YEAR OF THE TAJINE!

Not sure what the new Chinese year will be but for Mark and I it will be year of the Tajine :) hence the new page background! not been out on the bikes due to snow, ice and a mountain of refurbishing to do in our new house over the hols but look forward to the count down to some before travel fundraisers and getting the web page sorted for that. Have a lovely last few days of the year and enjoy the coming of the new one...Very exciting!!!.......XP

With the Dakar not far off now make sure you check out the new free iphone ap that mark found!...I'm not lucky enough to be able to keep track that way but will be watching.

Mark checking out the new Triumph at the NEC

And some eye candy!
Have a great new year XP

Cleared for departure..

Great news today, the company I work for has finally confirmed, after much debate and worries, to allow me the extended time off work for the trip in September! All good news really, since the alternative would have been to just do it anyway and drop off my resignation on the way to Dover!

Since we seem to have bought enough kit to pack out a small camper van I think it's time for full steam ahead preparation.. learning languages, saving money, sorting bikes out, route planning and trying not to get too excited about it with still ..

.. to go. -Mark

More live!

Here's how I saw it :)

How many bikers does it take to operate satnav on an iphone?.................................

Mel giving it some on the KTM and a great row of tanks ~I found on the kwacker stand.

Crzy Nick Sanders and his travelling show and some killer spokes :)

The lads trying to work out how they are going to get my new bike in the stocking............and Lids :) still never found one I liked though, still sure I will sooner or later.

Motorcycle Live 2010!!

Took drive up to Motorcycle Live on saturday with our friend Melvin, was a really good day, got to see all sorts of great bikes, met Sam Manicom and Nick Sanders and managed to grab the odd bargain too. Paula bought me a new signed Sam Manicom book for Christmas, good timing since I literally just finished Johnny Bealbys - Running with the Moon (great book). Was great chatting to Sam, hope to bump into him again at the Horizons meet next june.

First stop though was all the way up to Nottingham to pick up the eBay Beemer panniers. Snow and roads got a lot worse north of birmingham, but there were no dramas, apart from a driver/satnav interface problem that sent me off down the M6 Toll (typical!). Panniers look great, suitably dinging up, but in great condition considering.

There was a fair amount of dual-sport/enduro bits and pieces around, with big Touratech, KTM etc areas and a lot of traders selling expensive tours, but our goal of trying on as many peaked lids failed totally, with pretty much the only enduro helmets being the Arai, Shoei and BMW models.

Charley Boormans LWR bike on the 30 Years of BMW GS stand

Simon Paveys Dakar bike.

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The bike I so nearly bought (Tiger 955i)

Paula on Cyril Despres' Dakar KTM

The new Triumph Tiger 800 - I hate it for copying the BMW front end, but still love it. I have to say I like the theory of panniers mounted on dampers, rather than a rigid frame, but how well they'd work in practice I can't imagine..

Tamsin Jones' Yamaha Dakar bike. Read about their dakar adventure here.. http://www.tamsinjonesdakar.co.uk/page10.htm

And the ebay goodies just keep coming!!!

Brand new bars to mount my panniers on for £36 squids .....Woohooooo! now all we have to do is fight our way to Nottingham Saturday in near blizzard conditions by the look of things to get the panniers....o.O

Fair weather bloggers..

With snow and ice pretty much everywhere at the moment we've been back in the car this week for commuting to work. Not very hardcore, but when it's optional, then about zero degrees is our limit. With moving to and decorating a new house, it's as good an excuse as any that we need to transport bits and pieces back and forth anyway. The fact that we passed a motorcycle accident last night on the way home backs up the decision too. Thankfully no-one looked hurt, just dark slippery roads and traffic queues combining to bad effect.

Continuing the eBay bargain spree of half price panniers and budget Touratech risers, I picked up a practically new Givi tank bag with map window etc for £20 and a cheap camera mount for the video camera for £6. Looks like the bikes are going to be totally covered with all manner of gubbins and farkly goodness.

Off to Motorcycle Live this weekend which we're looking forwards to. First time for both of us, so we'll see what it's like. Be good to bump into a few of the adventure touring guys that seem to be frequenting the event and hopefully grab a few freebies at the same time.

While I'm on here I'm post a couple of links to other touring movies that people have recorded recently. First up: Brainrotting - Graham Styles rides the Americas on an F650GS:

http://www.youtube.com/user/easyg1409#p/c/6A5CC063F32FFB67/0/rmXxLdRenug

.. and London to Syria 2010 - 4 guys on very different bikes ride to Asia:

http://www.youtube.com/user/EnduroAlexis#p/u/15/DQj3oOmTFCI

Enjoy.

