Tools and toolkit
 

What sort of toolkit would you make up for an '83 Tenere ?

What spares are useful to carry for different trips - how would an Africa trip differ from a UK off road run ?

Where would you carry the tools and spares (the cubby hole being a bit restricted and where I carry a First Aid kit).

Just wondering as I am constantly trying to answer that one for myself and wonder what the rest of you do ?

Cheers,

Richard

Hi Richard,

I work from a job list. I service the bike and make a list of what tools I used to do it. The European tool kit consists of tools to do every job I can see myself doing, so adjusting the chain, fixing a puncture, changing a lamp etc. The further foreign parts list adds things that i'd get a garage to do in say France or Germany such as putting a busted chain back on, replacing a wheel bearing and so on.

Spares I only carry when I know there is a problem. Don't know about the Tenere but I carry a coil and HT leads for the Bonneville. Appart from that it's disposables and bodgable items only, tubes, fuses, lamps, electrical connectors and so forth. For a really long trip I'd add enough for the first service so I've have 12000 plus miles before I need worry about finding somewhere selling oil filters and the like.

I have no stowage issues, the ex-French MOD haversack goes in the sidecar boot. When I was solo (the Boneville has no tool kit and no cubbyhole supplied) it all went at the bottom of a pannier. I'd rather the weight was low and I've no time issues with getting under my clothes to fix anything. I played with an ammunition box on the sump back in my F650 days, but it was always fixed too flimsily or weighed more than it could carry. A see a few GS's carrying tubes meant for tractor service manuals and the like.

The philosophical answer is that you'll only be happy with what you are happy with and there will always be something you need that you don't have. I've leant enough people the odd spanner at the roadside to think when my turn comes I'd have a chance of meeting someone with the right bit.

Andy