Royal Enfield Himalayanists

No pics?
Is it all in the incoming video? 😊

We were riding in Wharncliffe and a shed load of Enduro bikers were blatting about making an incredible racket, despite the anti motorbike gates.
A local was complaining about them, saying he’d blocked them from riding an mtb track. 😡

There’s definitely places where motorcycles don’t really fit in.

Sounds like you’ve done a big amount of the trails you’re wanting to do now.
You’re going to have to start casting your net further and further!

I’d be up for doing the Peak again at some point. 👍

No! 😞 I was a bit time crunched sadly and it was a bit of a funny old day view wise. Whatever there was was always kind of behind the trees.

I do have about an hour of trail footage but it’s just hard trying to make an interesting narrative out of it.

I would love to choose a good bit and actually just spend a day making a good video but the thought of leaving a tripod set up, riding back down, riding up again then riding bike down again just seems ridiculously intensive for an extra ten views 🤣🤣

Hope you had a good day 👍🏻
There was a load of crossers in a wood today and some old boy on an e-bike said he’d just enjoyed watching them 🤣 One of their mates came hooning down a byway and we nearly went head to head!! 💥 😬 🤣

Oh yeah ref trails- yeah I’m running out of local options. I can juggle work so I can skip a morning or skip an evening now. So last night, I went back in the dark and did all of the work I should have done this morning but then had to be back for 17:30.
Alternatively, I can do my evening stuff around 10:30am (long winded to explain 😴) and then have all day to play. But I can’t quite skip both yet.

With the days getting shorter, I think the Peaks may have to wait until next spring sadly. March-June I can stay away on a Friday and Saturday night if needed.

Nobody riding!?! 😭

No fishing trip this week for me although I did just ride it to Decathlon 🤣 Got lost in Reading so ended up going miles out of my way to get home. Wore a mix of old and new gear and was musing that I feel pretty happy with my set up now. I’ve got quite a large range of options. My only regret was throwing out the quilted, thermal liner for my old textiles (both bottom and top) about 5 years ago. My RST ventilators did come with a lining that everyone says is waterproof so I guess I can always throw a pacamac on under my old textile jacket.

Most likely destination this weekend is Sherborne in Dorset to follow the GWT North but will have to wait to see how things go to pin down day/timings.

Nobody riding!?! 😭

No!

Torrential rain almost every day and now it’s dark by the time we get junior down to sleep. I’ll have to start getting up and out early on weekends.

I was out last Wednesday when I finished work early. Got totally lost in the Peak district, found some closed roads, backtracked and looped around all over the place. All with the fuel light on. Managed about 27 miles of tickling the throttle before I found somewhere to fill up. So that was my first proper taste of range anxiety. I have a fuel bottle which I didn’t think I’d need yet as I’m not that far from home but I’m going to fill it and stash it in one of the frame bags.

I have stuck to my promise to not spend a penny on bike stuff this month though so my funds are slowly recovering.

Yeah it’s amazing how easily summer melts into autumn 😞

The awesome range is one thing I miss from the Himmy. Hence having to take a mower can everywhere 🤣🤣

I grabbed one of these from the local Go Outdoors, https://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/15893142/trangia-1l-fuel-bottle-15893142

It must have been stickered up wrong because I paid about £7.50. I’d like a nice solid mounting point on the bike but for now I can drop it in the Lomo frame bag. An extra litre should be enough to rescue me in most situations. I’m not going into the desert yet.

https://youtu.be/err5EEd1MpY?si=vVPFOFBcT1Px5GqL

Mountain biking today at Cleeve Hill near Cheltenham.

Brilliant ride and back in time for a little spin on the Himmo. Such a beautiful evening and I knocked off a few cheeky little lanes.

Wide angle lens makes the bike look contorted.

Currently sat watching the tv wearing Motocross boots I’m trying on, trying to pretend they’re not really uncomfortable. 😐 Had enough of trying to find some that fit now.

Thanks for that 👍🏻

I think tolerable rather than comfy describes mine still 🤣 👢

One buckle must be too tight as it always hurts my little toe but only on one foot.

Rode across the plain on the way there, then did 50 odd miles of GWT from Sherborne to where we started at Zubbs the other week and then carried on to that hill above (one I was moaning about my tyre pressures on 🤣 )

Cracking day to be out ☀️ but bloody freezing this AM 🥶

Yeah, it’s defo starting to get chilly in the AM. Puts a new slant on things.