P's pannier pictures!

I'm p!,these are my pannier pictures.........lol

Well happy with these babies :), thanks to Marks stealthy bidding on eBay I can look forward to dry knickers on the morocco tour...lol,lol, as they will be kept away from the elements in these...lol... A few stickers and I will look like an adventure bike ridier ;)

eBay Lottery

Another quick kit update after a productive weekend on eBay. Paula managed to get some half price BMW panniers, finally deciding the dilemma of what luggage to get for the F650. Should turn out to be a good result as we'll side step the worry of soft luggage burning on the high level exhaust and 3rd party hard panniers sticking out too far. The racks are nice and simple and cheap too, which is a bonus.

The second eBay success was some Touratech bar risers for the Transalp for £12. Bargain! Hopefully that should get the bars somewhere more comfy for me and make it easier to stand up on the pegs without having to stoop down too much. Tourateching my bike on a budget, who'd have thought!!

On the Bookcase!

Thought it was getting a bit dry on here, too many stats and facts and all that.. (and definitely not enough riding!!) so today we got a peak at some of the stuff that weighs down our bookshelf...

We got - Europe on a shoestring - although I've no idea how much shoestrings are worth in Euros these days. OS maps, books on Wild Food Foraging, adventure Motorcycling - of course. Loads of Britain books - big fans of the place! Books on the weather, language phrase books, wildlife and photography books and several adventure books by the likes of Lois Pryce, Ted Simon, Simon Bealby and Ewan&Charlie. All very handy stuff for some motorcycle touring.

Lots of online reading too. Recently found this account of a solo, winter trip to Morocco - http://ineptandalone.wordpress.com/ Taken later in the year than ours is going to be, not that we're fair weather bikers, but I think we're hoping for a little less cold and rain!

HOW COLD?!?...o.O

Very is the answer!.... the last two mornings have been icy and extremely cold indeed, forgot to cover the bike and took ten mins to get the key in the lock...doh! I do have to say though that the ride home more than made up for it, on an A road in Wiltshire, low laying mist both sides of the road so it felt as if I were riding across some mystical lake, sun sliding into the earth ,burning a brilliant deep orange, sky a multitude of colours.....smile on my face, ....I love riding my bike! x

Wanted to share this too...my birthday card made by Mark :) I can't be that old if I'm still jumping pyramids! lol

Other pressies included were a well needed fleece buff to stop my nose dropping off,a fantastic travel journal for morocco and lots of chocky hearts to keep my strength up :)....thank you babe x

Exciting!...

As Mark has said, the old girl has had a few issues but forks done now, a job taken on by my friendly motorcycle mechanic up the road, dear  Charlie from Wheelers bikes in Shaw....grand job as always! pointed out i need new front pads too but they will last through the winter then we'll re-shoe the old girl front and back before we off on trips...Exciting cause we seem to be getting money in the bank and this show on rails equipment wise...looking forward to the show, 'sept all the sexy bikes I'll want to take home ...guess I can settle easily for a sexy biker instead though ;) lol........WANT TO TRY OUT NEW TENT IN THE SNOW!...lol not sure our equipment is up to that though..Booo!

Motorcycle Live!

Ordered tickets to Motorcycle Live at the NEC the other day, from some money I was paid for some PC fixing. What with promises of adventure, dual sport being a big thing this year and it being bigger than previous years I thought we could give it a try. See if we can't get some advice, look at some clothing, lids and gadgets and - if it's anything like the motorshow used to be like - blag as many freebies as possible!

Looking at enduro lids for Paula, who's old Arai is definitely well past its best before. With the Arai and Shoei models being out of budget, been looking at HJC, Airoh, Uvex and Helds offerings. Both of us really liking the HELD 7810, but hesitant to order one online without being able to try any of them on. Hoping that they might be around at the NEC.

Managed to get hold of a new Vango Omega 350 tent for £90 too, pretty much the same style as the one we use now (3 pole tunnel) but with lots of better features, better quality and with a bit of luck - actually waterproof! Depends how extreme we're feeling in december, but we might even camp out on the way back from Birmingham! (okay so it's not exactly the Eiger, but hey we have to start somewhere)

Also dug up this photo of the bikes after our off-road day..

