STRANDED BIKER – Bump Leads to Motorcycle Fail / Roadside Repairs 🇲🇾

I hit a bump, then the motorcycle died. It was unexpected for sure, but when riding around the island of Borneo, I’ve come to expect the unexpected.

I knew right away what it was… But the next question was how were we going to fix it? On a barren road in the middle of the jungle?

This was definitely adventure motorcycle riding at its finest.

Our NEW Borneo Motorcycle Tours link! ➜
https://www.2upandoverloaded.com/borneotour.html

Transcript

Previously on Two Up and Overloaded -

Marisa: We had an incredible experience exploring an old World War II bomb crater in the Sulu Sea in East Malaysia. 

But it was time to hit the road again.

And then the road hit us.

Anything can happen when the journey ahead is long and we're riding into the unknown.

And sure enough, something unexpected did.

Tim: Can you hold the bike level?

Intro: Hey everyone! Nice to have you here. We are Tim, and Marisa Notier. I ride in the front. And I’m in the rear. We travel the world and we pack too much gear. Oh, all the places we’ll go! Through rain and through sleet and through mud and through snow. Oh, all the things we’ll see! We’ve been to a country or two. Or three! Oh, all the fun we’ve had! To have you along, would make us real glad. So give us a like, and hit subscribe to join us along our epic ride.

[This episode is brought to you by Emmaus MotoTours

Motorcycle off-road adventure tours. www.EmmausMotoTours.com]

[Southeast Asia Journey - Day 127]

Marisa: So that morning, we woke up in the beautiful little village of Langkon. 

Tim: This is true. It was another beautiful day outside, and from within the air-conditioned room of our hotel, it looked amazing. 

Marisa: Yes, we were pretty thankful for the air conditioning. 

Tim: Yeah, but opening that door is like, "Pow!" 

Marisa: Yeah, it's hot out there! 

Tim: It turns into Dune real quick. 

Marisa: It does.

Good morning, everyone! As you can see behind me, it is beautiful out there. Take a look.

Today we are going to have a super, super long ride. It is going to be almost a 6-hour ride, and that does not include all the stops that we always have to have. It does not include any of the construction that they'll probably have along the road. It does not include any of the problems that normally happen on a day on the road in a foreign country.

But we're going to make plenty of stops to keep our stamina going. A breakfast stop, a lunch stop, a snack stop in the afternoon. We want to take pictures. It should be a beautiful road because it's going along those mountains right by Mount Kinabalu once again. And then we're going to be headed to the coast on the eastern side of Borneo to Sandakan. And there they have lots of wildlife reserves.

So we're very, very excited to see the animals that are out there, but most of all we are excited for the day's journey. It's going to be a long one but it should be beautiful. So we're going to get packed up, and then we're going to head out. Let's go! 

Tim: A long day every once in a while is necessary to get to real beautiful stuff, and you never know what you're going to see along the way.

Marisa: Those mountains over there are gorgeous.

Tim: And something that Sam Manicom has said for years is start early, get on the road. Not only is it really important here in East Malaysia because you beat some of the heat, but if something is to go wrong during the day, you have plenty of time to try to figure that out. So expert advice from an expert guy, and as you will find out, we should have probably left a little bit earlier than looking at the beautiful day, drinking our coffee from inside our room at 10:00 in the morning.

This was a 6-hour butt in saddle day, which we usually only try to aim for like four, you know. Five are long days. Sitting in a Lazy Boy for 6 hours, you know, I start to get uncomfortable. 

Marisa: Yeah, we're not iron butters. 

Tim: No. Not even on cushy Lazy Boys. It's just like the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones, that's what everything just turns into.

So we got on the road, and it was beautiful. 

Marisa: Yeah, it really was!

And we actually passed through the Kinabalu Geopark. The Kinabalu UNESCO Global Geopark is a natural treasure of Borneo. Not only does it have Kinabalu, Borneo's largest mountain, but it also has hot springs, diverse landscapes, and many endemic plants and animals, including 90 species of orchids. In fact, the Crimson-headed Partridge bird is only found within the bounds

of this park and nowhere else on Earth. Amazing!

