobi Road where I shot up to the lookout and gave Clarke a buzz. He was home, so I invited myself to lunch and started up the flanks of the Aberdares to his beautiful abode.
Above: A bit of off-roading with my city-hooligan bike. She’s rough, so much slower than I’m used to, but so low and nimble it’s really fun.
Above: Sizeable sinkhole isn’t done eating this road yet
Above: Volcanoes and vintage bikes make great photo subjects...
Above: Higher up, I detoured into the cedar plantations for a lookysee. It’s much cooler up there than down in the valley
Above: Lovely meadow, classic bike.
Above: At Clarke’s place high above the tea line, cool air, green grass. So much variation in a morning’s ride from Nairobi
Had a nice lunch with Clarke. Shot the shit, talked motorbikes, made plans to fish, etc… Hopped back on the Thug and babbled back to Nairobi, zig-zagging around the cars and maniacs all the way. Lovely way to spend a few hours, and I still need to do a lot more before I can consider the bike run-in. Maybe next time I’ll take a tour of the coffee and tea zones. Stay tuned.
Cheers
Topic: 2019 - Big Red Pigs in Kenya (Read 17865 times)
