Arctic Trip - New tyre needed

Shadowman

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I'm surprised how quick my 110/90/18 Avon Venom tyre has worn. It has travelled about 3000 miles.
There is about 2mm left.
I'm going to need a new one long before we get home.
If there is anyone around Southern Finland or Estonia area who can give me the address of a bike shop who may have any tyre of around that size it will save me a bit running around once we get there.
As I write we are about to leave Sweden to go around the top of the Baltic sea and enter north Finland tonight. It will take a few day to get down Finland.
I'm attaching a picture which says it all about the trip from the Arctic Circle down to here. Dead digital kph speedo and water in the 5 inch speedo.
The weather is fantastic today and the forecast is good so I'd better get going
 

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nkt267

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Peter was by his Rapide today when a gent came up to him for a chat and sourced him a rear tyre,about 60 Km away,local then?:p
He will be posting a picture on the forum later..John
 
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Shadowman

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New tyre found

I was standing outside the hotel this morning when the owner of the Pizza restaurant next door came out to take pictures of the bike.
We got talking and when I told him of my tyre he started phoning around and found a place on our route 60 klms away.
These people couldn't have been more helpfull. I removed the wheel and while I had fresh coffee they changed it. While I was there they showed me the biggest motorcycle tyre I've ever seen it was 360/90/18.

Now we are in central Filand with a fresh problem. Not a serious one.
My kick start spring snapped or cam off late this evening. (We are 2 hours ahead in Finland) I think part of it is under where the ratchet goes as the kick start only goes 3/4 way down.
I've attached a geomagnet to the end of my spare clutch cable and will go fishing in the morning.

Not many miles today due to tyre and classic vehicle exhibition distractions
Off to a Finish tank museum 150 mile from here tomorrow
Thanks to Len and John Hood for the suggestions.
 

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bmetcalf

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Finns

That tank museum should be good. The story of the Finns fighting off the Soviets in '39 or '40 is quite something.
 

Tom Gaynor

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Finns

It was the Red Army's first war after Stalin had "cleansed it of reactionary elements", i.e. anyone who knew what they were doing. Soviet losses were collossal, Finnish losses minimal.
This from an interesting book I've been reading which discusses, among other things, the reasons the US didn't come in to WWII earlier. It was partly (but by no means wholly) because they would have been wiped out. In 1939 the US had the world's 17th biggest army, at 17,000 men. Holland was 16th......
To give a sense of scale, at Dunkirk, we rescued the defeated remnants of our army, a remnant ten times bigger than the US army at the time.
Odd, really. History bored the arse off me when I was at school. My mother (born 1912, and actually saw a Zeppelin) used to say she'd lived through "the war to end wars", WWI, and at school history stopped at the Romans. My own education was similiar.
And what have the Romans done for us, I hear you ask........
That tank museum should be good. The story of the Finns fighting off the Soviets in '39 or '40 is quite something.
 

Mickthevin

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Non-VOC Member
Americans

It may be an urban myth but apparently michael caine was living in los angeles when his kids were still at school and he decided to move back to the uk when his daughter came home one day having just had a history lesson and had learnt the second world war started in 1941
mick
 

Mickthevin

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Relatives

PRESSED THE BUTTON TOO SOON
MY GRANDMOTHER ENDED SHARING HER HOUSE - AFTER MY GRANDFATHER DIED - WITH HER FIRST BOYFRIEND WHO WAS IN THE BALLOON CORPS DURING THE GREAT WAR AND USED TO TELL STORIES OF SPOTTING OVER FRANCE AND BELGIUM. HE DID THE SAME DURING THE SECOND WAR BUT THIS TIME OVER SOUTHAMPTON - SLIGHTLY LESS GLAMOROUS BUT JUST AS NECESSARY
MICK:cool::cool:
 

Tom Gaynor

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History.

Further proof that history is written by the winners, afterwards. Wait 50 years and the truth seeps out. Although it hasn't yet about why Rudolph Hess's question to the first people he met after he crash-landed was "are you the King's men?". I wonder who he thought intended to meet him at Dungavel Castle. If he hadn't overshot it......
I commend "Fatal Choices" by Ian Kershaw. (He doesn't mention peace initiatives by people more afraid of Stalin's impact on their position than of Hitler's. Thank god for Churchill who saw both with a clear eye, as did Roosevelt......) But he is excellent on the US entry into WWII, and on why Japan decided to attack Pearl Harbour. OK, Perl Harbor.
A book that I still enjoy is "1066 and all that" - all you remember about school history. Newton invented gravity when the apple shot by William Tell fell on his head. Caesar invaded Britain because he said the Britons were "weeny, weedy, and weakly".
It may be an urban myth but apparently michael caine was living in los angeles when his kids were still at school and he decided to move back to the uk when his daughter came home one day having just had a history lesson and had learnt the second world war started in 1941
mick
 
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