I finally went round to Philippes last night to have a bit of a play with his Honda ZFR 800. Something we’ve been meaning to do since I convinced him to invest in a Haynes manual a few months back.

We set about adjusting the chain which had far too much slack. Reasonably simple to do, but it still resulted in a skinned knucle for Philippe. First rule of car/bike maintanence learnt: You will hurt yourself.

Having adjusted the chain we decided to take the fairings off the bike and have a good look at all the fun stuff below. Something Philippe has never tried before, but for some reason he was very comfortable doing it with me around to help out. We also moved the fuel tank away on it’s hinges and stiffend the rear suspension that is adjustable as standard.

Really good fun. The first bit of playing I’ve done since fixing the Mini’s brakes in Mongolia and something that taught me a lot more about the finer details of motorbikes. Cool. And it seems like Philippe’s been bitten by the bug as well, as we’re gonna service it ourselves in about 3000km.

We treated ourselves to a few beers and a nice steak on the local terrace afterwards and were joined by Jon & Nico.

And now for something completely different: Simpsons Philosophy