8 to go

8 days until departure. It's raining, I have a flat tyre on my bike, a snapped caliper bolt, battling PayPal for £270, no sat-nav and my unshakeable optimism that everything is going to go smoothly is starting to get a little frayed at the edges!

Our attempt to trundle down to Bournemouth last weekend to scrub the new Tourances in ended in a Salisbury car park with a pancake flat rear tyre (probably a pinched tube when fitting the new tyres). Since we'd fitted our spare tubes into the new tyres and left all the tools scattered at home, we didn't have many options and just got recovered home by the AA, after a few hours spent eating food from the nearby Waitrose deli counter and watching movies on the mini-laptop (supplied by work so I can connect remotely, but currently loaded with music and movies).

So I'm currently waiting for new inner tube and some caliper bolts, one of which sheared off while I was replacing the seals on the front brakes, before I can get back on my bike. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly this time!

As for the story of PayPal and the duplicated sat-nav payment, I'll just give you some advice: if paying for something using paypal beware there is a risk that their system will double the payment you make. Usually not a problem, but paypal have the worst system and after hours of phone calls over nearly 30 days, the only way I could get my money back was for my bank to force it back. Shockingly crap for supposedly the safest way to pay online!!

All challenges to be overcome, but hopefully nothing show stopping yet. We have our Euros and with just 4 days work to go after today it's all becoming one big exciting feeling of "holy &$^* we're really doing this"! I guess I'd better start brushing up on my French then! ..

-Mark

19 days to go!

and with the last wedding photos all done now it's time to check off the lists, start packing the panniers and do the impossible and shortlist my clothes pile to one pannier!.... try and sort out our way point wants and needs...try and mark some things on the map as the satnav thing has not gone to plan at all!...the secondhand garmin from eBay was hooky and the police will be over to pick it up any day now (I shit you not) pay pal are crap to the extreme on refunds but to add insult to injury they duplicate payed the satnav touting vagabond TWICE by mistake.........AAHHHHhhhhhhhhh - o - poo! *falls to the floor in a heap of despair and disbelief* If they do manage to sort it out this millennium we may try again...

Got a new pet to take with me :) name ideas will be greatly received...

No long distance bum ache...WOOHOOOO!

Marks fab footwear has turned up so we both are sporting Altbergs now even if Mark's need breaking in a bit, sure they will be fine in a few weeks time, this weekends paddle in the sea should help anyway :) Cant wait to get my new rubber on (tyres) that is...as sported here by the fabulous mark reading ghost rider (his newest motorbike influenced read) written by Niel peart....."drummer of rush"

...were just high on life in case you were wondering...

I'm not going to start about carole nash and our insurance stuff, all I will say is that this week after several months of corrections and paperwork dilemmas we now have all necessary documents..happy days.

Not sure I posted anything about my new front end but after two cans of Hammerite my forks are now black and much more sexy Grrrrr!

XP

New rubber

Having 4 new tyres delivered today so we can both start out on new rubber. Both the bikes were about half way through their tread and views were split between whether they'd last the tour or not, so we decided to roll out on fresh tyres and save the current ones for when we get back.

Paula had been running on Bridgestone Trailwings and the Transalp came with Metzeler Tourances on, with a 130/80 on the rear instead of the stock 120/90. After a good look around at various road biased dual-sport tyres we went for Tourances from blackcircles.com, which with their special offers came out pretty much the same price as most other tyres anyway. I've been really happy with my Tourances (when not on wet mud and clay up Salisbury plain), so I'm happy with the choice.

Mitas tyres were tempting due to our meagre budget, but reports of the hard compound being poor in the wet put us off those and the lack of an F650 size E-08 front also. Tyres being pretty damn important we decided we should put in the extra investment.

Saving money as usual, so we'll get a bit more practice replacing tyres at some point, put the tyre levers to more good use again and then get the Ultraseal/Puncture Safe pumped in too.

Got Robs garage booked for wednesday to do the Transalp's mini service and brake rebuild. Then just need to re-fit the crash bars and we'll be all set to go.

Thank you to all those who have donated to our fundraising - reckon we've raised around £600+ so far! Fantastic!

Off down to the coast this weekend for a final shakedown of the bikes and kit. The plan was to go fully loaded, but possibly not if we're on new tyres, but we'll see.

- Mark

Map test 1

Click here for map

Experimenting with logging GPS tracks onto the blog. Recorded this track on a jaunt over to bristol - not exactly scenic or particularly entertaining, but hopefully should get the hang of it before we leave.

