It’s What We Do

Adventure Rider Issue #24

• Fit Out
• Checkout
• Back On The Bike with Karen Ramsay
• Tech: Tube Repair
• How To Ride with Miles Davis
• World-first WR250R rally
• Royal Enfield Himalayan
• Worldwind Tour
• Husqvarna 701 Enduro
• SWM Superdual
• Tech: The Wheel Deal
• Ducati Multistrada 950
• NZ South Island – solo
• Kawasaki Versys-X 300
• KTM Adventure Training
• IMAS
• Suzuki V-Strom 650XT and 1000XT
• Kangaroo Island
• It’s What We Do

I like mechanical systems.

I like understanding when I wind open the throttle a cable connected to that twist-grip lifts a slide in a metal tube, allowing more air to rush through a chute across a pool of flammable liquid, and the velocity of that air draws vapour from the top of the combustible liquid and the resulting mixture of gasses flows into a sealed chamber where it’s compressed and ignited. The ignition and resultant explosion is confined in such a way that the only possible direction for it to expand is downward, pushing a plug of metal which is connected to an eccentric shaft so that the motion of the descending disc of metal is converted into rotational movement.

“It’s all a bit spooky, I think, and I don’t know if I can trust something I can’t see moving to do its work. ”