Well done Gordon! And Richard.

Thanks tjmouse, alandob & Chris. It was an adventure.

Extra mention to Richard as he has had his ankle checked and it turns out he has a fracture. He rode from Northern Angola to Cape Agulhas like that. Well hard!

The bikes are with African Overlanders and will hopefully be shipped back asap. I'm looking forward to giving my bike the TLC it certainly deserves. The bikes took a pounding.

Apart from regular maintenance items there are a few things that need replacing on my bike. The blown fork seal will mean the forks have to be rebuilt, the screen is broken, an exhaust shield went awol somewhere in Africa and the rear rim has a dent in it. Pretty sure that was from a pot hole in Angola.

The front brake discs are worn with the left one below minimum thickness. I'm guessing that was due to the left one doing all the work while the right brake disc was covered in fork oil.

Then there is the cleaning. There isn't a part of the bike which isn't covered in African sand and dust.

The water pump is an odd issue. It leaked, covering my boot and the engine case in coolant. It lost most of the coolant in the reservoir but then stopped leaking. Not sure how this can happen but the water pump is an expensive part so to change it or not to change it? Maybe see how it goes on local rides but I wouldn't go to a remote area without fitting a new pump first.

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Gordon

Congratulations to you both on completing this epic ride… and well done on documentation of the legions of paperwork you had to deploy!

Glad to see the ferry now actually exists across the Congo river and the (breath stopping, for me) loading of a big bike onto a pirogue on the beach is a thing of the past.

Simon

Just an update. The shipping went really well and I got the bike back a couple of weeks ago. It took over 2 months but apart from that it was excellent. Just dropped it off at African Overlanders along with the Carnet. They took care of everything and I fetched it from Tilbury dock, London, and rode it home. It started on first press of the button even though it had been standing for some time.

The plan was to do a few repairs and full service but unfortunately there were a couple of seized bolts. Two exhaust header bolts sheared off so the cylinder head had to be removed. According to the Honda manual, step 1 is to take the engine out of the frame.

I'm not sure if that is necessary but as I bought the bike second hand, I thought this would be a good opportunity to inspect the rest of the bike and give it a good clean. It's a 2018 and I bought it in 2023. It clearly hadn't been well cared for in its previous life.

Unfortunately a forward engine bolt sheared while removing the engine. Getting the stud remainder out of the engine casing required heat and a great deal of care. I don't think the seized bolts were due to the African conditions, more likely from running around salty UK roads for the previous 5 years with no love or attention apart from the odd oil change.

The bike is now in pieces. The chrome on the fork stanchions was worn off. Both sides but worse on the leaking seal side. New stanchions, genuine Honda parts, were only slightly more expensive than a re-chrome so I bought new stanchions, seals, sliders, bushes etc. and rebuilt the forks.

The engine has been cleaned and is ready for the cylinder head to be changed. The parts need to be cleaned, some touch up paint on the frame, change the head and see if it will all go back together.
It's a work in progress.........

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30 Sept 2023. The rebuild is pretty much done. The bike is back together and running perfectly. So much better now that the forks have been rebuilt. A pleasure to ride.

The rebuild has answered a question I pondered before the trip. Which wheels are best for an adventure bike? Cast alloy or with spokes, tube or tubeless.

I think it's fair to say most big adventure bikes never really see any adventure, instead spending their lives touring on paved, first world roads with maybe a bit of prepared dirt, or even just weekend riding and commuting. For those bikes, cast alloy wheels with tubeless tyres are fine. Small punctures can be plugged quickly and easily without removing the wheel. I don't think tubeless alloys are much use for proper adventure riding though.

There are a couple of reasons, if you do need to change a tyre, as we did, you may run into a problem. Changing the tubeless front tyre on Richard's bike (CRF1100) was easy enough but inflating it afterwards proved impossible without a high volume of air. This may have been partly due to it being a second hand tyre that had probably been stored horizontally, compressing the beads together. It was the only tyre we could find in Douala though.

Being tubeless, you need the bead to seat on the rim in order to inflate it but without a high volume of air that may not be possible. The small compressor we had wasn't enough, neither is foot or hand pump pressure. Yes, I know about wrapping straps around the tyre circumference and compressing the tyre but we couldn't get the bead to seat. Fortunately, a helpful fellow with a car took the wheel to a garage in town and used their high pressure air to seat the bead for us. But what do you do if this happens in a remote area and you're on your own?

Then the next issue. The wheels can take a real battering on bad surfaces. I knew my rear wheel had a dent in it, I think that happened in Angola but I only noticed it in Namibia. What I didn't know until I took the tyre off last week was that the rim was cracked. Not sure when the crack started but if that was a tubeless tyre it would have gone flat with no chance of re-inflation. Also if that was a cast alloy wheel it quite possibly could have broken up.

It has answered the question for me and no need for further pondering. If you're going to remote areas, riding on poor surfaces with no backup or support and have to be self sufficient, then I think it's best to have spoked wheels with tubed tyres.