Calne Bike Meet

Plenty of beards and chrome on display again at Calne bike meet last weekend. Had another nice chat with the wrinklies from Horizons Unlimited community (their nickname not ours!) and soaked up the atmosphere and a pint or two in the Sun.

The Morocco countdown keeps going down relentlessly fast, but it almost feels like we're getting things sorted. Still soo many things to do on the list though! This time next month it'll be getting seriously exciting.

Started getting some names down on our sponsorship forms already, which I reckon must be approaching the thick end of £500 total. Thank you very much to everyone who has donated, but can you all please leave out the comments about thinking we are mad or "rather you than me", "you're going to get robbed and trampled by camels" haha!

If you want to donate our website is hosted on the MS Society here:

http://beatms.mssociety.org.uk/netcommunity/Melksham2Marrakesh

As far as preparations - we got a few more adaptors and chargers (bloody technology!) and making sure all the paperwork is sorted, no thanks to Carol Nash that have been a nightmare messing up our insurance details and paperwork several times.

The only bike maintenance still to go is an oil change and front brake rebuild on the Transalp, which I've got all the bits for and will get done sometime soon. Then we'll be in the lap of the BMW and Honda reliability Gods...

- Mark

Grease Monkeys

	Was time for some DIY bike maintenance this week, with a box full of parts from the interweb, a Haynes manual, some spray paint and a mates empty garage available to invade we set about sorting out some of our final bike issues and Operation Blackfork was set into motion ..
	Paula highlighting the shoddy BMW flakey paint on her front forks. Clearly not spiffing at all. Time for a jolly good ol' bit of painting..

Ze forks get a few coats of Waffen SS black.
Time to give the Transalp some attention and re-solder my heated grip connections - obviously a completely crucial accessory for riding the Sahara desert!

Turning Robs immacualte garage into a make shift Messerschmitt hangar. We replaced the seal on the left fork, after the required brute force removal technique, re-sprayed the tubes satin black and re-assembled them with a total in-effeciency that the Luftwaffe would have scoffed at, but fuelled on tea, biscuits, BBQ and a British willpower to succeed against all odds we got the job done.

We also took the oportunity to upgrade the flacid black gunge that the last mechanics had filled the forks with for Rock-oil 10 weight oil, which instantly made a huge difference. A pair of £20 gaiters went on too, to finish off the job Jerry hadn't bothered to do back in Deutschland and the whole thing looked and felt a thousand times better.

Lots of thanks go to Rob for his duties above and beyond by cleaning the bike in our absense and refreshing the tyre paintwork. Also his family for putting up with our own little German invasion.



The final assembled black front end, complete with gaiters, stealth BMW logos, go faster chevrons, Puig touring screen and aluminium chainguard. Looking good!

My bikes flew through it's MoT on wednesday, with an advisory on siezing front brakes - which I already knew and had an effort at clearing a while back. So as far as the bikes are concerned it's just an oil change and front brake rebuild for the TA and we're ready to go! - Mark

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Oh my god, I just looked at our countdown calender and it says 55 YES I did say 55 days to go...AHHHHHAHHHAHAHHH!!!

Think were just about ready...

Passport - check
Insurance - check ( after three calls as the first quote was for £316 )   O.o   second said no bike repatriation from Morocco O.O  lol Mmmmam I supposed to carry the bike to the ferry? third time lucky and got a girl who could do her job :)
green card - check
bungees - check
NEW ALTBERG BOOTS! - check....wooowhhooooooo! I will never need another pair of boots with these being a bike boot and walking boot hybrid....so cosy...

just ordered a new camera bag - check....my lowepro slingshot is just too big to lug around so found a lovely smaller bag that doesn't scream camera bag steal kit here!

I'm sure there is also a pocket big enough for some choice snacks :)





Have been fundraising for the MS society this week and have managed to collect £300 worth of names so far so thank everyone! our page is to be found HERE if you fancy adding to that ;)

Mark has taken delivery of the bargain lid he won on EBay...I would post a picture but I wont bother because all you have to do is look at the post about mine....it's the same lid,,,so now we are the Sahara bobsled team..lol,lol,lol....that said they are good lids and he got his for £60 less than I payed for mine so happy days. So a wealth of goods to sort out and boots to stretch out things are coming on well...will start to post a few prep bits on the facebook pace soon to get that rolling before we roll..you will find that Here if that link doesn't work for any reason type ( 2 wheels to the Sahara ) in facebook and you will find us there. Next on the list.....Fork swap out (deep joy)...not!

 XP