Still not fitting heated grips though.
😊

I’ve got myself a free pair of children’s crutches from Marketplace so the next job is to get rid of the centre stand and make myself an adjustable trail stand 👍

Should save a bit of weight. Won’t be long I’ll be able to lift the bike on my shoulder over fallen trees etc 😂

Ha cool 🤣👍🏻

My Himmy had them (🔥👋🏻) already but I’ve not decided whether to whack some on this yet.
James has just fitted some Oxford ones to his along with a cool ignition-switched Ali express distribution box with five ports. He’s also fitted a tyre pressure sensor which I’d never even thought of but actually I suppose makes a lot of sense for avoiding catastrophic failure on the motorway 🤔

Second day of mountainbiking then motorbiking with a great little spin this morning on the hardtail, then this afternoon on the Himalayan.

No plan in direction when I went out but managed to do a few more little lanes I hadn’t done before by stopping and checking what I was near on the TRF map.

I passed what must have been a Red Kite feeding station on the edge of the Cotswold. Bazillions of them above me in the blue sky.
Amazing 😍

Lovely 🤩

I wish I had your motivation for the bicycle. I spent most of the morning editing my video from yesterday and then washed the Voge again. My MTB is sat there with a puncture from months ago and the road bike is plastered in road crap 🤣
The weather was just annoying enough to keep me procrastinating rather than taking action.

Been texting a mate who I met for coffee at Sherborne yesterday on his Speed Triple about coming to the dark side and getting a trail bike.

He openly admitted that he’d rather spend £4.5k on a 2016 CRF than go for a Himmy or Voge 🤯
Seems totally bonkers to me. Especially for something that may get drowned in a puddle.

He’s even contemplating an Africa Twin which seems stupid-big for UK off roading.

It’s quite funny how the snobbery that used to put people off of ‘Jap-Crap’ has now come full circle to China and India 🤣

He openly admitted that he’d rather spend £4.5k on a 2016 CRF than go for a Himmy or Voge 🤯
Seems totally bonkers to me.

Sounds a bit like my brother in law. He was a schoolboy Motocrosser and is often sending me clips of various bikes, usually very expensive ones.

I keep saying, do your test and get a frikkin bike already! Then we can go out and have fun.

Just sends me more clips saying he can dream. Stop dreaming and get one! 😂
His mate has got him looking at that Kove. I told him about the Voge too but got no comment back.

He’s more interested in looking than getting I think. 🤔

Rights of way are so strange sometimes.
Yesterday I rode a section of green lane that was lovely but stopped being a green lane for about 100 yards and became a bridleway (on the map) before changing back to a green lane.
I rode it to have a look to see if it might be just a bit of gravel track or something that I could cheekily go through, but yeah, it crossed a field etc before becoming a green lane again so I turned around and left it.

Another section nearby I noticed on the TRF map was several green dots, instead of a continuous green line (indicating that it’s legal to ride)
What do I do? Hop? 😂

Yeah, rights of way huh?…

Yeah the Kove is smart but it’s used T7 money so needs to be! And better than new T7 money for a race spec one 😎 It’s also serious overkill and the THREE fuel tanks and 310 mile range may be a bit excessive for anything other than motorwaying it to Scotland 🤣

They do seem to be doing a better job of beating the stigma but I guess they had to send actual bike to the Dakar to do it.

Yeah rights of way are like every microcosm of local council politics wrapped into one aren’t they 🤣

We have it here at work where you can’t follow the Byway signs without coming out on a Bridleway the other end. And a few dead ends that turn to footpaths!

Obvs following the TET means it’s all pretty well up together but I did ride a footpath to dodge roadworks in the South Downs the other week 😱 🤣

Uh oh! I am now an influencer 🤣 Some guy commented on my video and said he bought a Voge because he enjoyed my Vlogs!!!! That’s frankly barmy but quite nice. Especially as I was gutted the last video didn’t upload in 4k for some reason so looks shit on YouTube whilst it’s amazing on my laptop 🤣

Maybe MotoGB can send me one of their other models to try 😇🤣

In case anyone didn’t get it, obviously that ^^ above was a joke- I’m not really that arrogant 🤣🤣

I’m thinking this weekend may be my last chance to do ‘fresh TET’ this year now, so I either have to penetrate deep into Dorset/Somerset/Devon- which I’m not overly fussed about (I think I’d rather ride that next year when I can make a weekend of it) or trickle over the bridge and try the GCT and the steep steps at Tintern that entails 😱

I reckon I’ll set work up so so I don’t need to be back in the evening to do anything and maybe set off a little later. I don’t mind travelling back in the dark, so in theory I can have a good 5 hours on the trails I reckon. I almost need to backtrack some of the Wye valley and get a warm up, as when I first transition from road to off road- my riding is shockingly bad 🤣

Especially as I was gutted the last video didn’t upload in 4k for some reason so looks shit on YouTube whilst it’s amazing on my laptop

Isn’t it something to do with the foliage/trees?

