And so the route scouring begins. A lot to unpack 500ers. Check your email!
500 course riders, your routes have been sent.
If you didn’t get yours, check that your email received a confirmation after registration. If it didn’t receive a confirmation, best try registering again.
As you regulars know, all entrant details are deleted after each event so I can’t send out routes without you all registering. Thanks for your continued participation and sign up asap as registration will be closing next week.
Long course 650 riders, expect yours over the weekend.
It’s important to maintain a low stress environment to enjoy the road more on a long and challenging ride like the C2C Twistybutt. With just under 3 weeks to go, let’s look at 20 thingss a lot of Twistybutts use or do to keep the stress and worry away.
The Coast to Coast is a long day with a huge variety of roads and weather conditions. To maintain energy and concentration, it helps to minimise stress and maximise enjoyment. Makes sense right? So how can we do that?
On those long rides, like the C2C, plenty of riders get seperated from their friend or group of friends at some point resulting in a stop to call and arrange a meeting point. It’s half the fun for some…
Well, got the radiator and everything forward of the seat done and left the rear end till last.
First up was swapping the dented muffler for an R1 muffler that’s almost the same…it fits.
Might swap it back though as it’s not cosmetically the same. Sounds the same though…
Getting to the indicator wiring is usually simple enough…
Except…
This replacement bolt I put in with the panniers rack a couple of years ago was forged from cheese. 👎
With a little gumption and ingenuity, got it sorted and everything back into the spaghetti pile. The screw that tried to screw me stayed where it was. I’ll have my revenge later!
The home stretch…
With the seat on, you’d never know the cursing the wiring caused.
Ta-da! Like new…almost.
First ride was around the block and local park. A few streets in and discovered the Quickshifter wasn’t working. Somehow it had turned itself off in the crash. Pulled over, got into the menus and it was as simple as turning it back on.
Then headed home for dinner to let the radiator cool down before topping it up.
After dinner, topped off the coolant overflow tank and radiator then set off for the first real clean in months. Came up great!
I swear it was smiling, even though it was less than 5°c.
With that clean followed by a 50km shakedown ride, the carnage and destruction was washed away and old MighTy is back in the game!
Yamaha declares that their vibration tuning is key to the smoothness, integrity and character of their bikes so I did a U-turn on massively modifying the front end and instead am rebuilding with new parts wherever the previous parts were broken, damaged or just worn out.
It’s amazing how many individual parts go into this Lego-like front end. I’ll do a parts count up in the end maybe.
Notice the crack in the top left of the lense? It was barely noticeable after the crash but has since, with the cold maybe and some prodding and squeezing, grown into a serious crack. Incidentally, you can’t buy the light by itself. It comes as part of a pre-assembled set, already mounted on the headlight stay like below for around 100,000 yennies. Ouch!
Anyway, it’s coming together and a handy thing is that the whole front end is a single unit that bolts ap to the headstock with just four bolts. That means I can build it up in the comfort of my study with the heater on in my pajamas. 😄
To be honest, this should’ve been done a long time ago but I’ve been distracted by another set of wheels with a lot of nostalgia and deep feelings attached that’s found its way to me…more on that some other time maybe…
Like peeling an onion, removing the layers to get to the bolts holding the radiator and busted bits in, which were likely easily accessible before but now cloaked in dislodged plastic and twisted brackets. And once stripped, that radiator was similarly twisted on the impact side and didn’t want to budge. It was a little wedged in there.
Was also filthy as it hadn’t had its usual thorough cleaning after such back roads adventuring. Made for some dirty work.
After removing all the ancillaries and wriggling it around a bit, it came out alright.
Look how that top row has been peeled forward. The whole right side of the radiator is twisted out of shape with small dents on the exiting pipework.
The MT10 has a larger metal and a smaller plastic radiator fan. That smaller one got squished between the radiator and head.
Left some small plastic meltages on the head but seems the radiator indentation took the brunt of the force.
Gotta add a rad fan to the parts list now, too.
Could’ve been a lot worse. Had my fingers crossed the radiator could be salvaged but that’s not gonna happen. Fortunately, the oil cooler below the radiator is not damaged. Filthy yes, deer rammed no.
I’ve already sourced most of the front end parts discovered mangled in the front end teardown. Some parts are new and some are in great condition but used and significantly cheaper.
Now with a complete understanding of the damage, next up will be a complete list of the remaining parts to be sourced, a thorough cleaning and of course opening the wallet for parts. Then the rebuilding fun begins!
Booking of a hotel before the Coast 2 Coast Twistybutt can be a chore but we all have to rest our road weary bag of bones somewhere. So best get it done early and have one less thing to do while taking advantage of ample room selection and even some early bird discounts.
Touge Express 