Alex is in!
December 2, 2007 at 8:50 am | Trip | No comment
Well, that’s a turn up for the books.
I went out for a drink with my oldest mate Alex, and as usual was waffling on about my trip, my route, my plans and my tribulation, and jokingly said to him “You should come too! C’mon, it’d be fun!” “Ok!”.
For the past few years he’s been working in Ambulance dispatch in preparation for becoming a Paramedic when he turned 21, however, shortly before he did turn 21 the government started moving the goalposts, with nobody knowing what was going on and interviews for the various courses that would supposedly get you into the paramedics, his goal started slipping away.
In the end he applied for the position once the government had got the application process sorted out, but failed on some piffling technicality.
To add insult to injury the centre he operates from dispatching ambulances is being moved to another location prohibitively far away to commute to.
So as a result he’s taking on a new role with doctors on call, though ultimately this is continuing in a vein that he’s not especially interested in.
Due to a quirk of personality and the currently common standard of living with ones parents (due largely to ridiculous cost of living), he has over the past 4 years or so saved up a significant amount of money.
He, like me, has very few ties to this country, and felt that he has no good reason not to go on this trip.
He happens to be the very same mate of mine that I went on a two week road trip around France with earlier this year (a tiny precursor of the big trip you might call it!)
I know I get on with him very well and honestly couldn’t think of anyone that I’d rather do this trip with.
I had been waxing lyrical about this trip to him, outlining the adventure and the romance to him, gently interspersed with slight annoyances and tribulations in the planning.
And on Thursday, over a pint in “Ye Olde Swan” in Woughton on the Green, he decided he wanted in.
I immediately started filling him on the technicalities and his immediate tasks, as there are a mere 3 months until our departure date, and that is the bare minimum amount of time for say… Vaccines to be administered.
Not to mention the fact that in that time he has to learn how to ride and pass his direct access, apply for an international driving license, get a second passport, acquire a multitude of visas, not to mention buying a bike and doing all the appropriate upgrades and gear purchases.
It’s a tall order, but certainly possible.
After a couple of beers we headed off to a late night coffee shop and drank two Mochas, which only heightened our excitement for the trip, and once kicked out of the shop we drove to a nearby pitch wood and discussed the amazing adventure we were shortly going to embark upon.
The next day Alex told his mother about his plan, her response was “No”, which struck me as rather amusing considering that “No” was not a word within her power to enforce.
On that same Friday I had my latest bike training session, which turned out to be with Steve, who I’d seen shouting at some people he was training while I was on my CBT over a month ago.
I was not looking forward to it, as I don’t respond well to being shouted at, especially when I’m trying to learn and am paying the better part of £500 for the privilege.
However, as it turns out, he was one of the best trainers they have on staff, and I thoroughly enjoyed the half-day session and corrected many of the issues I was having problems with.
I have one more session to go before my training, starting tomorrow it’s with Martin, who on my last session was a truly abysmal teacher (although some-one you could quite happily get along with in other circumstances).
I’m alternating between blissful calm and heart tightening apprehension with regards to my bike test. It’s quite tiring and also quite pointless as I know I’m quite capable of doing it, I just need to avoid making any silly mistakes (the chances of making which are significantly increased by being apprehensive and stressy!
The thing I always use to calm myself down is the fact that it’s only just over half an hour long.
I can deal with half an hour!
I passed!
December 4, 2007 at 8:51 am | Bike, Trip | No comment
My nerves were wracked all weekend, I felt as though tiny worms were wriggling slowly underneath my fingers.
It made me short with Kim, and it made me make stupid little mistakes on my Monday lesson.
They were compounded somewhat by Martin’s style of teaching, which is blunt and to an exceptionally high standard, and at times seems to try and exonerate him of responsibility.
One of the biggest things he kept picking me up on was my U-turn.
To me, I was executing the u-turn quite nicely, a little wobble occasionally, but nothing to worry about.
For Martin on the other hand this would not do, I would rev high, slip the clutch massively and use the back brake for controlling the speed.
Which is a great method for doing a u-turn don’t get me wrong, but if I deviated the controls even slightly while doing the u-turn (speeding up or slowing down while cornering isn’t the greatest idea I’ll admit) he would repeat the reasons I was going wrong (which went back and forth between a number of issues, I would concentrate on getting one right and the last problem would crop up again).
Eventually he realised that I was doing my turns too tightly, and subconsciously this was causing me to do all manner of things which were bad for a controlled turn.
I set myself up and aimed for the opposite kerb.
Hurrah! Beautiful, controlled, perfect every time!
I was still making silly mistakes like leaving my indicator on after turning (which if done for too long will fail you for making false signals!), but Martin’s style of teaching was quite effective for making me completely paranoid about leaving the signal on!
Tuesday morning came, and once I was on the bike, the world seemed to relax, everything was going to be fine, I was going to pass no problem!
In the hour or so warm up before the test Martin berated me slightly for my U-turn which I tidied up quickly, and gave me a little more coaching on the emergency stop.
We rode into the test centre and parked up, getting there a bit early I had to wait for 15 minutes which did little to settle my nerves.
Eventually the examiner came out and took my documents and fitted me up with a radio (which oddly enough went around my waist and sounded much clearer than the ones we’d been using to train with.
He took me outside, to do the tellme/showme for which I’d memorised a long list of procedures and bullshit answers.
