I woke up at 8am and due to the heat and stuffiness of the room felt a bit groggy and puffy eyed. Not a pretty picture. Due to some good fortune the room happened to be on the ground floor and the bikes were right outside which mean’t we could pass the bags out of the window.
most of my luggage comprised of my girlfriends things that I was taking from England back to Austria
oh how I miss the presence of a GS
All packed and ready for the off I said goodbye to Gary and wished him well on his trip
It was moments after this that the first of the days niggles would present themselves. I had no maps of Europe on my sat nav. How this happened I’m not sure but the how didn’t matter now. It was not a big deal all things considered. It was early morning. The sun was in the East, I was heading East. The roads are signposted and I knew I could reach my friend Bernard in Gistoux but would have trouble finding my friend in Dusseldorf as he had recently moved.
Dunkerque is pretty featureless outside the port and town itself
My original map was not up to much other than main routes so I upgraded it at the first opportunity
By 1pm I had reached Bernards.
I had a plan to get the laptop out and load the rest of Europe onto the Garmin for the rest of the trip.
And so it was that whilst the maps loaded slowly onto the Zumo we had a very nice lunch of salad, hams, cheeses and pate. Because of the slow nature of the loading of the maps I decided to only add the segments of Europe that I was passing through. Later on this would prove interesting as I skirted very close to the area of zero map coverage.
I told Bernard about the wind blasting I was getting on this journey. He had a plan. He had an old Schuberth visor that could not be used due to age and minor damage but it could potentially make a great windshield. So with a drill an cable ties we fashioned a new “Poorer tech” fly screen.
It was a bit Heath Robinson but it certainly reduced the blast on my chest but alas, not on my face. Still It gave me relief when on my way to Dusseldorf. Before bidding farewell to Bernard I spotted an everywherevirtually sticker!
no idea how that got there
I was soon back on the road and by now it was 6pm. My plans were really out of whack bearing in mind the original plan was to be in Belgium the night before and Dusseldorf by 9am. Not very realistic I suppose.
I hit the momentous 30,000 miles. Not all mine I must say. I’ve done about 2000 on this bike so far
I thought this was an interesting vehicle worthy of a photo
When on the road I always take time to read plaques and memorials because these are fellow travellers that were not so lucky
Without referring to a dictionary this roughly translates as “The road was your home”
by 9pm I had reached my destination in Dusseldorf
It wasn’t hard to find because despite England losing so badly in the world cup he wasn’t afraid to fly the flag so to speak, even if that was the Union Jack and not the flag of St George. Ironically these are made by a German company
We sat out and had BBQ food which I nearly missed due to my tardiness. The Quality of life on the continent and the work / life balance really is so much better.
I was all set to ride back to Austria and because of the fact i was bringing some things back for M the loading didn’t and couldn’t take place until the day of departure. There was not enough room in my folks garage to man handle a heavy bike. Well perhaps not really heavy but certainly with bulky protrusions.
Eventually I was ready for the off.
My first port of call was Hertfordshire and I was hopelessly behind schedule. heavy traffic and an indicator fault, followed by a luggage problem slowed me up each time. Eventually I reached Weston at midday. Not good. “I should be on a ferry now” I thought.
Still it is always worth a detour to see and catch up with friends I say.
After I left Simon and traveled through some more of Hertfordshire things became a little nasty…
Time was ticking by and I was mindful I should really get past London before Rush Hour. All was well until I hit some major traffic near the Dartford bridge. Never a problem for a bike but it slowed me down nonetheless. I reached Dover and amended my ticket for the 20:30 crossing. I returned to the bike to find two women keen to have a sit on it. They asked in French and I said “Bien sur”. Then a chap in a car beside the bike called out to me and asked if I wanted some cider from a plastic cup. I said sure.
It transpires one of the ladies was his Argentinian wife with her friend who’s origins were originally from the Basque country. He was originally from the North East in the UK and lived in the Picardie region of France and was visiting England on a day trip. We talked of travel, work and life and it was a good exchange. One of those many moments on the road where you realise people are essentially good in the main.
Dover Castle
I passed through customs and passport control with the minimum of fuss. For some reason customs seem less of a hassle at Dover port compared to the channel tunnel where it is verging on the Orwellian. As I rode onto the boat I met the only other biker on the ship. Gary from the Leeds area on his R1200 GSA. I told him I was a GS’er on pause and that I was under cover on a CB500. Turns out he was the president of the Honda Pan European club and had recently got the GS so was not aware of UKGSer and all of the goings on of that forum.
I chatted with Gary on the 2 hour crossing and time went quickly. Of course by UK time it was 22:30 and because we were in a new time zone it was actually 23:30. Both of us had planned to ride off into the night but that was when it was sunny and by now we had lost our resolve it would be harder to spot hazards and find somewhere in the small hours so we went halves on a Formula 1 Motel.
There are lots of these places or similar. They are very basic. ETAP hotels have a toilet and sink attached to the room but the formula 1 motels have shared toilets down the hallway. They usually come with a double bed and a single bunk bed. I opted for the single bunk as I’m young and athletic. Hah! After getting past all the gay jokes and “those are not pillows” banter that straight blokes have to do when sharing a room we crashed out. I was pretty tired as I had not slept the previous night and had covered 300 meandering miles on this day.
Before I write another thing I would like to thank Grant & Susan Johnson and Chris Colling & Dave Lomax at adventure-Spec for making my attendance possible this year. Without them it would not have happened.
the 2010 10th anniversary event was much bigger than previous years. As I rode up the driveway to Lumb Farm I said to myself “Oh Wow”. They had pulled out all the stops. There were more vendors, more bikes, biggest tents, a video screen. It was all together an impressive event.
The campfire was blazing, the road kill cookout was in full swing but most importantly the people made the event special. Old faces, new faces, adventurers to be and adventurers with many years and locations under their belts.
In addition to the great setup the weather was perfect. It was consistently warm and sunny for the entire event. 28C and wall to wall sunshine. You could not have asked for better.
This year I was of course without my F800GS and arrived on my 1994 CB500. I guessed I would be the only attendee on a CB500 but by some strange quirk of the universe two guys arrived on loaded up CB500′s. Not only that but they plan to ride around the world over 80 months on these machines. I was heartened by their story and impressed at their low tech approach to luggage and increasing comfort. They were good guys, with a good sense of humour and I reckon they will go far and I personally will be looking forward to reading their story.
what I love about my current motorbike is when you open up the garage door it smells like a motorbike. It has that oil/leather/metal quality to it. The BMW didn’t have any smell. The company had the distinct smell of bullshit towards the end but the bike itself had no aroma.
Back in the day when I had the chance to fly in deHavilland Chipmunks they had the exact smell as the Honda. Maybe it is that association with flying and bikes that puts a smile on my face every time I take the bike out for a ride.
Without a high riding position and no fairing or windshield you do get a sensation of rushing along the ground which I have to say is great. Less posing and more riding pleasure.
This is just a video short of Si riding through the English Peak District en route to cambridge.
Si Johnston set off from Coleraine in Northern Ireland on this day and I was lucky enough to ride with him across the English Peak District for some of the way.
His ultimate destination being Mongolia and Lake Baikal in Russia.