Tim: Yeah. I peed there. 

Marisa: Yes, you did. 

Tim: I left my own little geo tag in the Geopark.

[Music]

And then yeah, there was a little bit of hunger creeping up on us. 

Tidak ikan. No fish, no anchovies... 

Marisa: A nice place for our brunch. 

Tim: I have a finite amount of time before the first interest of food, and then when my stomach

starts eating itself, and then I start getting hangry as Snickers commercials reflect. 

Marisa: So we stopped to have a little breakfast. 

Tim: Yeah.

Marisa: Yum.

Tim: And you never know where you're going to stop and eat. Sometimes it's a fail, sometimes you pull over and it's just fish heads and octopus arms, you know? And we say, "Oh no, no thank you," and we keep going. But this little place, it had good food. There were four lovely little ladies prepping amazing food. They had the noodles I like. Yes. There was a precious little cat.

So we sat there with our new little cat friend who was just pleading with us for food, and I gave in. She just sat there going, "Meow…” 

Marisa: Aww, so sweet. 

Tim: Yeah.

After our good meal, I was putting in the directions to our new location. 

Marisa: Some of you might remember that the phone kind of crapped out on us.

Tim: There had been a lot of rain on it in Brunei.

Marisa: Yes. And ever since then it's been kind of glitchy. 

Tim: Yeah. But good news is Doogee has reached out to us with a new DK10 little cool phone. 

Marisa: And since our own phone that we use as a GPS on the motorcycle was crapping out on us a little bit, this was like, yeah! We definitely want to test out this phone because this particular phone, it's shockproof and waterproof and all the things that we need as motorcycle travelers.

Tim: It's got a magnetic charger. Part of the issue with using a phone as your navigation is you always have to have it charged because Google Maps will just drain your battery at all times. I have an iPhone 7 that doesn't have the wireless charging. And so anytime I plug it in, it's suscektible... Suscestible? 

Marisa: Susceptible.

Tim: Every time I plug it, in it's suscestible...

Marisa: I like that. 

Tim: I'm going to move my mouth, and you're going to say it. And every time I plug it in, it's...

Marisa: "susceptible" 

Tim: …to getting water damage.

This is going to be really good because it's waterproof, wireless charging. We're really excited. Like we said, we don't even have our hands on it yet, but it's got a really good camera. 

Marisa: I think this could be the potential motorcycle traveler's dream GPS phone. We'll see. 

Tim: We will see. 

Marisa: We're going to test it out.

Tim: So yeah, we got back on the road.

I saw another hanging bridge. We had just seen a hanging bridge a couple days before, but I cannot get enough of hanging bridges.

Marisa: We found another awesome bridge. Look at this!

This one's even higher and longer and crazier than the one we found before. 

And this one was the mother of all jungle rope hanging bridges. 

Wow, I hear the river. Whoa!

This is the jungle bridge of my dreams!

It was so cool and so long. 

Tim: Yeah, it was very Tomb Raider-esque. 

Marisa: Yes, or Indiana Jones. 

Can you imagine living in that little house over there, and this bridge is the only way to get to and from your house? It's amazing!

Tim: There's one plank down the middle of it, which was a board.

Marisa: Wow. Amazing. 

It was also a cool experience for local Malaysians too, we noticed, because a family pulled over and they were like, "Wow! Look at this rope bridge!" Just like us. 

Tim: It was really cool. They were playing on it. It was fun. 

Marisa: I mean, that thing was wobbly.

Tim: Yeah, it wibbled and it wobbled, and thank God it did not fall down.

And then yeah, we got to chat with this Malaysian family that were just as excited as us, and cute little girl, and you know, proud fathers. It was really, really fun. 

Marisa: And of course, we had our mandatory selfie time. 

Tim: That is a must. So the day, even though it's supposed to be long, it's going fantastically. Good food, cats... Hanging bridges...

Marisa: What could possibly go wrong now? 

Tim: No foreshadowing here, it's just all smooth sailing from here on out.

