Tasmania on a Dominator (AKA a noobs cheapo adventure)

[Elkfeva]

WOW, Thanks FlickIT.

your write up and picks are AWESOME.

one day I am going to ride that land... on a scale from 1 to 10 i think Tasmania is a 10!

thanks

[FLICKIT]

Thanks Elk :)

.......................
I still have the last day to write up for the West coast trip... I'll try to get to it soon...

I started a rebuild today... so she's guaranteed to get me around Australia without any problems:

If anyones interested here are the inside pics:
http://advrider.com/forums/showpost....ostcount=38214

Decent amounts of carbon build up... It appears someones done rings and a hone not that long ago, there's still hone marks in the bore... There's some scoring in the bore which explains the highish oil usage...

I'll do a rebore + oversized piston/rings/pin...

Still need to dismantle the head, clean, and inspect... + I'll check the clutch and such...

:)

[Steamy Moose]

Originally Posted by FLICKIT

Thanks Elk :)

.......................
I still have the last day to write up for the West coast trip... I'll try to get to it soon...

I started a rebuild today... so she's guaranteed to get me around Australia without any problems:

If anyones interested here are the inside pics:
http://advrider.com/forums/showpost....ostcount=38214

Decent amounts of carbon build up... It appears someones done rings and a hone not that long ago, there's still hone marks in the bore... There's some scoring in the bore which explains the highish oil usage...

I'll do a rebore + oversized piston/rings/pin...

Still need to dismantle the head, clean, and inspect... + I'll check the clutch and such...

:)

What side was the scoring on mate?

[FLICKIT]

Originally Posted by Steamy Moose

What side was the scoring on mate?

Front side of the bore has scoring down the full length of the cylinder... Rear has scoring mainly in the lower 1/2...

:)

[bull600]

Just came back to check out your progress Flickit.... great stuff - keep it coming

Good luck with the tear down. Hope it goes better than when I did my XR600 http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=397357

Cheers

[FLICKIT]

Originally Posted by bull600

Just came back to check out your progress Flickit.... great stuff - keep it coming

Good luck with the tear down. Hope it goes better than when I did my XR600 http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=397357

Cheers

Thanks, I'll try to finish this RR this week... I've been a bit preoccupied getting a parts order together...

Ouch, you're XR turned into a bit of a nightmare!, good work getting it back on the road ... Do you still have it?.

Luckily I haven't found anything too bad , just general wear...
http://advrider.com/forums/showpost....postcount=2145

It could have been a lot worse, it wasn't pumping oil too well when I got it, the oil pump was unbolted and it was missing the little pipe between the pump and the case:
http://advrider.com/forums/showpost....postcount=2147

The machine shop should be measuring everything tomorrow then I can get the parts order in, hopefully our dollar doesn't drop this week...

:)

[taco250]

Originally Posted by FLICKIT

I saw a lot of these around the North East, they seem to be a bit of a weed maybe....

They're called Foxglove here in the States. Latin name is digitalis...something. It's the plant they derive digitalis medicine from. Grow in the forests here in higher elevations.

Great ride report too. Saw your link on the XRL thread. Hope your rebuild is going OK. I've got the Giant Loop soft luggage although I haven't had a chance to use it. Keep up posting your travels.

[Mark or Jack]

Hey Flickit, I noticed the maps you upload via ridewithgps don't show your speed on the graph, only elevation and grade.

Is this because you use bitmap to collect your data and it doesn't monitor speed or is there a way to turn speed off via the ridewithgps website?

[FLICKIT]

Originally Posted by Mark or Jack

Hey Flickit, I noticed the maps you upload via ridewithgps don't show your speed on the graph, only elevation and grade.

Is this because you use bitmap to collect your data and it doesn't monitor speed or is there a way to turn speed off via the ridewithgps website?

RideWithGPS doesn't calculate the speed from the Bitmap KML files for some reason.... I only realized this a couple of weeks ago when I started playing with the Memory-Map GPS app on the iphone and noticed the speed graph on ridewithgps was calculated from the Memory-Map GPX file...

Bitmap is a good app but it's usefulness is fairly limited, it doesn't like large maps or long tracks, it gets very slow at times on the iphone 3GS... I've had a play with a few other apps and settled on Memory-Map for the 3 month mainland trip this winter...

