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