Article written for the BMWMCQ July 2017 journal
It is day 43 of the Cairo to Cape Town expedition. The scheduled ride for the day is from Arusha to the capital city of Dodoma in Tanzania, a total of 429km. Cindy is back on Blue Betty the BMW 700GS for the first time since her fibula breaking crash near Lalibela in Ethiopia, we’ve had a great time on Zanzibar Island and looking at wildlife on the Serengeti, the weather is nice. All is right in the adventure motorcycling world.
The afternoon’s riding is easy down a brand new bitumen highway through the red soil plains, with almost no traffic. The bikes are performing beautifully; after all it is only 500km since the Nairobi service and the brand new Mitas E-07 tyres are keeping us glued to the road through the rare corners.
A motorcycle service can be described as the act of transferring a number of known unknowns into known knowns. For example, before the Nairobi service I knew that my air pre-filter would be dirty because I rode through dusty areas for days, but it was unknown whether it was practically pristine, or about to block the air intake with the passion of a security guard at a White House function. So the service took the known unknown pre-filter and turned it into a known known pre-filter. Same with the oil and oil filter. The turning of known unknowns into known knowns creates feelings of confidence and happiness.
Practically everything you can easily see, such as brake pads, tyre condition, light bulbs, chain, and sprockets are known knowns. Unless you deliberately choose to not look, which puts them into the unknown knowns category. Unknown knowns normally multiply during the sale process. For example, I know really deep down that the sixth gear is practically stripped because of failed clutch-less down shifts with up to 1 second between the throttle blip and the stomping of the gear lever, but I refuse to know it and therefore can’t possibly inform a potential buyer who is unlikely to get up to sixth gear on the test ride around the block.
But unknown unknowns? Things that are so far out of left field that you never even recognised that they could happen? Things no-one has even heard about happening to anyone? Well, somewhere south of Cairo an unknown unknown occurred, which suddenly became a known unknown. We had stopped for a brief rest about 35km north of Dodoma for taking a photo of something, and after making sure Cindy had managed to re-mount successfully with her partially healed broken leg, we slowly got back up to speed. Normally I get way out in front to clear all dangers from the road and alert the local communities that Cindy is coming, so Cindy only had about 5 seconds to tell me something on the Sena communicator before I blasted out of range.
“Your back wheel is wobbly” is rarely something you expect to hear, unless you are driving a clown car, and I wasn’t. So back down from third gear to neutral, and coast to a stop. Put bike up on centre stand, and give the back wheel a spin, expecting that the wobble will turn out to have been an optical illusion due to the interaction of atmospheric lighting conditions with a Shoei visor. Hang on, it does have a wobble. At that moment, a more experienced second opinion in Bayne Morison the motorcycle mechanic and Compass Expeditions support vehicle driver pulled up and also gave it a spin. Quick check on the bearings and axle alignment, they seem fine. A quick poke at a spoke and voila! The spokes are loose. Okay, you have lost an Un and now have a known unknown, you know that you have loose spokes but it is unknown whether it is a major issue. They should be right until Dodoma but they will need to be checked and tightened there.
Off we go again, with the remaining Un burrowing itself into the cerebral worry cortex to lay its poisonous eggs, which soon hatch into hairless anxiety moles which burrow even deeper. A refuel in Dodoma, then to the Morena business hotel on the outskirts. With the luggage man-handled to the room, it is back to the hotel car-park to start the spoke tightening, with the expectation that a half-turn or two of the loose spoke nipples and it will be high fives all round then off to the bar and dinner. With the 6mm spanner in hand, it was quickly discovered that Triumph Tiger XCx spokes are straight, so off to find a set of vice grips to grab the spoke and stop it turning.
The vice grips borrowed, the concept of spoke tightening was considered. I guessed that if the spokes aren’t equally tight, then it is unlikely the wheel will be equally round. With no torque wrench available, I decided that I should firstly give each spoke a tap to find out which ones were loose, and then tighten them so they were all “in tune”. A quick tapping session showed about eight or so were loose, each marked with a piece of electrical tape. So far so good. Now for the tightening. Reclining awkwardly and uncomfortably on the ground in the Morena hotel car park, surrounded by the contents of the tool bag and bits of tape, with the vice grips clamped on the first loose spoke, and the spanner about to be deployed, a waiting hotel security guard decided at that moment to tell me that I had to move my bike over to the other side of the car park. “In a minute” I mumbled through teeth on the verge of gnashing.