Marisa: So you may have noticed in the last video we broke the news of our new upcoming Borneo tour, motorcycle tour that you can join and ride along with us on the island of Borneo and see all these incredible sites, including this hanging bridge. 

Tim: This is true. The whole tour package is coming together really well, and Little Miss Marisa over here who is my navigator... 

Marisa: I have made the master plan of this voyage that I want to take you on. And I've also been working on our website to show you all the details that we have of this Borneo trip coming up. And so please check it out at the link in the description below:

www.2upAndOverloaded.com/BorneoTour. 

Tim: There are going to be a little bit of spoiler alerts just because you might see some places we go to.

So check out all the current information at 2UpAndOverloaded.com. If you have any interest, please do shoot us an email at 2UpAndOverloaded@gmail.com. We've already gotten a few inquiries and we want to thank you guys a million percent.

Marisa: So check out the links in the description below. Yay!

Tim: Thank you. Bye!

Marisa: Bye!

Tim: And then segue: 

Marisa: We hit a bump in the road. 

Tim: We hit a bump. It killed the bike, folks.

Just, we went from purring motor to dead silence. 

Marisa: Yeah, except for this strange noise. Yeah, you could hear the kickstand actually

hitting rocks on the road. 

Tim: Yeah, or just hitting the road. Yeah. It was a dead limb, it was just... And I knew right away.

Marisa: Oh no! 

Tim: Over the last 6 years of traveling, things have gone astray and I kind of know some issues, not necessarily mechanical as far as like engine and electric and spinning parts. But springs, I've broken so many springs. I am a spring destroyer. 

Marisa: Yes, we are.

Tim: And this spring had sprung off, and I knew, I was like, "That was a spring."

Marisa: But the bump I guess was powerful enough that the spring was just like, "bwoop." 

Tim: How though? It's the kick spring. There was no kickstand spring suspension.

Marisa: Yeah, so when the kickstand is not up and you are riding a motorcycle, such as the KTM 250 Adventure... 

Tim: Or the KTM 1190, most motorcycles have a kill switch. When the kickstand is not up, the motorcycle won't start. Or you can be in neutral, but then as soon as you go into any gear, it kills the engine, which is a smart move.

The bike just died and we stalled out and pulled up to the road, and it was just at a very unfortunate part of the road because it was on this blind corner, and cars are driving pretty quickly, zipping around. 

Marisa: So you had to repark it in order to get it to a better spot to park. 

Tim: Yeah, I saw somewhere that had a little bit better of a shoulder area. I just had to play Frogger real quick. Just you know, duck paddling the bike along. 

Yeah, the spring fell off of the kickstand and then that automatically kills the bike. 

Marisa: Okay, all right, so that's not... All right, I thought there was something...

Tim: Yeah, the spring fell off so either we need to permanently tie something up... 

Marisa: I'm going to look for it. 

Tim: All right, I'll get the brick.

And I sent Marisa on a little mission. 

Marisa: I went searching for this spring because you knew right away what it was. 

Tim: I did.

Marisa: I didn't know what the spring looked like, but I know what springs look like. 

Tim: She was like, "What does the spring look like?" I'm like, "blululup."

Marisa: But I was like, "You know, if luck is with us, maybe we could find it."

Tim: You know, I'm not a pessimistic person...

I am.

Marisa: You are. 

Tim: It's like, everybody knows. But this spring in my mind it goes "bing" and then it's just gone forever. And we're in the middle of a jungle on a road and somewhere, anywhere from 50 to 100 yards away, a spring had gone “bing!” And it's like, yeah, that’s gone. That's never… we just polluted and I feel bad. 

Marisa: Even I did not have high confidence that we would find this spring. 

Tim: Yeah.

I lost the spring. Just a spring for the kickstand but we're going to look for it. Thank you my friend!

And my only fear is that if it's like a slingshot, you know, and then it releases, that could’ve shot off into the woods.

Marisa: Yeah. All right, so it was probably one of these bumps.

Oh wait. I see it!

I think this has got to be it. 

Tim: Does it have two eyes and a spring in the middle? 

