Two Moto Kiwis Arctic To Antarctic May 2012...

you're killing me with your pics. wow.

glad to see you guys are not rushing your adventure. soaking in the local flavor is the way to do it, but the $ adds up. good we're all lucky enough to see those places at your expense.....

Love this picture, like one of those painted post cards. What were the riots about?

You guys just keep traveling south. I love your tenacity, and expect nothing less from a pair of Kiwis on tour. Dave (ex-Hawea)

We prefer not to kill our audience cos we have to talk to ourselves then .

Expense is worth every bit when you get to see this sort of thing ... we don't mind torturing ourselves for you guys

Its hard not to get a good pic when you have a backdrop like this

Riots are Truckers re fuel, teachers re unpaid wages, students re unfair fees, farmers re unfair tariffs etc, local hooligans ... just because, pretty much everyone is having a go at something at some stage.

It is only a few very hots spots the rest don't cause any problem unless you want to travel as they close the borders and roads.

Heya Dave

I think tenacity is kicked into us Kiwis early on as you well know, it is all or nothing for us and we want to record our trip as best we can and also provide an accurate and fun report for you guys.

i'm simply amazed at how clean the streets are in the little towns. are the roadways tidy as well, or do the shopping bag trees grow there as well?

Me too. Colombia looks really clean and beautiful. They do use lots of plastic bags, but we haven't seen any amount of rubbish like we have seen all the way from Central. I hope they keep it that way...

Ellen

What's goin on??? Checkin the oil??

"Today, 04:37 AM" Andi's post.....:eek1:eek1:eek1

Different time zones??? Maybe but gives me something to read at 04.47 AM PDT.

Oh well two more days of 04.00 AM wake up calls.

We are not sure ... you only need to go to El Panol new Guatape to find out

It is a cool pic tho.

Mate my clock does not start then, yeap time difference for sure ... nowadays the sun beats me outa bed unless we have something big on .. try and avoid that.

Pronounced "Med a jean" for ingrish speakas

We arrived in Medellin no problem and found R2R KTM, with welcoming arms and smiles we unloaded Maya, they looked after our riding gear and panniers then set to giving Maya the best bath she has ever had, seriously thorough.

The biggest worry then was looking like a mid life crisis rider on a shiny new KTM .... with dirty cases.

Sorting out our hostel we discovered that Medellin was a little more pricy than the smaller towns and Poblado is the nicer area of Medellin as well, we found an ok place so that was cool.

We also had three interesting neighbours, local tranys.

They were pretty cool, for boys they had great shapes, there was a mirror in the hallway right outside our room, one decided to practice her moves in front of the mirror checking all manoeuvres, dropping her top to nipple line and pulling her dress up too .. well anyway.:eek1

So Ellen and I sat there on our bed minding our own business with quite the side show going on, one decided I needed to see a booby peek so gave me a flash .... (insert red face here)....didn't know how to take that

They were all smiles and good neighbours cos when we went to bed they hit the town so it was very quiet.

OK, Medellin,

Wandering on up around the place we walked around to the famous Shamrock pub owned by Al (theturtleshead on ADV) and bumped into Oliver and Heather again so we had chats with them, we met Al that night for a couple of drinks.

Al and I managed an ADV salute, again showing the luv here



We met the following morning and got some great advice on places to go etc which was outstanding, Al giving instructions while I listen on



Olivers bike was still not running right from the debuild/rebuild in Costa Rica and several things were starting to need attention .... after well over 80000 miles of RTW travel it is to be expected.

With Maya in good hands and us not having a lot to do other than enjoy the place I offered to help Oliver with his bike so that following morning down at motoshop we set too, I removed the dead disc pads on the rear and pulled both front and rear caliper sets apart for a monster clean and piston de-seize job.

All pistons were pitted and corroded to some degree so out with the fine steel wool to clean them up, Oliver then took them home that night to polish them with cardboard.

We did the valve clearances in order to get them right and so we could check the compressions, checking the compressions netted bad news for Oliver with only 105 PSI in the pots, they are supposed to be up to 225 PSI or minimum 160 PSI or below is rebuild time so he got his moneys worth out of the rings.

An executive decision was made to pull the motor out and have Federico wave his magic wand over the motor and do rings and a valve cut job so out she came, maybe an hours work and we had the motor out on the floor ready for the top end job.

I could not do anything from there on so the following day was a relax and look around Medellin day.

With Maya it was a case of go back and see progress and see what she needed for good health while at the R2R gym, turns out the 4 inlet shims were all in spec and the 4 exhaust shim were out of spec with too bigger clearance so they ordered shims and got them on the way.

Our rear shock had been knocking too, I thought it was a bush so we had a spare on board, while riding on the trip I noticed it was noisier when cold and quieter when hot which pointed to gas and fluid being wrong, turns out I was right as the guys from R2R pulled the shock to find the bushes ok so they sent the shock away for a full service, clean, new oil and new nitrogen.

All good.

A look around Medellin saw us take the metro system which includes a cable car ride to the top of the hill.