So the tightening began. Or would have if the vice grips hadn’t decided to fall off. After putting them back on again and making sure they couldn’t slip, the tightening began. Surprisingly, tension did not take up quickly, and many half turns were taken until eventually the end of the thread was reached. What on earth was going on? Then, the second Un flew away and took all my hope with it; I had known knowns, the spoke was broken. Choosing the moment unwisely, the hotel security guard decided I needed reminding to move my bike, and Cindy came out of the hotel and suggested that I should move hers as well. Calmly and politely, I suggested that right now I had way f#@king bigger problems than moving the f#@king bikes to the other side of the car park, but carefully and gently re-packed all the equipment and with a serene air pushed the bikes over to their overnight location.
A check of the front and rear wheels, the former fine apart from the Ethiopian pothole rim dent, the latter with a count of roughly eight spokes broken, most on the chain and sprocket left hand side. Bayne stated the obvious when he said to the grief-stricken rider that it was not ride-able, and so on the back of the support vehicle it must go. The only problem was that a Triumph Tiger XC was already up there, but it was mechanically fine. So a discussion was held with Stan the owner who was crook, which canvassed the options including swapping rear wheels, swapping bikes, or Stan getting back on while I got to ride in the support vehicle and bore Bayne with constant whining about how tragic my life was. Swapping rear wheels was a bit tricky, and Stan didn’t feel well enough so the decision was easy – I’d borrow Stan’s bike until he was better. So down came Stan’s Tiger and up went mine.
Having a bike to ride really didn’t solve any of the main problem. We were only just over half way through the C2C and The Precious was un-rideable. This brutal reality prevented much reflection on how it might have happened, getting The Precious back on the road was priorities 1 thru a million. Okay, maybe Andrew the ride leader’s offer of a beer snuck into the to-do-right-now list. Firstly, call anyone who might have spare 2015 Triumph Tiger 800XCx spokes. Timing was of the essence, the next big town with a two night stop was Lilongwe in Malawi, six days away. After that it was Harare, but getting a leap-frog happening was beyond comprehension, to think that the spokes would follow the expedition down the continent but never catch up was horrid.
I had the Triumph part number for spokes, having downloaded all the exploded diagrams from BikeBandit in the US, so they were the first on the call list. Sorry, we don’t supply Triumph parts anymore said Brad at BikeBandit. Thanks Brad, no worries. Having a Triumph means getting a bit fixated on the idea that Triumph are the only ones who can supply parts, so then started a round robin of Triumph dealer calls. Firstly Triumph Johannesburg, the bleedin’ obvious choice for spares purchase in Africa, but it was shut for the day. Then to the UK who were just behind our time zone. We don’t have any, but we’ll place an order with Triumph UK said Nick from Metropolis Motorcycles in Vauxhall. Assuming 3 days from Triumph we could have them there in six days. Hmmm, thanks Nick, sounds like a possibility but I’ll keep checking.
So up very early after almost no sleep and onto Australia. Firstly a Melbourne Triumph dealer, surely they have heaps of spares. Call Peter Stevens, two of the bikes on the tour have come from “him”. Similar story to Nick’s, the spares must come from the UK, we have no spare spokes in stock and the computer says none at any Triumph dealer anywhere in Australia.
Desperation is the nagging step-mother of persistence. I had almost reached the point of hopelessness, but decided to call TeamMoto Virginia; a) because they were open, and b) because that is where I’d bought The Precious in 2015 so they would at least be sympathetic to hear that one of their progeny was ill. Expectations were low. Matt in spares answered; I explained that I was in Tanzania Africa, and the bike they had sold me had a lot of broken rear wheel spokes. Matt checked the part number against the spares database, confirming that they didn’t have any. And then the whole world changed when Matt said that they had never bothered to carry spare spokes, they just sent wheels down to Ash’s Spoked Wheelz in Capalaba, about 10 minutes’ drive south from our home. Matt said do you want Ash’s number? Yes. Yes I do.
