A forum for owners of Yamaha TTR250 trail and enduro bikes!

I actually got out on a trail ride on the TTR yesterday - the first since a ride with Steve and friends back in March of this year - see http://ttr250.activeboard.com/t63402548/hatherleigh-to-hartland-30th-march-2017/

It was a ride with a purpose as a good friend Ian (aka Wacky) and his Devon TRF Group "Clearing Crew" had put in tremendous effort in opening up a tricky lane (Blind Lane) that had become badly washed out and not been usable for many years.

My friend Jim professed not to know it so the target for the day was for us to ride Blind Lane - anything else was incidental 

Six of us met at Darts Farm Shop, Topsham, near where I live: Me - TTR325, (and left to right in the photo) my brother Trev - TTR250, Jim - Suzuki Djebel 250, Kelvin - Husky 450, Malc - WR250F and Kevin - Honda CRF250L, 

Misfortune occurred before we hit the first lane of the day when Kev's Honda CRF250L developed a puncture. Testing with an electric pump showed that it was quite a fast one so we turned back to my place where Trish served up tea and coffee whilst a small team fitted a new inner tube to the rear wheel. So it was 11am before we set out again and I had to cut out quite a bit of the planned route to make sue that we got around and back in sensible time.

Kev mentioned a couple of times that his rear brake was making strange noises so investigated properly at the bottom of Dumpy Bag Lane - an interesting lane with a couple of tricky bits.

Kev on his CRF - looks like he was enjoying himself :

Anyways up, it turned out that Kev had managed to fit his rear wheel back with both brake pads on the same side of the brake disc:

So the rest of us stood about chatting and taking the p*ss whilst he got on and sorted it out:

Blind Lane was a corker with big man-made rock steps made to hold back the newly imported earth and stone. We also rode a recently re-opened ford across the River Umborne - again thanks to Wacky and the Clearing Crew!

A persistent drizzle set in not long after we started and by lunch time I was feeling a bit cold as it had saturated my jacket to the extent that my riding shirt was wringing wet when I took my jacket off at the lunch stop. Thanks goodness for heated grips - at least part of me was warm.

A few subtle hints were dropped about it being half-past pasty time but as we were so far behind on my route, the scheduled lunch stop was still a long ways off so I headed to the nearest centre of population that might support an eatery - the beautiful old town of Colyton where I knew that we would find something. A lucky find as we rode through the outskirts of Colyton - a garden centre with a cafe where we were made welcome (we were the only customers that day!) despite dripping water and mud over their nice clean floors and furniture!

Everyone else was a lot drier than me so I reckon a new jacket or magic re-waterproofing is required 

The pressure was now off as we had reached and successfully ridden our target lane plus everyone was fed and watered (well tea'd and coffee'd actually) so much more relaxed especially as there were now occasional breaks in the drizzle and the sun was trying to break through.

My phone was also soaking wet so I only took a couple more photos of another ford crossing as we headed towards the wonderful climbs in the lanes around Branscombe - tricky enough for at least three of them to be included as sections on the MCC Exeter Trial.

Apart from the puncture and brake pad "issue" all the bikes performed well - even the non-TTR devices. As far as my TTR was concerned, I managed to knock off one of my rear indicators plus my engine developed an ominous metallic rattle which had me worried. However, at a petrol (and ice cream) stop I noticed that one of my headlight screws was missing and I hoped that it had fallen into the bashplate as I recognised the rattle from a similar incident when a bolt had fallen in the same way. When I got home I removed the bashplate for power washing. The subsequent "drying out" ride proved my theory as the engine sounded sweet and no nasty rattle!  

Despite the late start and Kev's brake repair stop we still managed to ride 49 lanes and covered just over 70 miles of East Devon's back roads and lanes and the feedback from the group was very positive 

Altogether another great day out on the TTR riding East Devon's lovely lanes in good company - and the banter was pretty awesome as well 

Brian

PS Talking of banter, the badger count was Kev 2, Kelvin 3 and Trev 1