The Beast is nearing its 80K birthday, and I'm thinking it might be nice to do something special for the old animal. I still haven't really done anything to 'reward' it for getting me through the entire European continent incident-free - p'raps a Youtube video might be a good idea? Quite extraordinary come to think of it - it broke 70K just outside of Igoumenitsa this Summer... and that seems just like yesterday. Time flies.
In another news, the trip around the Baltic will once again be a solo ongoing, as Heiko's 2014 vacation dates sadly turned out to differ from mine. I've already decided what the theme of coming trips is going to be though, but I'll leave that a mystery for now. Let's just say it involves these two things.
In any case, I took the Beast's luggage rack off in September to get it fully resprayed and, where necessary, repaired. Quite a tough job in itself, as my old coat of paint proved to be pretty durable. I guess I know a thing or two about painting after all.
Plans are up the whazoo - there will probably be a small 4-day testing trip somewhere in the Spring, going towards Germany and see how things go. Nothing fancy - it also serves as an excuse to get the panniers on the Beast again. And whilst I'm on the topic, apart from the fully redone rear brassiere, the Beast is scheduled to get fresh rear suspension, fresh brake lines and a new rear brake disc. I'm even throwing in a really tacky but awesomely manly headlight guard!
The tough thing is what to do when, exactly. I reckon brake lines are more important than the rear suspension is, and as both are pretty time consuming jobs I reckon the the rear suspension is probably going to have to wait until next year.One thing I'm dubious about is the clutch - it still functions fine, but with the offroading in mind I think it might be worthwhile renewing the plates (which, in itself, is a really intricate job too). The coming weeks I can take my time on the rack and possibly some other stuff as well. As you can see, things on the checklist are already piling up.
8 months to go. Watch this space!
