We arrived in Medellin no problem and found R2R KTM, with welcoming arms and smiles we unloaded Maya, they looked after our riding gear and panniers then set to giving Maya the best bath she has ever had, seriously thorough.
The biggest worry then was looking like a mid life crisis rider on a shiny new KTM .... with dirty cases.
Sorting out our hostel we discovered that Medellin was a little more pricy than the smaller towns and Poblado is the nicer area of Medellin as well, we found an ok place so that was cool.
We also had three interesting neighbours, local tranys.
They were pretty cool, for boys they had great shapes, there was a mirror in the hallway right outside our room, one decided to practice her moves in front of the mirror checking all manoeuvres, dropping her top to nipple line and pulling her dress up too .. well anyway.
So Ellen and I sat there on our bed minding our own business with quite the side show going on, one decided I needed to see a booby peek so gave me a flash .... (insert red face here)....didn't know how to take that
They were all smiles and good neighbours cos when we went to bed they hit the town so it was very quiet.
OK, Medellin,
Wandering on up around the place we walked around to the famous Shamrock pub owned by Al (theturtleshead on ADV) and bumped into Oliver and Heather again so we had chats with them, we met Al that night for a couple of drinks.
Al and I managed an ADV salute, again showing the luv here
We met the following morning and got some great advice on places to go etc which was outstanding, Al giving instructions while I listen on
Olivers bike was still not running right from the debuild/rebuild in Costa Rica and several things were starting to need attention .... after well over 80000 miles of RTW travel it is to be expected.
With Maya in good hands and us not having a lot to do other than enjoy the place I offered to help Oliver with his bike so that following morning down at motoshop we set too, I removed the dead disc pads on the rear and pulled both front and rear caliper sets apart for a monster clean and piston de-seize job.
All pistons were pitted and corroded to some degree so out with the fine steel wool to clean them up, Oliver then took them home that night to polish them with cardboard.
We did the valve clearances in order to get them right and so we could check the compressions, checking the compressions netted bad news for Oliver with only 105 PSI in the pots, they are supposed to be up to 225 PSI or minimum 160 PSI or below is rebuild time so he got his moneys worth out of the rings.
An executive decision was made to pull the motor out and have Federico wave his magic wand over the motor and do rings and a valve cut job so out she came, maybe an hours work and we had the motor out on the floor ready for the top end job.
I could not do anything from there on so the following day was a relax and look around Medellin day.
With Maya it was a case of go back and see progress and see what she needed for good health while at the R2R gym, turns out the 4 inlet shims were all in spec and the 4 exhaust shim were out of spec with too bigger clearance so they ordered shims and got them on the way.
Our rear shock had been knocking too, I thought it was a bush so we had a spare on board, while riding on the trip I noticed it was noisier when cold and quieter when hot which pointed to gas and fluid being wrong, turns out I was right as the guys from R2R pulled the shock to find the bushes ok so they sent the shock away for a full service, clean, new oil and new nitrogen.
All good.
A look around Medellin saw us take the metro system which includes a cable car ride to the top of the hill.
You are literally going through peoples back yard and over subdivisions ... kinda pervy really
Looking straight down on the street from the cabel car, sorry for the scrappy pick but the windows are scratched to hell
The city view
On the way there is the famous square which is full of works donated by the famous artist Fernando Botero know for the "fat" works.
While in Medellin we caught up with Elelns ex class mate from the University days and had a lunch and catchup.
When I went back to R2R KTM I had a look around the gear section and spotted these, got an orange mate in NZ who needs these
All in all Medellin was a very nice place and has a KTM dealer worthy of international recommendation, more on that in the next installment of Two Dodgy Kiwis
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