Barb at Ash’s Spoked Wheelz answered, so a brief description of the problem was given. Best speak to Jack. Jack answered and didn’t seem fazed by the fact that I was at Dodoma in central Tanzania, Africa. I think that maybe he thinks that is the next suburb over, ploughing on with my attempts to transfer a sense of raging crisis. What model bike? Triumph Tiger 800XCx. Year? 2015. OK, they are 211mm 8G spokes. How many do you want? Suddenly wishing that I’d counted thoroughly, how long to make a dozen I ask, expecting an answer with days or weeks at the end. Half an hour said Jack. And we have an account with DHL so they can be on the way in an hour. I’ll also put $1 value on the invoice said Jack, just so it will get through customs a bit quicker. Jack, please oh please let me give you a credit card number.
So day 44 the 3rd of March, Cindy’s birthday, had gotten off to a good start. The next few days were on Stan’s Tiger 800XC bike from Dodoma to Iringa, then to Mbeya, then across the border to Chitimba camp on the shores of the enormous Lake Malawi for two nights. Jack had given me the DHL tracking number, so the spokes were followed from Brisbane to Hong Kong, and then nothing as we could not get wifi connection or even reliable mobile after Iringa, however unremitting effort was made to call the Woodlands Resort Hotel in Lilongwe to alert them that a packet of spokes was arriving. The intent was to ensure that should the spokes beat me to the hotel, the staff would understand that I would beat them to death if they failed to accept the package. The phone number for the Woodlands Resort hotel didn’t work, so death threats weren’t able to be enunciated. Compass Expeditions were on the case, they had three unanswering phone numbers, so none were useful for making death threats. Increasingly irrational speculation was the result; maybe the hotel had closed down, the DHL driver would attempt to deliver the spokes to a burned out shell of a building, before picking up his mistress and fleeing the country in the DHL van, taking the spokes with them. Back to creating known unknowns.
On day 48 Stan was well enough to get back on his bike, so Cindy and I were on Blue Betty for the 300km run down to Ngala, also on the shores of Lake Malawi. Sandy and Chris were our hosts at the fantastic Ngala resort, and unbelievably Sandy had worked for DHL for 14 years before getting into the fabulous accommodation business. And of course she had a number for the Lilongwe Woodlands Resort, so with two quick phone calls the certainty for hanging onto the spokes were sorted, and yes the spokes had already arrived at DHL. Too early for celebrations though, the imagination now had the DHL van driver’s wife leaving him and he’d drive the van into the river on the way to the Woodlands Resort.
Day 49 was back on Stan’s bike due to a relapse, a 280km swing down to Lilongwe, with scheduled arrival at lunch time. A nice curry lunch at the Woodlands Resort did nothing to quench the fires of anticipation. Although the spokes were to be delivered, I needed to prevent the loaded DHL van being used in a bank robbery on the way to the hotel and being torched with my spokes inside afterward, so off I went down to the DHL depot. The DHL method was on display, with small packages spread out all over the place and each having to be checked, before finally determining that the spokes were already in the van. Damn, known unknowns refused to go away, no option but to make the tenuous assumption that the van and spokes wouldn’t be involved in a para-military situation when it delivered weapons to the Lilongwe ISIS headquarters, at the last stop before the Woodlands Resort.
So back to the resort. Reception staff were told that if a DHL van turned up, for their sake and the sake of the children, it was not to leave even if they had to take the driver hostage. I loitered about out the front anyway, as they didn’t seem terribly concerned. Why is transfer of screaming anxiety to complete strangers so difficult? Half way through thoughts of stabbing the tyres of the DHL van when it arrived so the driver couldn’t pretend the spokes were still at the depot, when he was going to use them to pay for a bag of marijuana later, the DHL van arrived. The driver, who now in the flesh looked a completely normal chap rather than the expected Michelangelo’s David, wasn’t interested in getting out, and just passed the packet of spokes out the window with the electronic signature device. Ten seconds after arriving, he was leaving, now an unwitting hero to me.