I remember seeing something once about how YouTube compresses foliage-heavy footage somehow so mtb videos and these types suffer a fair bit.

When I watch yours, any bits with heavy foliage (most of it) becomes quite pixelated and mushy.

Sounds a bit like my brother in law. He was a schoolboy Motocrosser and is often sending me clips of various bikes, usually very expensive ones.

I keep saying, do your test and get a frikkin bike already! Then we can go out and have fun.

Well, amazingly, my bro in law has booked a CBT and a DAS course and is saying he’s going to buy a Tenere. 😂
I must have finally gotten to him.

Yeah, I think so. But I found a secret settings button that had been switched on too that meant it would only upload in 1080. Which was odd as the previous one was 4k.

I lost my hero 8 on Salisbury Plain on Saturday 😭 It fell out of the screen mount that I use for charging. Annoyingly I realised about 3 miles later but couldn’t find it in the 45 mins I spent looking.

Needless to say I’ve bought some lanyards and pad-eyes to dot around the bike 🤣

I had watched a MTB video about the best settings for the old one but haven’t gotten around to tweaking the Hero 10 off of Auto yet.

I need to save up for a couple of weeks before I can even think about replacing the old one 🙄
I had taken a mini tripod for some ride-by shots on Saturday and everything but was so cross I couldn’t be arsed to keep moving the Hero 10 about 🤣

First post on this thread – long time lurker. 🙂

The discussion on here coincided with me deciding it was time to change bike, and reminded me that I quite liked the Himi when I sat on one at the NEC a few years ago… The upshot is that I picked up a 2yo one in Hereford this time last month, and have nearly doubled the mileage on it already.  I’ve done a bit of tinkering (seat height, etc), but thought there might be some interest here in my luggage arrangements. I’ve butchered a pair of damaged ‘low rider’ pannier racks I had in my bits box and attached their top rails to the tank bars on the Himi.  They happily take a pair of 15l Ortlieb cycle panniers:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V1essir3phwbb-iJx5CCDLvwzEzvodN2/view?usp=drive_link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V0AStozW4KGOHlzbYdRzANKCeh2y2zl8/view?usp=drive_link

[Hmmm… Tried to embed the photos, but no joy. Hope the links work!]

No rough stuff yet, but I’m certainly intending to do a little – albeit nothing too hard core!

Nice one, welcome to the club. Where are you based?

I haven’t been out for 2 weeks now. Last weekend we were visited upon by the in-laws and this weekend we’re off to Newcastle. I’m starting to miss it and it’s just getting colder and darker every day.

I am thinking about modding my seat. I’ve decided that it’s way too low and soft for me. It’s comfortable enough but after a couple of hours my bum is dead and my hips start cramping up. I know I’ll be in agony if I commit to any long journeys and going exploring is one of the reasons I bought the thing so I don’t want to spend the whole time suffering.

SAS Autotrim get unanimously good reviews from the FB group so I might contact him when I’ve got some cash and have my seat made higher and firmer.

I’m just outside Newport, South Wales.

I had a stroke of luck with the seat – I’d carved a block of foam to fit the previous bike (a 2005 F650GS), held in place with a sheepskin rug.  To my surprise, it was a near perfect fit on the Enfield!  I trimmed the sheepskin down to fit over the front seat only, and the whole lot is held in place by paracord lacing under the seat. I might yet add a thin layer of softer foam (or memory foam) between the firmer block and the sheepskin.

The only downside is that my head now sits further into the turbulent zone above the screen. I reckon I’ll remove the screen during the summer, but with winter coming up earplugs will be the thing. But it’s not too bad at lower speeds and I’ve never averaged much above 30 mph on my rides (lots of back lanes!)

I think I’ll be trimming my screen down also. It was much nicer to ride with the screen removed but I don’t want to run without one. I’m going to wait until I decide what combination of gadgets and navigation I run on my accessory bar, then I’ll trim it down and leave enough protection for those.

Which reminds me… Do I want a Quadlock, or a cheap rip-off of a Quadlock? And I also need to check how difficult it is to mount some kind of USB power source behind the cluster somewhere.

