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Welcome to my blog, these are the ramblings and musings of an (upper) middle aged biker and if you enjoy braais, (barbeques) beers and motorbikes then hopefully you will enjoy what Janet and I do; we do lots of braais, we drink lots of beer and we tour South Africa on our motorbike, which at the moment is a BMW R1200RT. Join us, read about what we do and please leave us your comments.



Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Time for a change?

Here's the latest in the sorry saga; the BMW agents are going to go ahead and repair the differential which is probably going to cost me in the region of R6,500. The "Dealer Principal" who is obviously too busy or too important still has not had a look at my bike according to the sales manager and it seems like they have to get a price that they can sell it at before they can make me a trade-in offer.
In the meantime I am driving around in an Avis rental which is costing me money, I am currently on leave and was supposed to be cruising the Garden Route on my motorbike. Shit happens! I'm going to go down to Capetown on Thursday or Friday and make some bloody noise!
My old friend Des Pistorius who lives in Durban and about whom I wrote a while ago when he passed through here on a scooter tour, still rides a 1982 Honda Goldwing which towards the end of 2010 clicked past 1,000,000 kilometers! My 2006 BMW could only manage 87,000 - what does that tell you?
 Time for a change? This is the Triumph Trophy SE currently going for R169,500, we'll go in and have a look at that.
I'll keep you posted, in the meantime I'm in a cage - you stay safe on two wheels

7 comments:

Canajun said...

1,000,000 km on an old Gold Wing is amazing. But they were great engines and if properly maintained pretty much bulletproof. I'm personally convinced that BMW engineers their vehicles to require early maintenance (ideally 1 month after the warranty expires)just to get the parts business.

Canajun said...

And that Trophy looks gorgeous!

the rider said...

There was an "official" party at one of the BikeSA rallies - I think it was towards the end of 2010 - to acknowledge the fact that Des' bike had done 1,000,000kms - amazing!
I'm seriously disillusioned with BMW and I feel that pretty soon I will be riding that Triumph.

EvilBunnySlipper said...

What I don't understand ...BMW have been making shaft driven bikes from 1923 ...one would expect they now have it down to a art...my Dad's 1984 R80 has about 250000 k's on the clock and doesn't give any problems...My 2004 Rockster has given me more problems.

the rider said...

Thanks for your comment, I am really disappointed in BMW at the moment but will probably have to keep the bike for a while because now I have been told that the diff. cannot be repaired but must be replaced at a cost of R19,000(ZAR)!!

FATTKAW said...

Yeah the old final drive of doom. Just kidding but it really does suck to be without a bike. Here in the states a lot of the big mile boys got rid of their BMW's and bought FJR's just for this very reason.

the rider said...

Thanks Jon, yeah I've been on leave for the whole month, go back to work Monday and the spares haven't yet arrived for my bike - serious withdrawal symptoms! I've just watched a shootout between ST1300, Kawasaki Concours and FJR and the FJR was voted the best. My riding buddy Frank loves his FJR.