Quit our jobs, sold our home and everything in it, gone riding... | Page 121 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Quit our jobs, sold our home and everything in it, gone riding...

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It's set on Lake Balaton and there's lots of families here enjoying the school vacation. Yes, we're here during high season as well... :(

We spent the entire evening walking aroung the very pretty beaches in Balatonberény. After the last couple of weeks of rushing to get to Croatia, it was actually quite therapeutic to have things taken out of our hands and be forced to slow all the way down. We hadn't realized just how frazzled and weary we've become. We've been traveling non-stop not just after arriving to Europe, but really ever since we left Chiang Mai five months ago.

We are due for a very, very, very long break.

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We find out later that Balatonberény is famous for its nude beaches. Just for clarification, these people aren't nude...

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These ducks look so peaceful. We need a bit of that right now.

I can't believe we found this oasis of serenity through a combination of bad and good luck. It's not somewhere we normally would have stopped, but we're glad we stumbled upon it!
 
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A good sunset is always good for the soul

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....and there it is... Thank you, Balatonberény!

After the sun sets, my new-found calm starts to get eaten away by the ghosts that haunt my thoughts at night. I don't normally fall asleep till around 3-4AM, so after Neda is out, I have a lot of time to dwell on things. With all these problems we're experiencing, how much of it is our own neglect...?

We've never been particularly pro-active about bike maintenance. We're the kind of people that don't carry a lot of spares, only change our tires out when the cords begin to show, keep adjusting that chain out until it snaps... We are reactive, and it's costing us time, money and peace of mind. And then I can't help but think about my shaft drive... about how the mechanic in Zagreb recommended that I fix it sooner, rather than later. That was over two months and several thousand kms ago...

Sleep doesn't come easy for me that night.
 
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In the morning, we two-up to the motorcycle store. It's about 35 kms away (past the gas station,
where we left Neda's bike) but right off the highway so we're there in 20 minutes

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Then back to the gas station to install the new battery

We pull out Neda's bags from storage. Unfortunately the girl from yesterday is not working this morning. I would have liked to show her our appreciation somehow, buy her some chocolates or something. As for the new battery... I've never heard of Varta before... Hopefully it's better than that Italian one we picked up a couple of years ago!

And then, the moment of truth... Neda hits the starter and the bike fires up good as new!

Not bad, less than 24 hours delay and we're back on the road to Pula!
 
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On the highway, we motor right through the Croatian border and although no words are exchanged over the intercom, I sense that Neda is slightly relieved to be back on familiar soil. I had entered the Zagreb BMW dealership on my GPS and I stare at the waypoint as we pass right by it on the highway. If we didn't have to make to Pula, I would have liked to have gotten both our bikes checked out... Neda's battery, my front brake light switch. And that damn shaft drive. Is it me, or has my rear tire been wobbling more and more the last couple of weeks...?

And then, as if I could predict the future:

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At a gas station stop between Zagreb and Pula, Neda's bike fails to fire up again

I know *EXACTLY* what the problem is now.

It wasn't the battery. It was the dreaded burnt stator within the charging system. It's a well-known problem with the F800GS bikes. I've read about so many people experiencing it, but I always assumed since Neda got a later model and a F650GS that she would be immune to it.

Not the case.

I can't believe we just threw out a good battery and bought a brand new one when we didn't have to. I feel sorry for cursing out that Italian-made battery... It did its job well.

All of these unnecessary costs sting a lot. And to top it off, we do own a battery charger, so we could have given her new battery one more charge to get us to Pula. But we left the charger... in Pula - thinking we'd be back soon enough. %$^$^! I talked to everyone at the gas station to see if they had a charger or would sell me one. No luck.
 
We are both feeling very low right now. It seems that in the past week there's been an unseen, yet palpable force trying to stop us from reaching the Istrian peninsula. The closer we get, the more problems seem to crop up. It really feels like a giant invisible hand swatting us down every time we get back up. It doesn't help that we are both travel fatigued on top of things.

Neda is particularly despondent. She just wants to throw up her hands and forget about getting to Pula. Just get towed to Zagreb and get all of our issues fixed right now. But I talked her out of it. We just spent the last couple of weeks rushing through our trip to get back to her hometown, we were *NOT* going to give up within the last 200 kms.