I had something similar to this:

MMOBIEL Universal Waterproof Motorcycle Cigarette Lighter 12V-24V 240W Power Plug Socket with Handlebar for Motocycle 22-30MM (0.87″-1.18″) and Mounting Bracket incl 60 cm wiring connection Kit : Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo 

…on the handlebars of my Beemer, and am planning on getting another (provided I don’t run out of handlebar space).  You can get USB ones, but the 12v socket makes plugging in a battery charger or running heated clothing a lot simpler.

Nice one PhilO 😎

I had one of those waterproof USB outlets on the Himmy just tucked in the cable holder hook thing.

Voge comes with one built in it’s so posh 🤣🤣

Hey guys, Chris Froome here!
(is what my mate says to me every time he sees my quadlock 🤨)
I love quadlock stuff. I have a sucker mount in my tractor, one in my car, one in my Landy, one in my buggy, a stem mount on my mtb, one on my turbo bike, one on my road bike, used to have one on my gravel bike and obvs have one with a vibration mount on my Voge 🤣

Please don’t add up how much I’ve spent on them 🙈

The copies look identical but given how much an iPhone is actually costing these days- I’m happy to pay for the piece of mind 😬 🤣

First post on this thread – long time lurker. 🙂….… The upshot is that I picked up a 2yo one in Hereford

Brilliant PhilO. Great to have another member of the cult club 😊👍

It’s nice that so many people come from having big bikes and just appreciate the simplicity and back to basics fun of the Himalayan.

Look forward to seeing your adventures 🙏

Not on the bike today sadly. Going up in a glider 😳

This place looks familiar 🤣

Made a start on the GCT yesterday. The first trail is the dreaded Tintern steps!

I was already in my head about them but cruised up the initial rocky climb no trouble.

The bike was the highest it’s  ever been off the ground in this pic as I timed a jump well over a water channel.  Not that the GoPro shows it 🤣

The main step was another story and took half an hour of failing before I finally did it on the attempt I swore was my last.
I was panicking about dropping and damaging the bike, getting trapped or hurt and even getting out at all so I didn’t even take a mildly arty photo!

Worse still, I missed the actual scramble up the rock step on camera- not that it looked remotely better than the failed attempts 🤣

And then the rest of the lane passed in a panicky adrenaline fuelled haze 😵‍💫😵‍💫

Anyone big-ADV-biking that feature solo is a chuffing hero in my eyes 🤩 🤣

I carried on to Newport and there were several more fairly extreme descents. I’m not afraid to say I switched off, put out both feet and rolled it down a few of them on the levers.  They would be almost impossible for me to climb I’d say although I’m sure folks do. If you met 4×4’s on them I have no idea how everyone would pass each other

Anyway- I survived around 25 miles but I have to say, I’m not super keen on going back without a group 🤣

Sounds pretty full on. I think I saw a video of that Tintern step and yeah, looked pretty stout. 😳

Is it in this video?

Well done for stepping things up on your tod. Sounds hard.

Yeah that’s the one (towards the end). Although the hard one at the start look like one I rode down rather than up 🤔

Nice little Sunday afternoon razz.
I wanted to explore some more green lanes in a direction from home I’d not been in (North of Rugby) but the TRF Green Road Map was down today so not easy to put a route together.

Instead I knocked off a couple of images from a Himalayan Facebook group photo challenge I’m part of. Bit of fun and gets you out exploring

I found a few really nice lanes still though just by OS map

And then, I was just riding along, when this happened…

And then I was just riding along a bit more, when this also happened…

Very narrow, muddy ruts are the hardest 😂

It was ok though, because this also happened.

And this…

Ha that looks awesome 🤣 Game seems fun too!

Yeah, I’m still convinced ruts are largely luck (although mounting my GoPro near my chin at least makes me look a little faster than the head mount did 🤣).

Almost every YouTube video where someone is bossing a rut, no matter how good the rider seems, they smash down at some point 🤣

Which is even more barmy seeing as they could edit it out!! 🤣

I think I must have joined the wrong Himmy group on FB 🤔🤣

Some of the hills actually look steep in this one 🤣

They overlap our day in the Wye valley with my day on the GCT 👍🏻

Some of the hills actually look steep in this one 🤣

They gave up on the Tintern step. Shows how well you did to get through it 👏

They’d have been alright on a kiddies moped like mine 😉 🤣

Bagged a couple more in the photo challenge I’m doing.

No.15 – Rude Street Sign

No. 11 – Mural

Awesome! You’re gonna win for sure 😎

Good ride out today from Carsington Water in Derbyshire with the Himalayan group.

6 Himalayans, 1 Yamaha and a big old GS.

Two or three Himalayans spotted in the wild too.

Lots of nice lanes, though not nearly enough stopping for photo opportunities for my liking! The downside with riding with a group 😁