Introducing Rocinante

[harre]

I go every year to OTC offroad rally Bukkerittet in Rondane, not far from Røros. It's a gravel adventure and well worth visiting if you're into such a thing as three long days of gravel riding in the best of Norway's nature.

Very interesting. I've always wanted to visit Rondane. Sounds like a perfect detour for gang on ADV bikes. However nobody has knobby tires so maybe the terrain is too tough for us. How much of the Rondane area is open for motorcycles?

[John Stenhouse]

Way cool bike, thanks for the pics

[Rocinante]

Hei Dag, nice to see your bike and read your story!
Your bike is same year and color as mine, what separates them are 120 000 kms! Its good to see that I have lots of kms to look forward to.
I like your modifications to your bike, nice stance!

Hey, someone from Narvik too!
Yours is hardly broken in. Must be a nice feeling. Nice colour too!

I go every year to OTC offroad rally Bukkerittet in Rondane, not far from Røros. It's a gravel adventure and well worth visiting if you're into such a thing as three long days of gravel riding in the best of Norway's nature.

Very interesting. I've always wanted to visit Rondane. Sounds like a perfect detour for gang on ADV bikes. However nobody has knobby tires so maybe the terrain is too tough for us. How much of the Rondane area is open for motorcycles?

Rondane is quite open compared to for instance Jotunheimen which is a national park and therefore is more closed off to traffic.

Put on a set of TKC-80. They feel much like road tires on tarmac, unless you like to wear down knee pucks. On gravel they are a lot, and I really mean a LOT, better than Michelin T66 and its likes. I know. I visited the rally three times with T66 before I swapped to TKC-80 and saw the light. On wet dirt, gras and mud TKC-80 suck, but not much of any of that in Rondane.

The OTC rally is about gravel and dirt, and for all levels of experience.

Dag

[fishnbiker]

Dag, how have you been? It's Ken in Campbell River. Good to hear from you again. I also still have Felix, my 95 Tiger. It's on 100.000 km now, still running strong. Same excuse for not dumping it ... too much fun. Mine is now set up for long distance gravel touring.

Some of the mods I did you might be interested in. I finished putting a 1999 tiger 3 into 1 header on with a GSXR Titanium muffler last year. Wicked sound, but still legal. The new setup is about 8 kg ~ 18lbs less. 4" pipe style toolkit in place of the missing left muffler. A modification to the front sprocket cover now allows me to change gearing in about 10 minutes without disturbing anything else. I'm right now working on installing a similar front fender on a fork brace with a 21" wheel. I can send photos if you are interested.

Say hi to Bente,

Ken in Campbell River, BC
& Felix, black 95 Tiger
& 82 Honda FT500 Ascot

[Rocinante]

Dag, how have you been? It's Ken in Campbell River. Good to hear from you again. I also still have Felix, my 95 Tiger. It's on 100.000 km now, still running strong. Same excuse for not dumping it ... too much fun. Mine is now set up for long distance gravel touring.

Some of the mods I did you might be interested in. I finished putting a 1999 tiger 3 into 1 header on with a GSXR Titanium muffler last year. Wicked sound, but still legal. The new setup is about 8 kg ~ 18lbs less. 4" pipe style toolkit in place of the missing left muffler. A modification to the front sprocket cover now allows me to change gearing in about 10 minutes without disturbing anything else. I'm right now working on installing a similar front fender on a fork brace with a 21" wheel. I can send photos if you are interested.

Say hi to Bente,

Ken in Campbell River, BC
& Felix, black 95 Tiger
& 82 Honda FT500 Ascot

Hello Ken. Really nice to hear from you again. It's been more than nine years, but we both still remember the Salmon Teriyaki we had in Campbell River, not to mention the fishing trip.:)

I just hooked up with Clif the other salmon eater, as well, through ADVrider.

Nice to see you both are doing well.

Now for the bike; 100 000 km! Good for you. Did you go into LD Touring the serious way, like Clif?
Does the 3-1 tubing made for a 1999 Tiger fit the 1994-98?
I'm interested in the change you did to the sprocket cover. Pictures are welcome.

Say hi to Daphne and the rest of the bunch.

Dag

[fishnbiker]

I usually do a couple of 4~5 day trips plus at least 2 weeks, looking for gravel roads with good fishing spots along the route. Last large one was 2,800 km of gravel mixed with 1,200km twisty mountain pavement over 12 days. 10 rainbow trout reeled in from 8 different lakes. Clif is a lot of fun, but in more of a hurry than me.

 The 3 into 1  from a 99 was a lot of fabricating, cutting it apart and re-welding. It runs well, but is more work than I would recommend. It was an exercise for me. I still have to do something about the engine guard. I will send over some photos as soon as I retrieve them from a dying hard drive, along with instructions

Ken/fishnbiker in Campbell River

[Colonel Nikolai]

Well as the owner of a 96 tiger with an interest in reducing weight, et al, I'm very interested in your modification.

[fishnbiker]

Here are 2 photos taken during mock-up. More recent pix are loaded in a reluctant PC. I hope to be able to post other pix by year end.

Once you obtain a 1999 header, it's a lot of cutting & welding to fit any pipe that fits on the old muffler mount hole. This took several weeks of farting around to get the fit. Is it worth it? Only if you can do everything yourself.