Looking suitable muddy and battered. If I learned anything from hitting the deck a few times it was that the Transalp with intermediate style tires does not do wet mud. At all. Gravel and the rest was all good, but if we hit mud in morocco it'll be feet down - slow and shuffling I think. Would be nice to fit knobblies, but then not sure how they'd cope with the thousands of miles of road we have to cover.

Update

Received our MS Society fund raisers pack the other day, including t-shirts, pannier stickers and sponsorship forms etc - all in a lovely flashy KTM orange. All should be great to raise some awareness and try and get some money together for them over the next 10 months.

As far as other news goes.. We've been pretty busy the last few weeks, we photographed a wedding for a friend to raise some money for the tour which was great fun and turned out really well. We've both aged a year, with both birthdays in two weeks, complete with essential touring gifts changing hands - including a new fleecy Buff for P and some pannier stickers and a Kodak Playsport mini-camcorder thing for me! Suddenly I seem to have turned into a gadget magnet! As much as I did't want to take too much electronics, it'll be fantastic if I can capture some decent footage of the trip.

Paula got her forks re-sealed and a glitch with the rear brake light switch ironed out, so she's sorted and running smoothly again. I still have heated grips to fix and a Scottoiler to fit, but with no garage, dark evenings and busy weekends they might have to wait a while longer.

Negotiations

Still very early stages of planning for Morocco trip next year, but we have some MS Society fund-raising paraphernalia on the way already. Nice bright orange t-shirts, some pannier stickers and sponsorship forms, which should help us do some good as well as just having an extended jolly on the bikes.

Having some slight negotiation issues with work still, longest holiday they've ever allowed was 20 days and that was for a honeymoon, so trying to get 30 out of them just for some hair-brained adventure is making them nervous. I'm sure I can use all my diplomatic skills to convince them it's a good idea though. Hell, it looks like I might actually have talked them into supplying me with a rugged, portable laptop to take with me too! Result!

I also figure that if we just go ahead and book the ferry tickets then that's another anchor placed in our favour. Looking likely that it'll be Norfolk Line over to Dunkirk for some WW2 memorial visiting on the outward crossing (£15 each) and Brittany Ferries back from Santander to Portsmouth on the way back (£130 each).

Forkin el!

Fork seals gone in the beemer...A BIG SHINEY BOOOOOOOO! oh and M's heated grips have fallen at the first frost BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
A weekend of TLC I think, and we'd better sort the bikes out too...LOL...

Revelations..

Paula washing the Beemer after finally figuring out that we can actually get the bikes down the alley and within reach of the pressure washer. However, with the mud displaced we discovered the tank plastics had cracked in two places - ouch. Not a happy bunny. Clutch cable was fraying too, so we're back on 4 wheels for a bit until the replacement arrives from Motorworks.

Left behind..

I seem to have forgotten to post this photo up on the Pasty Tour post. Nice Sunset over the sea when we were camped on The Lizard.

Also an opportunity to tag on the news that we may be investing in some totally un-necessary and frivellous equipment - a Kodak PlaySport - ruggedised, waterproof camcorder. The plan being that: when we're in Morocco wishing we'd saved our money for more nights in an air-conditioned hotel room, at least we can film a time-lapse of us melting! If all goes to plan, expect some highly embarrassing video blogs to start appearing in this space before the year is out!

Back on the bike kit front - my chain is feeling great and if the weather plays ball I should get the Scottoiler on tomorrow. Offroad brake and gear levers have been pencilled into the list of things to buy after last weekends battering. (Why just get your knee down when you can go the whole hog and spin around a 180 degrees in the mud instead!?)

Another wise investment of money has also seen us purchase tickets to next Junes Horizons Unlimited gathering, hopefully to gather a whole load of valuable info and meet fellow travellers too.

Paulas gear lever undergoes some cosmetic surgery, while I admire the complete lack of visible tread on my front tyre.

Wild wiltshire

Hey, I know its been a while since I've posted but I needed to find something to blog as Mark has had much more going on equipment wise and he gets all day behind a PC monitor to boot :)

with that out the way I have to first say thanks to Melvin and Martin who we met up with at the weekend for a play on the wiltshire byways, after meeting them on Adventure bike rider forum and decided to meet as we all lived so close.
 Melvin showed me how to drop my bike in style ;) I then did it several time on various serfaces, what uterly fantastic fun, I even stood up like a pro (til I offed that is ) only one slight damaged bit to confess to, bent my gear leaver but was bent back in no time to a more suitable position. The bema stood up to it no worries....could get addictive, may need a little scrambler ;) LOL A few photos of the day.........How coool!