You are literally going through peoples back yard and over subdivisions ... kinda pervy really



Looking straight down on the street from the cabel car, sorry for the scrappy pick but the windows are scratched to hell



The city view



On the way there is the famous square which is full of works donated by the famous artist Fernando Botero know for the "fat" works.







While in Medellin we caught up with Elelns ex class mate from the University days and had a lunch and catchup.



When I went back to R2R KTM I had a look around the gear section and spotted these, got an orange mate in NZ who needs these





All in all Medellin was a very nice place and has a KTM dealer worthy of international recommendation, more on that in the next installment of Two Dodgy Kiwis

I just want to tell you how inspiring you guys are. I've been following your trip for months now, and have just been amazed with your perseverance and overall ability to live in the moment.

I have always wanted to do something like this (although with less challenges than you guys have had I hope! ) but life as they say, gets in the way.... It's inspiring and uplifting to read your report and "ride along with you" and look forward to someday doing something like this myself. It's "chicken soup for the soul" as it were.

Keep up the great reporting, and I hope you're able to continue living the dream forever.

Thanks man really appreciate it, yeah some things we coulda done without but apparently it makes you stronger, having said that if I find the bastid that said "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" ... I will kill em

We are just normal working class people who saved hard cos we really wanted it so it is easy enough to do

A plug for R2R KTM, so often you only hear of people who are unhappy about something and we have been in that boat too, so credit where it is due to R2R, KTM dealerships in New Zealand take note!!!

R2R welcomed us in which was very nice.

We were trying to organise ourselves and get shit together as far as a hotel that we can take our gear to then store the moto when Maya was done, this was proving difficult for moto storage.

Andres the shop manager helped us pointing us in the right direction and also said no problem with storing our panniers and riding gear, also when Maya was finished we could leave her in the shop at night and take her out during the day .... perfect we only needed to get us sorted which we did, we grabbed some shorts, tees and toilet gear and sorted.

R2R set to and gave Maya the wash of her life, when we returned she was so clean I looked straight past her to see where she was!! ... oooops

Their tech then opened her up and measured all the clearances, the 4 inlets were in spec and the 4 exhausts were all out of spec with to bigger gap so we got 4 new shims.

While the open heart surgery was being done they fitted the flexijets which means we can adjust the primary mixture circuit to help compensate for altitude changes from sea level to 5600 metres or about 18000 ft.

The rear shock had been knocking as well so we had this re oiled and re gased so now it works better and does not knock anymore so that is one more thing off my mind.

They have gear and accessories and a good selection of it



Maya shiny and new at the edge of the workshop



A showroom full of bikes, many V twins including the new 1190 and 1190 R



On top of all of that Andres noted I was wearing a smelly shirt and we were discussing what to wash, he appeared shortly afterward with a R2R KTM tee shirt with a 950 Super Enduro on the front, gratis, my first official piece of KTM bling which I had to travel to South America to get ... it has now become my best going out shirt.

I also needed some new summer gloves having tortured my Klim gloves to near death, I have already repaired them in Nicaragua but the palm has split open, I looked and looked in town and through the other big moto shops to find the KTM gloves were the strongest through the palm of the hand and the pricing the same or less than other good name brands so I bought the KTM gloves from them too .... second official piece of KTM bling for when the Klims get too stuffed to wear.

To sum up, R2R (Ready 2 Race) KTM in Medellin did a superb job and looked after us very well and certainly going the extra mile service wise looking after our gear etc cos lets face it the local punter doesn’t rock in with a bike covered in Colombia and needing to store house and contents so we can appreciate we are a bigger pain in the arse to start with, also Andres and David both speak English so discussing moto stuff was as simple as it could get with a lack of communication being a non event.

A huge thanks to Andres and David and their team who made us feel very welcomed and sorted Maya out for everything we needed to get done.

When you need to get something done in Medellin, here are the details.



No excuse not to find them



Maya finished and ready to ride, down the access ramp and out



The R2R Team with us



The two guys who made the the whole R2R experience great, from left to right Andres, me (but ya knew that) and David, all in all the service was simply outstanding, Andres is the top dog shop manager and David is the service manager, I can only dream of service like this for New Zealand.



Thanks guys you rock

Finally the drongo that causes all the trouble with his flash as new shirt and gloves ...flash as Michael Jackson (was)

thanks again andi for the updates.

ok, i am almost convinced to add colombia to my bucket list......

btw...forget the ktm shirt. i haven't seen pics of the colombian senoritas....:ddog

that will seal the deal......

Hey you two we booked our flights to Panama City finally! We leave Vancouver Sept 23 and fly to Bogota Sept 24. Your pics of Colombia look amazing. We can not wait to get the bikes there. We will back track to Cartegena then head west and south. We just watched the Anthony Bordain show on eating in Medallin looks yum! We might catch you up by ? Peru. We have to be in Santiago by Dec 13. Look out for Trevor Angel super Tenere and Clive Rayman 650 GS for us and say hi.





Sara

That would have to be one of, if not THE, most amazing pic I've ever seen.

..... message received and understood ... will take that broken camera out again