Ken/ Fishnbiker
in Campbell River,BC

[Rocinante]

Well as the owner of a 96 tiger with an interest in reducing weight, et al, I'm very interested in your modification.

The main sources of weight reduction on Rocinante are:
1 - Replacing the exhaust, saves 9 kg and lower the centre of gravity a lot.
2 - Removing farkles, Corbin seat and engine guards, at least 12-14 kg saved.
3 - Cutting of the tail end and replacing it with a KTM aluminum sub frame. I kept the bend of the original sub frame and cut off everything behind it, then cut off the KTM sub frame legs an laid it on top. This doesn't save as much weight as replacing the whole sub frame, but it will be stronger than the relatively thin KTM aluminum frame, and not least, a hell of a lot easier to do. I did it myself using mainly a hack saw and I'm not a mechanic. I don't how much weight I saved, but it wasn't more than maybe 3-5 kg. Better riding geometry was the most important goal. Eh, and looks...
4 - Removed original luggage rack. I am waiting for a light weight rack from SW-Motech. Saved a few kg as well.

These four steps have brought the weight down to about 220-225 kg, but it subjectively feels lighter to me because the centre of gravity is so much lower. Much of the reduced weight in the sub frame, seat and pipes were placed high up.

Ken, the replacement exhaust on Rocinante is from Norman Hyde and made for the same year Triumph Sprint. It weighs only 5 kg and sounds very nice without beeing to loud. The only modification I did was to bend it say 15-20 degrees upwards behind the foot peg. It was mounted and done in one hour.

BTW, I too have a pvc pipe turned tool box in place of the canister on the left side. :)

Dag

[fishnbiker]

Dag, you have the Keihin carbs on your Tiger, right? I now have a Keihin set I would like to put on mine (I believe off a Thunderbird, jet size 98). Do you know what you have for carb settings & jetting? What is your air cleaner now? My Mikunis use a K&N unit cut down from one off a Porsche boxer. See my recent pix on this thread. It flows a lot better than the stock airbox, having 55 square inches of surface area as opposed to the stock 49 sq inches. I went from 112 to 130 jet size to make it run nicely, now putting out 101hp, but resulting in a loss in economy. As I'm now focusing more on gravel touring, the fuel economy is becoming more important than the extra horsepower. I would need to know the stock settings before figuring out how much to upsize the jets, needle settings, and slide vacuum hole alterations.

Anyone else done anything like this?

Thanks,

[Rocinante]

Dag, you have the Keihin carbs on your Tiger, right? I now have a Keihin set I would like to put on mine (I believe off a Thunderbird, jet size 98). Do you know what you have for carb settings & jetting? What is your air cleaner now? My Mikunis use a K&N unit cut down from one off a Porsche boxer. See my recent pix on this thread. It flows a lot better than the stock airbox, having 55 square inches of surface area as opposed to the stock 49 sq inches. I went from 112 to 130 jet size to make it run nicely, now putting out 101hp, but resulting in a loss in economy. As I'm now focusing more on gravel touring, the fuel economy is becoming more important than the extra horsepower. I would need to know the stock settings before figuring out how much to upsize the jets, needle settings, and slide vacuum hole alterations.

Anyone else done anything like this?

Thanks,

Ken, I have no clue really about carburettors. Mine are still at stock settings, but I think I have to dive into it. I'm not 100% happy with them after I replaced the exhaust.

[Mustang]

The Keihins on a steamer came with main jets that are size 98
the pilots are 42

the bike runs lean with no mods to exhaust or air box

with stock exhaust and stock air box the bike is very happy if you
run 105 mains and 45 pilots are good but the 42's work fine also with the air screws set at 2 to 2 1/2 turns
also shimming the needles up by .030 of an inch helps the mid range stumble tremendously

these are excellent base line settings for a stock steamer with keihins
obviously if you hve increased airflow thru different airbox and exhausts you are going to have to increase the mains to suit the higher airflow

[Advwannabe]

Sweet bike,

I love reading stories like this when I'm tempted by the latest and greatest

[fishnbiker]

Dag, if you should look at the "Steamers" section in this chat group, there are 2 postings near the top of the list with my name on the last reply ...Fishnbiker. One is something like "Pure Dual Sport?" & the other is right below it. Both have info & photos on how this is done. The first step is to find a spare cover to cut up instead of the original, in case anything goes wrong, you still have the original. I see them coming up on EBay occasionally for about US$50 if you can't find one at a breaker's shop. After you have read them. I can answer any questions you may have at that time.

Ken / Fishnbiker

[Rocinante]

Dag, if you should look at the "Steamers" section in this chat group, there are 2 postings near the top of the list with my name on the last reply ...Fishnbiker. One is something like "Pure Dual Sport?" & the other is right below it. Both have info & photos on how this is done. The first step is to find a spare cover to cut up instead of the original, in case anything goes wrong, you still have the original. I see them coming up on EBay occasionally for about US$50 if you can't find one at a breaker's shop. After you have read them. I can answer any questions you may have at that time.

Ken / Fishnbiker

Hi Ken

I guess you mean the sprocket coverr? Excellent job, and I'll put it on the list of things that could be done some day in the future.

Dag