The Bike

I bought this 2001 Honda C90 (Electric Start) especially for the trip. Once I'd got it back I checked her over and decided to do a few upgrades and a bit of servicing in preparation for a long ride.

First of all, I replaced the cylinder, piston, rings, gudgeon pin & gaskets.  Amazingly, that gave me an instant boost in power and MPG - up to 119 so far!   After that I replaced the brake shoes and brake cables - Honda 90 parts are so cheap! Well it seems so after buying bits for my BMW R1150RT - but that's another story.

I fitted all the essentials for long distance touring: 

• A Garmin Zumo 660 Satnav 
• Twin USB charging points 
• An absolutely massive top box 
• a front rack and a spine rack
• A windshield, (for a tenner off of Facebook)
• New mirrors for both sides (only had one when I bought it)
• Handlebar muffs - it's bleddy cold without them. Again - £6 from Ebay
• Water bottles strapped to the fairing - one 2 litre for cooking and another for drinking
• For entertainment, there's a cheap digital clock / thermometer stuck to the dashboard.
• Snow tyres!  Croatia and Slovenia demand that all vehicles have tyres marked S+M in Winter - which means up to the end of April (15th for Croatia).  It seems snow chains would also be acceptable :-/  Nah... that's not happening.
• A crappy little digital clock / thermometer - on board entertainment!

After that it was just a basic service - valve clearances, plug, oil, new air filter, chain tension, lubricate everything, replace the odd bulb and then... I found someone had done a bit of dodgy welding under the rear wheel arch.  It was so lumpy that it hit the tyre when I went over a big bump.  So - wheel out, lots of swearing, grinding, re-welding and a bit of epoxy and, hopefully, it's ready.

Totally loaded for the trip

Too much weight on the front rack led to a nasty wobble

All the essentials: Satnav, screen, bar muffs,
tank bag and a thermometer.