Marisa: But lo and behold, there it was! And it was it! 

Tim: That was it! 

That's it buddy! Good find. I don't even know how it got away from that. 

Marisa: Let's hope we can fix it.

Tim: Don't get dead.

Marisa: Okay.

Tim: And it didn't look like any… I'm going to get a little technical here, but nothing looked unsprung. 

Marisa: Yeah, it wasn't broken. 

Tim: Yeah! It still had the little bent part on both sides. 

Marisa: Yeah, so now our next step was roadside maintenance.

Tim: That's just not my forte. I'm good at twisting throttles and tapping the brakes, but motorcycle maintenance… There is no art and the Tim of motorcycle maintenance. I got under the bike and I saw where the spring went. The issue is that nothing looked obviously undone or obviously broken. Like, "Oh no, I see where the failure happened." None of that was there.

So I'm just trying to Jimmy rig it back into a position where it would hold it up. And when I did do that, it just, it didn't seem very strong.

Marisa: All right, so we think that the spring just goes like this, but since we don't have internet connection, we can't tell. And it seems a little bit loose, like it could just pop off again. So we're not really sure. 

It didn't seem like it was going to hold there forever. 

I mean, that looks right? 

Tim: I just knew if we can get the kickstand up, get the spring on for a little bit, even if I have to zip tie it up like a broken little limb, we just need to get to a mechanic somewhere.

Can you hold the bike level?

But we got back on the road and I hoped that the little thing wouldn't pop

off again. 

Marisa: That's a good idea.

All right, we're going to go up the road, hopefully this won't fall off, try to find a mechanic who can maybe secure the spring on a little bit better. 

Tim: The good thing about East Malaysia and Malaysia, and I'm getting a general vibe about Southeast Asia, is there's mechanics every third stall. And so we pulled into one, we showed him the spring, and I'm like, “It's loose, it's no good. I don't know, can you fix it?” And he came back with a slightly smaller spring. And he's like, "This one would be better, I think."

And it took him all of two and a half minutes to take a little screwdriver and flip it onto,

and plop it on the... 

Marisa: On the plipper. 

Tim: To get it on the little... places. I told you it was going to get technical here. I don't want to lose some of you.

Marisa: Wow.

Tim: Hey, buddy! Yeah! Nice... 

Yeah, he threw it up and it went. 

Marisa: It was perfect. 

Oh so great. And he made sure with the wrench that it was tight around the little knobs, so hopefully that won't come off. Yay! We're going to have some water and drink over at this restaurant here. Perfect. Thank you!

Tim: We got it done correctly, and we celebrated with some sparkling water. 

Marisa: Yes, right next door there was a little place to have some refreshments

and we needed some refreshments. 

Tim: It was so hot.

Marisa: I feel like I need some cold water.

Tim: Yup.

Marisa: Wow! And it's cold!

Tim: You went and saw some fish in a little tank, and some turtles.

Marisa: Well, hello!

Tim: And yeah, we got rehydrated, resprung our energy.

Marisa: And ready for the rest of the day. 

Tim: And so we were still hopeful that we'd make it to our final destination prior to the sun setting.

Marisa: Look at all you guys!

Next time - We reach our destination of Sandakan and discover one of the strangest creatures I've ever seen.

And why they're called Dutchmen…? Who eat… pancakes?

Oh my gosh.

But that will all be in the next episode. So thank you so much for watching this video. I hope you liked it. If you did, please give us a big thumbs up and hit the subscribe button below, and we'll be seeing you next time. 

Tim: Stay safe, everybody. 

Marisa: Bye. 

Tim: Peace.

And I know a lot of people use the Garmins and such, their dedicated GPS's. But you can't take off a Garmin Montana, right, and take a picture with it. You can't take off a Garmin and Google translate on it. So I think in our opinion, in my opinion, having a smartphone as your GPS is the way to go. 

Marisa: I do like that. 

Tim: It's worked out fantastically for us. 

Marisa: Yeah, except when the water got in your iPhone.

Tim: Yeah, because it's very... 

Marisa: “susceptible” 

Tim: …to water damage.