Chain grief

Bought a replacement chain this week, after getting a siezed link in my old chain that appeared immune to all efforts to free it. Fitted it yesterday with help/tool lend from Wheelers in Shaw - angle grinder, wire new chain through, link, rivet and adjust. Sorted.

Co-incidentally I managed to grab a used Scottoiler off eBay for £20 this week too! Just needed a trip to Stevens in Trowbridge to buy a vacuum line t-piece for £3 and all ready to fit that too at some point. Happy days.

Off out on a blat today, so be nice to spend some time on the bike not just fixing it and commuting!

Numb Arse Solutions..

Looking at seat padding today, after our rear end issues over the Cornwall tour. With Airhawks just looking too expensive for what they are, I did some more web trawling again and figured on two options to try out..

First off is the tried and tested, old school solution.. sheepskin! haha I've ordered a pad from Lambland and I'm hoping the comfort and benefits outway the joke magnet effect it will carry along with it. We will see..

The other option in the running was the Putnams Inflatable Stadium Seat, working on a similar concept to an Airhawk. Sold by a company for people with limited mobility for about £10, it looks like a bargain, gets a few good reviews on bike forums, but has a few bad reviews on Amazon, so I went for the sheepskin instead. This also has the dubious advantage of doubling as a pillow too, but with the amount of baked beans we consumed on the tour, I think I'll give that feature a miss!

If all else fails, then I might have to DIY something from the works bubble wrap/cushion machine, possibly in combination with the sheepskin. :)

iPROMICE....

...To blog here tomorrow as it's turning into the mcoo show ;) had a broken pc though....all better now and on the case! x

Pasty Tour Pics

Sunset over Dartmoor and our sheltered camp for the night. The cheapest night, wild camping. Bit close to the road, but also close to an old pub, which we just happened to visit after successfully navigating around some rutting heffers. A short walk from a cool rocky Tor too, all in all a great first night stop off after riding to the south coast and along, via the Torpoint and Fowey ferry crossings.

View from the tent pitched at Henrys Campsite, Lizard. It was quiant, sheltered and close to the pub, but the shine soon faded when they charged us £18 a night, with all facilities costing extra on top! 20p for a minute of shower or 50p for charging a phone?! Some nice walks from this campsite, but we were glad to move on.

Two cheesey "we were there" shots, the first at St Michaels mount, where we irritated the beach guard guy to park our bikes on the slipway, and the second at Lands End.. or just outside, as we couldn't be arsed to pay the £1 bike tax for riding to the end of the road.

Quick stop at Bideford on the way home, for one last sausage and chips take away and to ease the numb arse cheeks. Next stop was Lynmouth for an ice cream while savouring the aroma of burning car brakes descending the steep gorge side roads. Then on into Somerset and across Exmoor for some more wild sheep and pony dodging.

.. finally a panoramic effort taken on Exmoor, overlooking the north coast of Somerset. Pretty much the final stop on the 170 mile blat home, with the exception of a self-congratulatory stop at the local Indian take away for a well deserved "welcome home" curry..

PANNIERS!!!

Sods Law, one of lifes annoying realities. 50 days after I ordered my pannier rack from Touratech they finally arrive, 3 days after the start of the Pasty tour! DOH!!

Anyway, still very exciting coming home to a large box with Touratech stickers on!

So after waiting for the apparently typical delivery delay, I reach the next Touratech obstacle in my path to touring nirvana - German instructions.

Thankfully, after a foolhardy 10 minutes of macho "I don't need no instructions" fumbling, I did a bit more trawling the web and find this site..

http://humphrey.myzen.co.uk/panniers.htm

Sorted. How to fit Touratech racks to a Transalp 650, in English. Beautiful. It also has a link to the German instructions in PDF, which can be copy and pasted into Google transalation for a rough idea of what they're going on about.

Am I impressed with the final result? Yes. Seems sturdy enough and I like how the top is flush with the seat and the rear also.

Am I impressed with the overall Touratech experience? No, not really. The guys at the UK office seem chipper enough, but the delay, lack of English instructions and not even a complimentary sticker!? Slack.

Only problem is: I now want to use them for a trip, but have all my holiday for the next 12 months saved up for the Morocco tour!! I feel some heavily over-equipped weekend trips and weekly shopping trips ahead!!