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So we're towing her bike to Pula. We'll worry about getting everything fixed later.

We're all limping home now. Both us and our bikes are in rough shape. All four of us need some fixing up, but at least we'll be in familiar surroundings and amongst family and friends.
 
had a quick look at the stator issue, as i understand it, a repair at bmw likely/surely involves oem parts, the stator is not even sold separate, parts price i read in a thread was 800 bux

non oem replacement stator options are out there,

i'd call ahead about that alone, before going to a dealer for repairs

http://f800riders.org/forum/showthr...rging-stator?p=1142802&viewfull=1#post1142802

this is 2013
Here in Canada the dealer wanted $1300 for the parts ( they replace flywheel and stator ) + labour.
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a friend of mine had a stator go out on a trip up here from the states, they went with a car battery strapped to the seat that they charged up overnite(s), the engine has to be pulled on some bikes for repairs

a quick check for the back (or front) wheel is up on the centerstand & check for left right play, should be none when/if all fresh, new bearings etc

you can also check for unusual noises by spinning the wheels (worn bearings), that can show up at particular spots with the rear shaft, if that is evident, some quick back & forths at those locations might isolate some noises (clicking for one) with ring & pinion, driveshaft, splines & or u joint issues
 
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I guess if you're in Europe a BMW is the must-have bike, but I can't help thinking about Consumer Reports Magazine putting them at the bottom of the heap for reliability. At least you can get parts for them, which would be a serious problem for a Honda or Suzuki. In the end, nothing is free and sometimes you have to bite the bullet. It's good to know how to fix a bike yourself so you only have to buy parts.
 
Roadghost said:
I guess if you're in Europe a BMW is the must-have bike, but I can't help thinking about Consumer Reports Magazine putting them at the bottom of the heap for reliability. At least you can get parts for them, which would be a serious problem for a Honda or Suzuki. In the end, nothing is free and sometimes you have to bite the bullet. It's good to know how to fix a bike yourself so you only have to buy parts.
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If you put as many km's on your bike as those two you're going to have issues the rest of us might never see.

As far as Turkey goes, I know this blog is way behind and you may have already visited, but I went to Alanya many years ago and that way you're heading towards a currently very topical border. It's a tourist town, what I remember very well was that some friends came back off a local trip raving about the weed (Weed!) that was growing freely by the roadside. I think there was a PKK incident just before we got there too. Still, a really nice place and some big Turkish must see sights not too far away either (Pamukkale, Ephesus) etc. Also, I don't know if it still is, but Turkey always used to have most things that Greece had but way cheaper.
 
someone should approach bmw bigwigs about sponsoring/supporting this epic trip
 
It was a great idea on ADV to swap the batteries between your bike and Neda's to check the charging system...or at least hop scotch your way swapping batteries back and forth till you got back to Pula. Too bad it was 6 months ago.

Something of an FYI for everyone if you have 2 bikes with similar batteries.


Oh and I've used Varta small cell batteries before, just not the big ones.
 
you would only be able to run down 1 batt to the point of assuring a restart on the swap, or would then also require handy booster cables
 
yodude said:
you would only be able to run down 1 batt to the point of assuring a restart on the swap, or would then also require handy booster cables
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Or you could run it down half way and swap them then.
 
yodude said:
had a quick look at the stator issue, as i understand it, a repair at bmw likely/surely involves oem parts, the stator is not even sold separate, parts price i read in a thread was 800 bux

non oem replacement stator options are out there,

i'd call ahead about that alone, before going to a dealer for repairs
Click to expand...

FYI the date on the blog is July, i think they are in Thailand now ;)
 
jc100 said:
Still, a really nice place and some big Turkish must see sights not too far away either (Pamukkale, Ephesus) etc. Also, I don't know if it still is, but Turkey always used to have most things that Greece had but way cheaper.
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Thanks for the info. Yes, Turkey is on the list (with just about everything else). It's on our Silk Road Route, just have to figure out how to get into Iran without getting blacklisted and prevented from ever visiting the US again... Been looking into getting a second passport for situations like that.
 
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