I'll attach photo's of the damaged wheel.

The coolant leak in Angola/ Namibia is an odd one. It definitely leaked from the weep hole, covering the engine and my boot, so evidently there was a problem. Having topped up the reservoir in Windhoek, it didn't use any coolant for the rest of the trip. The original coolant was orange and the top up coolant was blue. On stripping it down, the reservoir still had blue coolant and the radiators etc. still had orange, they hadn't mixed. I haven't changed the coolant pump yet. I've done a few hundred miles on it since rebuild and it's still not leaking. How can it fix its own leak? I'm baffled by it.

The bike had a pretty good strip down. All parts cleaned, lubed and greased as required then reassembled with anti-seize compound. Its got a few more scratches on it than it had before the trip but all in all it scrubbed up well.

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Fantastic! So much useful information. Your bike looks great after the rebuild. I do hope Richard's leg is fully recovered.

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Matt

Thanks for a detailed report of a tough crossing. It will help a lot of travellers. Good to know Gabon and especially DRC can be dodged. Saves a couple of pages in the ppt.

I wonder if your 2018 'Cherry Ripe' AT was an ex-Honda Adventure Centre bike from Wales (pics below).
They flogged low milers via Motoden after a season with varying amounts of light damage, but at a fair price.
As one fork was already leaking in the showroom @ <2000 miles, I preemptively fitted some Kriega 'seal socks' which seemed to work. But then I didn't ride to CT.

Re seating a TL bead; definitely best done outside a tyre shop with a compressor. Helps to remove the valve core to get the air in fast. As it happens, the strap trick worked for me other other day after all jiggling failed. Last time many years ago it didn't and iirc I had to resort to the Icelandic Technique: squirt of solvent down the valve body and light a match.

Must say for solo travels I'd still go for TL with a light load, while keeping firmer pressures to avoid rim damage. If the rim cracks, as can happen, bung a tube in. Cracks apart, if you can't hammer out a dent (as we couldn't the other month on a 310), I'm told jamming a glued up TL tyre string can seal a dent leak.
I wonder if the TL rims on the 1100 are chunkier?

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Adventure Motorcycling Handbook 8 • Morocco Overland 3 • Overlanders Handbook 2 • Twit

Awesome trip! Its been a while since I've read a trip report from someone taking the west route to SA.

How many days did you need driving from the UK to SA?

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R65GS + R80GS Basic

Thanks Matt. I appreciate the feedback.

Yes, Richard is fine again.

Thanks. It took about two and a half months.

You can make good progress in the Northern and Southern countries but it all slows down from Mauritania to Angola due to roadblocks, border crossings, visa issues and city road congestion etc.

Chris: Yes, it's quite possible my bike was ex Adventure Centre. That would explain some of the minor scratches etc. I wasn't aware of it until your post. I've just checked the V5 and it has had two previous owners. I bought it from a dealer in Wales who told me they took it as a trade in on a new Africa Twin.

The tubeless rims on Richard's CRF1100 are like the BMW GS where the spokes go to the edge of the rim, not the centre so it is a proper tubeless wheel, not just a sealed spoke arrangement.

A leaking seal at <2000 miles isn't good. I wonder what's wrong with the standard seals?

Overall, the CRF1000 is a great bike though.

Just found this RR, many thanks.
Where did you get your Carnet from and how much- if you don’t mind me asking?
D

Got the Carnet in the UK. About £250 for the document plus £500 non refundable admin fee plus the bike deposit up front.

The deposit amount varies with the bike value but you should get most of that back.

The fixed, up front, non refundable costs were about £750.

I lost my carnet and had to have a new one issued so that cost another £500.

The Carnet is one of the biggest single expenses.

Many thanks and congratulations on a great trip.

Congratulations on the completion of this trip and thanks for posting your journey as it was helpful. I budgeted 5 mos. to get to South Africa, but finished in 3 arriving at the end of August. I expedited my trip because, as you know, most of Africa is a rather hostile and unpleasant place to motorcycle through with Namibia and South Africa being the exceptions. I probably wouldn't have done it if I knew what I know now and don't recommend it.

I completed the trip without a carnet and definitely would recommend not getting one though I've heard rumours that Angola may now require one. I had no problem with TIP's/Passavants and even while paying some of the highly suspect fees, it was cheaper than a carnet.

The DR650 would not die or break even after filling it with crappy fuel, dumping it it frequently in the mud and crashing it once.....it just kept going. Only failure was a broken speedo cable. The bike is a bit bent.....but a few replacement parts and fasteners will straighten the girl out again. The Motoz Tractionator GPS tire I installed in Morocco lasted the entirety of the trip.

I too ended my trip at African Overlanders and will have the bike shipped to South America where I plan on picking it up in January and riding back to Canada possibly with another Canuck on a KLR I met up with in Namibia. Sorry to hijack your thread, but I thought I'd would recognize your accomplishment and let you know how things turned out for me.