I downloaded Memory-map for free while back but never used it, it seems to cost about $8 now, it also has a PC application that free, better maps and added function cost money though...
http://memory-map.com.au/

I found Memory-Map has a free "Aus Topo250" map layer that's quite detailed and usable, so downloaded the whole map layer on the PC application, then copied the 860mb map file over to the iphone (so I wont need reception to download it as I go)...

Memory-map records GPX track files which seem faultless, it handles large track files much better than Bitmap... I made a 6000km 6600 point GPX track on ridewithgps which goes from Melb to Cape York, to my surprise it loaded up on the iphone without an issue and didn't cause the Memory-Map app the lag at all...

I'll probably still use Bitmap at time when I want to use the Oziexplorer Hema desert and cape york maps and such (and for Tassie, I like the tasmaps), but I think I'll be using Memory-map as my main tracking and navigation app for the big trip...

:)

I'll have to pull my finger out and finish this ride report at some stage, I've been a bit preoccupied with rebuilding the bike and planning the big trip...

[FLICKIT]

The run home.

Riding: 10am to 10:15pm

Distance:
Odo: 603
GPS: 575

Route: Around Arthur River forest reserve, Hellyer Gorge, Yolla, Hampshire, Roseberry, Queenstown, Home via Florentine-Styx.



I ended up having a terrible nights sleep, my sleeping mat was still leaking and I woke up in quite a bit of pain a number of times through the night.. I jarred my right wrist the day before dragging the bike over a large log, it didn't bother me much at the time but when I woke through the night it was very stiff and sore... Nothing worse than waking up with pain... It also rained a bit and I discovered my cheap tent doesn't handle rain too well, some water leaked in at the foot end of the tent and the sleeping bag got a bit damp...

Arthur River Hut camp site: (I was a bit lazy and didn't take any photos of the hut ruins/fireplace, great spot to camp)




The Pyke Rd bridge across Arthur river:


Not hard to see why it's closed and blocked by rocks:




I decided to ride the 14km out to the Arthur River near the junction of the Hellyer River(where I was heading the night before), even though it was a dead end due the bridge being out... Pru and Ruck, (the couple that fed me great roast chicken meal and gave me the beers the night before), had taken their 4 wheeler out there and said it was a nice overgrown track which is the sort of thing I love...

It turned out to be one of the best rides I've ever had, it started off as a fast open forestry road and gradually closed in to a narrow over grown track with lots of trees to dodge and make it interesting, I had a ball...

9 min video of Junction Rd leading down to the bridge:


The interesting bridge at the end was a bonus!








I didn't go across the bridge, you could probably get across with a couple of people helping but there was no way I was going to try and get down the drop-off onto the bridge on my own...

I turned around and went back around passed where i camped the night before then headed back out the 20km to the hwy, up through Hellyer Gorge to Yolla, then started heading back south... I had plans of riding through the forests to St Valentines Peak and Talbots Lagoon but Gunns Timber have most the roads blocked with gates, and I really couldn't be bothered trying to find a way around them...

Being tired and with my wrist giving me grief I decided to just run home, it was fairly uneventful, I had a quick look at the road to Montezooma Falls near Roseberry (for future reference)...., I was sick of the sealed roads by time I got down to Derwent Bridge so I took the Fourteen Mile Rd and took a few detours through the Florentine forests, over Thunderbolt to Broadriver/Repulse, then back over Dunrobin/Mt Dawson back to the Florentine... These detours were a bit of a bad move because by time I got onto Styx Rd it was dark so I had to slow down to around 60 km/h to dodge the animals...

Anyway... I made it home totally exhausted at gone 10pm after a 600 km day... It was a great trip and I learned a lot about my limits, the bikes limits, and the pitfalls of using cheap gear (tent, sleeping mat and such)...

Highlights of the trip were the Mt McCall track, Mt Cleveland, and the ride along Pyke & Junction Rd in the Arthur River forest reserve...

Thanks for all the comments and sorry it took so long to get the end of this written up...

[Mark or Jack]

Thanks Flick, I just converted a gpx file to a kml then uploaded it to ridewithgps.com, that is the way to go if you don't want to display sped data.

I'm still loving your ride reports.
Lost Doug and I recently used some of your info to ride the Western Explorer last weekend and had a ball, cheers!