Place: Nairobi
Tunes: 69 Eyes, Him
Nairobi. Some day it could be ok.
Some adventurer took the right bike but forgot to pay for parking. My new headlight eventually came from this one.
Another skeleton ... hang on, that's my bike.
Finally at JJ's. The only BMW repair workshop between Cairo and Capetown.
The graveyard of rear shocks. Mostly BMW rear shocks.
This is not mine but someone has taken a bit of a hit.
The limping group started early and we had no hassles getting to Nairobi. The traffic there is crazy and the whole place looks like a big roadworks site. This is also where I managed to develop a radiator problem. There’s cooling fluid flying out from the reservoir through this tiny hole in the radiator fluid reservoir. It is an interesting situation as I have no instrument panel to see if the engine is running too hot. Apparently it is.
It was very slow going in downtown Nairobi after I got the problem as traffic got heavier. If you stop to cool off the motor, there are suddenly dozens young men all around you. Intimidating? No, just annoying apart from one case where I really thought that we have to get moving otherwise stuff will get stolen. Apparently Nairobi used to be much more dangerous, but since the police started to shoot the criminals, the city has become safer. Sounds good.
After finding the hotel, we (the disabled group) went to the BMW shop (that only sorts out the president's BMW motorcycle fleet) to leave empty-handed. Next stop was JJ's, where every overlander seems to end up. It is an oasis in the middle of a desert in a way (well, a campsite/garage in Nairobi) and this is the only place between Cairo and Capetown to get professional BMW maintenance/repairs/spares. And they do know it. You can try to sort it out yourself or you can pay. We paid.
There are always many of us there and we had many discussions with the other overland bike travelers. In comparison to the others we seem to be going a bit fast through this continent and our attitude is a bit more reckless. And we seem to have some more technical problems also. That can only mean that we are trying harder.
Ari and his smashed rear shock has been on some on more pickups today and arrived first to Jungle Junction. Funfunfun no doubt. While waiting at JJ's we got a message that three more bikes have the same radiator issue as I have and Jukka developed some mysterious fuel feed problems also. His bike included, there are now 5 out of eight bikes being repaired here. And of course the Honda is not one of those. Bastard! This just shows how manly we have been with our riding. Riding through Africa without any technical issues would be just too simple for us and if nothing would happen, it would just not be the same.
Apparently the overheating issue is a known problem with the GS 800. The cooling fan clogs up with dried mud or other crap and stops. Add slow traffic and high temperatures and that's all you need. It can be fixed by just manually turning the fan and "breaking" the clogged up bit.
We left the bikes to JJ's and went back to the hotel (a very nice hotel actually). They will be repaired when they will be repaired and it will cost some amount of money to us. This is as specific as it gets around here.
Tomorrow we are off for three days to do a safari thing in the Ngorogoro crater, which is apparently _the_ place to see African wildlife. From there we will head back to Nairobi and stay there until the bikes are fixed. Where to catch up with the others who are still running also remains open.
We might get our bikes after the safari or not and then try to catch the others up somewhere, sometime before Cape town. Or at the motorcycle fair in Helsinki in February the latest.
This is Africa.
Tunes: 69 Eyes, Him
Nairobi. Some day it could be ok.
Some adventurer took the right bike but forgot to pay for parking. My new headlight eventually came from this one.
Another skeleton ... hang on, that's my bike.
Finally at JJ's. The only BMW repair workshop between Cairo and Capetown.
The graveyard of rear shocks. Mostly BMW rear shocks. 
This is not mine but someone has taken a bit of a hit. The limping group started early and we had no hassles getting to Nairobi. The traffic there is crazy and the whole place looks like a big roadworks site. This is also where I managed to develop a radiator problem. There’s cooling fluid flying out from the reservoir through this tiny hole in the radiator fluid reservoir. It is an interesting situation as I have no instrument panel to see if the engine is running too hot. Apparently it is.
It was very slow going in downtown Nairobi after I got the problem as traffic got heavier. If you stop to cool off the motor, there are suddenly dozens young men all around you. Intimidating? No, just annoying apart from one case where I really thought that we have to get moving otherwise stuff will get stolen. Apparently Nairobi used to be much more dangerous, but since the police started to shoot the criminals, the city has become safer. Sounds good.
After finding the hotel, we (the disabled group) went to the BMW shop (that only sorts out the president's BMW motorcycle fleet) to leave empty-handed. Next stop was JJ's, where every overlander seems to end up. It is an oasis in the middle of a desert in a way (well, a campsite/garage in Nairobi) and this is the only place between Cairo and Capetown to get professional BMW maintenance/repairs/spares. And they do know it. You can try to sort it out yourself or you can pay. We paid.
There are always many of us there and we had many discussions with the other overland bike travelers. In comparison to the others we seem to be going a bit fast through this continent and our attitude is a bit more reckless. And we seem to have some more technical problems also. That can only mean that we are trying harder.
Ari and his smashed rear shock has been on some on more pickups today and arrived first to Jungle Junction. Funfunfun no doubt. While waiting at JJ's we got a message that three more bikes have the same radiator issue as I have and Jukka developed some mysterious fuel feed problems also. His bike included, there are now 5 out of eight bikes being repaired here. And of course the Honda is not one of those. Bastard! This just shows how manly we have been with our riding. Riding through Africa without any technical issues would be just too simple for us and if nothing would happen, it would just not be the same.
Apparently the overheating issue is a known problem with the GS 800. The cooling fan clogs up with dried mud or other crap and stops. Add slow traffic and high temperatures and that's all you need. It can be fixed by just manually turning the fan and "breaking" the clogged up bit.
We left the bikes to JJ's and went back to the hotel (a very nice hotel actually). They will be repaired when they will be repaired and it will cost some amount of money to us. This is as specific as it gets around here.
Tomorrow we are off for three days to do a safari thing in the Ngorogoro crater, which is apparently _the_ place to see African wildlife. From there we will head back to Nairobi and stay there until the bikes are fixed. Where to catch up with the others who are still running also remains open.
We might get our bikes after the safari or not and then try to catch the others up somewhere, sometime before Cape town. Or at the motorcycle fair in Helsinki in February the latest.
This is Africa.
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