The Varadero International Meeting (VIM) - where riders of our forum meet > VIM19-2017; June 2 - June 5, Gotland, Sweden
MrKiwi's Road to and from VIM 19
MrKiwi:
Hi all
I plan to write up my trip to Europe to attend VIM 19 and the road trips I undertake to get to and from VIM 19.
It is quite an exercise in planning logistics to travel so far from NZ and to look at travelling around the EU and into Russia when one is not from the area. Doing the planning and and organization is part of the fun and anticipation is now building as departure date for me is less than three weeks away.
MrKiwi:
My write up is going to be in three parts:
* the planning and logistics undertaken prior to leaving
* some write up while on the road
* completion of the write up once I return back to NZ. I will start the stage 1 write up later this week.
MrKiwi:
Part one - Doing the planning and logistics to get ready for a tour.
This year I plan to do two trips. The first trip will be a small group of four bikes and five people as we head to and from VIM 19. I will then undertake a second, shorter trip probably by myself for 8 days.
The first trip, the group of five, will depart the Netherlands on Sunday 28 May. To make that I depart Wellington on 21 May to head to Auckland for three days of work meetings and then I jump on Singapore Airlines to fly to the Netherlands on Thursday 25 May, departing midday. Because of the direction I fly in, I arrive in the Netherlands around 8:00am on Friday morning 26 May.
MrKiwi:
The Group of five plan the following route - Netherlands to Germany to Denmark to Sweden to Gotland Island. We will arrive at VIM 19 on Friday 2nd June.
Following VIM 19, we will travel to Stockholm, then catch the night ferry to Finland, then through to St Petersberg, Russia, then Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany and back to the Netherlands. We arrive back on Monday 19 June.
I will then most probably head off again on Wednesday 21 June back to Germany to visit the VW assembly plant in Wolfsberg, then head down to Munich to catch up with a friend from my university days before riding up Stelvio Pass, through Switzerland to either France or the Black Forest on my way back to the Netherlands, returning on Wednesday 28 June.
I depart the Netherlands on Friday 30 June.
MrKiwi:
As you know, my bike of choice is Red. A 1998 Honda XL600V, which I rode to VIM 18 in Winterberg.
Red has undergone some modifications since VIM18. As it turned out, Red struggled a little with me and my gear, I'm not the smallest of people VCIF_a_008 . The riding position was a little uncomfortable, partly because a little before I came up last year I had dislocated my tail bone. But the lack of comfort was exacerbated by poor riding position. On return from the trip last year, Two Plugs and I hatched a plan to modernize the bike to suit me. The bike's suspension was old but functional for a rider a lot less my weight so I needed to change that. I went for Wilbers progressive on the front and Wilbers 640 on the rear that comes with pre-load and rebound adjustment. The bike suspension was then tuned to my riding weight without luggage.
The seat also came in for some attention, and we had this completely rebuilt, including creating a soft spot for my tail bone (just in case). The engine had a flat spot in mid range, so we installed a K&N fliter and also dynojets. 20mm bar risers were added. The seat build raised the seat height by 1cm at the rear and then we went straight forward at that height. The front bit of the seat is raised by 4cm.
Finally I needed a better luggage solution. Buying racks and panniers for bike 19 years old is a bit of a mission. But Two Plugs found some, Heavy Duties. We ended up purchasing two pairs of side panniers as these have also been fitted to one of the other rider's bike that is coming on the trip this year.
The bike with the new seat, and panniers is now looking the part. So when I turn up to VIM 19 the bike will look like this (Bernard's in the background)
(I'll need lots of stickers to put on those panniers).
Two further changes will be made between now and when I arrive which is explained in the next post.
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