Portugal Lés a Lés

Today I sent out the inscription for the 13th Portugal de Lés a Lés, which translated into English means something like Portugal from Breadth to Width. It's a touristic motorcycle rally that goes through the back roads and lost villages of portugal from North to South. It's not an enduro race as it's for any type of motorcycle and it's normal to see Vespa's, scooters, vintage bikes up to a Honda Blackbird CBR1100XX. The organization has a couple of surprises along the route, like passing a small stream, or going up a gravel route, nothing that any bike can't cope but a lot of fun. The rally is 1000kms long, and joining that with coming back and forth I'll be doing some 3200kms in only one week. 

I'll be going on the '09 BMW F800GS and will be accompanied by my father on our old Honda Transalp from '94. Our biggest concern is if the old bike will make it till the end.  It's never let us down before, but a 17 year old bike with +150000 kms isn't at it's prime!

The map of the complete route is

Expect some preparation posts coming up!

Oil check at 16400kms

Today did a quick revision of chain, oil, brakes, engine and mounted (yet again) a new front wheel cover / mud flap. I broke yet another one with the wheel padlock.

Everything was ok, only thing to note is that the bike consumed quite a lot of oil in 5m kms. It was at the min measure and took almost 0,7 lts. to put back to the correct levels.

Dressing new shoes (15300 kms)

Today finally changed the front & back wheels at 15.300 kms. The bike was still on the original Bridgestone Battlewings that came from the factory. For the city and highway speed riding style I normally do, they had a long duration cycle, although the back wheel had already past legal standards. The middle of it was completely slick, still with good grip, but dangerous in a big rain. The front could've lasted a couple of kms more, but just a few.

Back wheel


Front wheel



Impressions: I really don't know how to test tires, so I can only compare them with my sensations on the Honda Transalp which always rode on the now discontinued Michelin TX66. Onroad acceleration and braking is very stable, with the tire always following the line you wish to go on. Believe duration is slightly less as the transalphad 20m kms in-between swaps, however the engine was less powerful the. The BMW. Curving is where I recall feeling more confident with the Michelin, as the battlewings seem to give a couple of scares.

So, after investigating on the Internet, found the following wheels suitable for my bike & use (90 to 95% Tarmac with some non serious off road for the fun of it):

Bridgestone Battlewings
Michelin Anakee
Pirelli scorpion trail
Continental TrailAttack
Dunlop

At the end of the day, Decided the Michelin just because I have good recollection of the tx66s. internet has tons of Magazine & consumer reviews with completely different results and opinions, from stating each tire is crap to the best thing possible. Believe it's pretty difficult to analyze a tire, and more isolating only the effect of the tire vs. Bike and road conditions


Here are the brand new tires already on the bike.









have to test them :-)

Location:Madrid, spain