3 years and 35,000km on a WR250X in Aus

[tompee]

Greetings ADV inmates and lurkers!
I've been riding my lovely little WR250X for nearly 3 years but only written one report so far! I have plenty of pics and some catching up to do. I'll dump it all in this thread ;-)

As of today (25th October 2011) I have 35,000km (~22,000 miles) on my WR.
It has seen snow, desert, highway and trail without any issues. Just your (ir)regular maintenance. I still haven't done my first valve clearance check!

OK, I'll make an index here and link to my RR's in this thread as I post them.

1. Part A: Backroads and stockroutes from Melbourne to Lancefield, via Beveridge and Kilmore
   
   Part B:
   
2. Snow in Spring on a Motard - I wrote an RR on this last year. I went for a ride in the Victorian high country in Spring, expecting nicer weather!
   
3. 8,500km in the outback in 2 weeks, including a ride for me and the WR in a 7-seater aeroplane! (coming soon)
4. More rides in Victoria (coming soon)
5. etc

[tompee]

Pottering around the backroads and stock routes. Melbourne, Beveridge, Kilmore, and Lancefield, Victoria.
This ride was done in a day, covered about 250km on and offroad.
Let the pictures tell the story!

The old railway line, Bylands, Victoria.




These were some nice trails, but as they started to fade in and out of obvious perception, and as the fences started to disappear I began to get this uneasy feeling I'd be interrogated by some local coming to investigate my presence, and discover I was on private property.
A few shotgun shells along the way did not make me feel any less anxious!


Part of the purpose of this ride was to christen the new Safari tank.
I found a suitable bog hole and named her "Fuck!".


There were easier ways around, but I like testing the limits of the motard tyres. Sometimes it works, others it doesn't!
From the tracks you might think a man dragging a plough had passed through this puddle, rather than rider on a bike.


A pleasant dead-end!


An arborists nightmare!


Oh well, too late. I just came through this gate. There was no sign on the other end of the road! Not that I would have heeded it ;-)


A view. Sans bike, and with bike. Take yer pick! ;) (click for bigger versions)


I noticed a dogfight taking place over the valley. A fighter vs a bomber, Magpie vs Wedgetail Eagle.
The eagle eventually made it to cover and hid in the trees above me.



On with the views!




To be continued...

[tompee]

On the road again! From Kilmore to Lancefield, take some detours and you'll see this!



Or this...


A fruit tree often indicates that there used to be a house nearby.



I looked around for evidence of old dwellings here.
About 100m away I found a small, abandoned rubbish heap with a few bits poking out of the ground


Note the trampled earth and wool scraped off on the bottom wire of the fence ;-)


These are probably the culprits!


There's a bike in both of these pictures somewhere!


A nice little climb if I could have scraped the bike under the fence like one of the local sheep


I did walk up though! This is the wombat hole in the middle of the above picture. I don't know what wee beastie lived in the other straw home.


Some more sights...




I didn't think we had Yak's in Southern Victoria! What the hell have they been feeding the cows?!!
A bit of a standoff ensued

But eventually I brokered a treaty and we all moved on


I again ventured through some gates which google maps indicated were on gazetted roads (at least, that was my excuse if I got caugt!)


The "road" was like this for kilometres though, as the fences disappeared and I felt like I was riding in someones paddock


Nothing like some more shells to increase your sense of paranoia!


Heading home, it started getting a bit damp...


And consequently this is as far as I got! Beveridge Pub (is that a pun?!). Even for a teetotaller like myself, a pub with fire, food, and a few poor saps to show my photo's to is a hard thing to ride past!

[dobbo]

gr8 RR

interesting to see, your bike set up.. I am not into motards, but was impressed with your efforts in the mud on those tyres.
35,000km.... that's impressive.

thanks

[woopwoop]

Nice approach. There're some great photos there. Any reason not to make them bigger?

[tompee]

Originally Posted by dobbo

gr8 RR

interesting to see, your bike set up.. I am not into motards, but was impressed with your efforts in the mud on those tyres.
35,000km.... that's impressive.

thanks

Thanks dobbo! I have managed to nurse those motard tyres through some pretty sloshy and rough ground, I enjoy the challenge! But I certainly can't go very fast, I'd be eating the roost of anyone with knobs on.
The reason I stick with the road tyres is because I do a lot of km on the road, a lot of hooning in the suburbs, and they allow the little 250 to cruise at freeway speeds comfortably.
But I will experiment with some slightly meatier tyres soon.

Originally Posted by woopwoop

Nice approach. There're some great photos there. Any reason not to make them bigger?

Thanks woopwoop! If you click on any of the photo's you should be able to get a bigger version in my Picasa album's.
I scaled them down for the report because I didn't want to bore people with lots of average photo's... so the nice photo's (in my opinion) are bigger, the boring photo's that still tell the story are average sized, and the small photo's are for the less important, less interesting pictures that I still wanted to include in the RR.
Am I overanalysing?!!

[Jeffro66]

Originally Posted by tompee

On with the views!

Jeez mate. you don't seem to be wearing the proper atTYRE for those conditions

[tompee]

Originally Posted by Jeffro66

Jeez mate. you don't seem to be wearing the proper atTYRE for those conditions

Haha, nice ;-)
No, I don't have the best tyre for the environment, but it gets me where I want to go, I have a bit of fun, and it suits the city commuting that the bike is mostly used for!

[Cowgirl]

Subscribed! I just bought a WR250X to do the kind of riding that you're doing here. I was going to put Shinko 244s on it but maybe I'll follow your example and just muddle through on the street tires

[PinkPillion]

Very nice so far tompee. In for more- .

[digga1111]

fantastic pics dude

[sidetrack one]

You certainly got an eye for composition in your pics,enjoying!

[Llamaha]

I just bought the same bike, also I live in the same part of the world. Did you ever wish you were on the R? I used to have an R but I sold it to travel and this time the X was on sale so I bought the X. Most of my riding is in and around the CBD anyway so I think I made the right choice.

Thanks for the ride reports, I'm slowly getting through them all.

[Aj Mick]

That's a useful looking machine that has taken you to some interesting looking places.