Hey chaps!

I did my first off-road session today just riding along an 8-mile green lane. The speed was anywhere from 10mph in 1st to 20mph in 2nd (it felt fast enough to me!!)

However, the fan was on most of the time. Even when I stopped to catch my breath and take a photo, the fan stayed on.

Is it OK and normal for the fan to run so much when riding off-road?

If you're riding between 10 and 20 mph in low gears with highish engine revs, then there will be a lack of airflow through the radiator relative to the heat generated by the engine. If you stop and idle an already hot engine, it will get hotter still needing even more assistance from the fan. The slow speed for an extended period maybe why the fan is runnning more than normal?

Can you be more specific? When you say "all the time", do you mean quite literally all the time? Like, it never cuts out at all?

The fan should switch on at 102C and turn off when the coolant temperature drops to 95C. You can run a full diagnostic fan check through the diagnostic mode in the dash. Have you downloaded the service manual? It's all explained in there.

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Been there. Check the radiator cap as per Kev's instructions. Rising CO will also help.

Thanks for the replies! To be double-sure what the fan was actually doing, I headed off-road again. This time, I went with a mate with a motocross background. Long story short, I realised just how slow I was going previously, and added an extra 10mph to my speed at most points which also put me up a gear. Voila! No fan coming on! I guess the fan coming on must be an audible newbie warning for other riders!

P.S. My mate fell off and I didn't. The moral of this post is to go fast enough that your fan isn't on, but not so fast as to fly off your bike!