Straight down to the cabin, and commencement of nagging Bayne and Andrew to get The Precious off the back of the support vehicle. They were obliging, and Andrew sat and steered while we pushed it back to somewhere reasonably flat outside our room. Five minutes later, the back wheel was off and sitting on the convenient concrete workbench of the room verandah.
Enter Adrian and Hera, who provided tools and light in the dimming evening. The Triumph Tiger rear wheel is simple to work on, with the sprocket not actually attached but sitting in a coupling rubber nest, but the ABS ring and the brake disc needing removing to get the broken spokes out. Given that I had ordered 12 spokes, the final score of 10 broken and 1 stretched beyond usefulness left me with just 1 spare. Even King Camp Gillette never shaved it that close. Then a problem appeared – the thread on the new spokes was not the same as the old spokes. Damn. I really just wanted to put the new spokes in and try to true it up with the tyre on, I definitely wasn’t excited about taking the tyre off.
The day was closed with another great curry and mixed feelings; euphoria at getting the spokes but worry about putting them on and truing the wheel, which I’d heard was very difficult to do. Up early the next morning for day 50, some viewing of an expert installing spokes on YouTube calmed the nerves slightly, then we were off to the Mozambique High Commission to get a visa needed for the next day. By 10:30am I was back into it, now understanding that taking the tyre off makes spoke life a lot easier. Bayne loaned me his excellent Motion Pro tyre irons, and with Adrian and Stan assisting we soon had the rear tyre off. Then a couple of chairs were set up with the wheel resting between them, YouTube had insisted that having the wheel level was critical so that the horizontal and vertical “out-of-roundness” was easy to measure.
The luck continued when the wheel was found to be round, I wasn’t looking forward to pulling it into a circle. It had about 10mm of side ‘wobble’ through. Now for the technical bit. There were 32 spokes in total, with four ring lines of eight spokes, two lines each side of centre. Firstly, all spokes were finger tightened to get a consistent starting point. Then the spokes were each tightened half a turn, and the wobble checked. The spokes on the opposite side of the point of maximum wobble were then tightened a bit more to pull it into line. Then more even tightening and wobble checking, until eventually about 3mm of wobble was as good as I could get it, and all the spokes gave about the same nice ringing sound when tinkled with an old spoke. According to YouTube, road bike wobble should be maximum 1mm, while dirt bike wobble could be up to 2-3mm. I decided that an adventure motorcycle was really just a very large dirt bike, so my 3mm was a good result.
After a few celebratory liquorice all-sorts, which were then used as effective bribery on Andrew and Bayne to help me put the tyre back on, the wheel was re-assembled, pumped up, and put on the bike. A spin and another tinkling of the spokes, then it was off for the official test ride. The road around the resort was an adventure bike challenge track, and The Precious floated around it with ease. Another thorough spoke tinkling, which would become a habit to perform at least twice a day for the remaining 30 days of the C2C, and I was floating up to the bar for celebratory drinks.
What about the ultimate known unknown; how had I broken spokes when experienced continent crossing adventurers had never seen it happen before? Now the speculation as to how I’d broken spokes went into overdrive. Most popular cause was an Ethiopian pothole, as Ethiopia was about the last time we’d seen a bad road. Even I thought the road into the Blue Nile Valley north of Addis Ababa could be the culprit. A second cause canvassed was that BMW Nairobi had broken them when they changed my tyre, got it on backward, then had to take it off and put it on again. Maybe, but many poo-pooed this as unlikely as the rim itself was pristine. Third most popular option was that some spokes were too tight, one had broken, and then they progressively failed. Hmm, The Precious had 45,000km on the clock, and had done some rough roads. Not many takers for this one.
Then a recent Cindy-inspired epiphany – what about that evil soldier outside the Ethiopian Presidential Palace who gave me and the bike a beating for daring to stop out the front? Suddenly the memory of the vicious kick at my rear wheel just as I started to pull away puts this as highly likely to have broken a spoke, which then spread.
Everything is now a known known. Just as it should be.
travellingbennetts 