17,000 to 28,000 KM
As you can see, the kilometers have been adding up quite quickly. No major breakdown to report or any other mishaps. This is good news!
Most of this riding has been in the south of Spain on paved and some dirt roads. Of course the trip to bring the bike back home to Switzerland also added 2500km.
So, overall I'm still highly satisfied and sometimes even amazed at how well this bike is holding up.
Here's what I did in these 11,000 km:
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At 18,000 I changed the rear tire again, this time going again with the Metzeler Tourance. I really love the Tourance tires but do miss the grip of a knobby tire when I'm offroad. |
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At 18,000 I also finally received the mounting plate, brackets and topcase from Aprillia. I still consider the topcase one of the best investments for any kind of motorcycle. Check the photo section for some pics with boxes, topcase and other luggage. |
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At 23,000 the chain needed replacement. I should have actually changed it about two thousand kilometers earlier but tried to get as much out of it as I could. This is of course one of the worst mistakes one can make. The time spent trying to fix bad links with WD40 and oil is better spent riding with a new chain. I'll learn eventually. |
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At around 24,000, the speedometer and odometer stopped working. For about a thousand kilometers the needle would jump around and do all sorts of weird things. Then it died completely. Occasionally it will still show some life once in a while. But this really happens rarely. It only counted 25km out of the last 4500km. I tried to fix this problem by cleaning the sensor but this didn't help. At the beginning this really bothered me, but now I'm to the point where I really don't care whether I have a speedometer or not. I will have to get it fixed, but this will wait until I come back from my big motorcycle trip with the BMW. |
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The original front tire is still on the Caponord. It really does need changing now. There's not a lot of tread left and lots of cuts. |
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Now at 29,000 I think the clutch needs changing. It has a different feel to it and neutral seems a little harder to find than before. |
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The rubber blocks in the rear hub also need to be changed now. I don't know how long they are supposed to last but there seems to be quite a bit of play between the hub and these rubber blocks. |
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Last but not least, I should get the valves checked once. This is something that has never been done on this motorcycle in 29,000 kilometers. |
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At 29,000km the bike has now been cleaned and put into storage as we are leaving on our big motorcycle trip with the BMW. |
So as you can see, the Caponord is as good as I imagined it to be. It is a wonderful motorcycle.