In the end, all he asked was for me to demonstrate the front brake, and where would I find the correct tyre pressure rating?
Piss easy! So we got on with the test.
Everything was going very well, I would even have gone so far as to say I was enjoying myself, until he told me to go right at a roundabout and I bizarrely went all the way around (I think I was in another world thinking about how well I was doing!).
Unfortunately the examiner saw this too late and took the exit I was meant to take, which resulted in me losing him quite significantly.
Before he went out of range he told me to pull up on the left and wait for him, which was easier than it sounded on a 60 mph road with no pavement.
There was a bus stop, but I was almost certain that I would fail for pulling up in an inappropriate place, so I chose a side road.
Which he went past before he saw me in it.
I was getting a bit flustered by this point and didn’t know whether to wait for him or to go after him.
I waited for a little while and then went after him, which was of course the worst of both worlds as by this time he’d turned round at the next roundabout and was going in the opposite direction to come back on me!
He went past and repeated his instruction to find somewhere on the left to pull up and stop.
It was the same situation, nowhere to pull up and stop. So I did a u-turn at the next roundabout and pulled in to another side road.
Of course this resulted in him going past me again in the opposite direction and tutting very loudly remarking that I was like a bloody goldfish.
I was screaming on the inside, “Fucking hell I’ve failed, what a stupid thing to fail for”.
But still, I’d been told by every instructor I’d had that it was rarely as bad as you thought and either way worrying about it on test would only make you make more mistakes.
We went on with the lesson and I did reasonably well I felt, no major fuck ups as it were.
In the exam room, I heard those beautiful words, “I’m pleased to say you’ve passed.”
Thank Christ for that, I couldn’t stand having to do that build-up again!
Plus I can re-assure Alex that the test is not that hard, and that they seem to want to pass you!
Even so… 8 Minors…
Telling My Dad
December 10, 2007 at 8:52 am | Personal, Trip | No comment
Christ, I was bricking myself.
My dad, has never been a fan of bikes, and is the only person I can think of that has my respect, the intelligence and a reason to talk me out of this trip.
Having delayed it this long, I wanted to try not to rub it in my dad’s face, so I concoct a story about the boss lending me her company car for the evening so I can go and visit him (as he’s 150 miles away!).
I make the trip down, which coincidentally happens to be the first time I’ve ridden my bike outside Milton Keynes!
A long journey in the dark isn’t my idea of fun, and with only one heated grip working and my £12.99 Tesco Value gloves, my fingers are about to fall off.
Nevertheless I arrive, parking up some way away from my Father’s house so that I can undress (which feels very weird on the side of the road, despite me having my normal work clothes underneath my gear!) and make a relatively normal entrance (bar a rather suspicious looking backpack stuffed with all my clothes).
I go into my dad’s house nochalantly and wait for him to bring up my trip.
“Yeah, James, that’s actually why I’ve come down here… I’ve changed my travel plans a little…”
“Oh?”
“I’m not going to stay in Italy, I’m going to drive to Australia”
“What!?”
“The thing is… I’m not going to do it in a car”
“What are you going to do it in?”
“… A bike…”
“Ah…”
He looked at me meaningfully for a few moments, obviously deciding how to react.
“Sounds interesting!”
Phew! He later explains that he would have exploded and forbidden me to do it, bar the fact that he didn’t think I’d take a blind bit of notice!
Interestingly enough, his concern about the bike was not as focused as his concern about me travelling through Iran, or the fact that I was doing the journey on my own.
I related my tales of planning and revealed that I had my license and not only had I already bought a bike, I’d ridden it to his house.
While shock value was what I was trying to decrease when telling my dad, it was still rather entertaining to see his incredulity to each new revealation.
In the end, my dad gave me his blessing, and I’m sure will prove to be a powerful ally with regards to contacts, paperwork and general travelling know-how.
A great success!
Fitting the shock
December 15, 2007 at 8:53 am | Bike | No comment
God I wish I hadn’t drunk so much last night, I might be still drunk, I really shouldn’t be riding, but here I am on the way to Northampton, I’ve been trying to get this done for weeks.
My mate has kindly leant me the use of his father’s bike garage to fit my shock absorber in, and has agreed to be a second pair of hands.
When I get there, it turns out that another chap called Sam, even younger than I is floating around to lend a hand as well.
In my rather dazed and delapidated state, it ends up being James and Sam working on my bike, with me staring intently trying to comprehend the concept of bolts.
They set about my bike with vigor, ignoring my plaintive wails to consult the instructions I brought on my laptop, happily taking bits off and casting them to one side.
In the process they discover 5 seperate stripped bolt heads, and also the fact that to access the upper bolt for the rear shock, the fuel tank (which resides under the seat) must be removed.
Things turn a little defeatist at this point, as Sam has a half day, and James feels we need him to help reassemble the bike, so in light of the fact the job will take far longer than previously though, they start to reassemble the bike.
I read through my instructions, having beaten the hangover haze and regained some mental acuity, I find that removing the fuel tank is not necessary, and you simply pivot the subframe on the front two bolts.
This however is easier said than done, as one of this bolts is stripped beyond normal removal methods.
The re-assembly continues and after 3 hours of labour (which I’m ashamed to say I had little to no part in), the bike is back together again.
James gives Sam a lift into town quickly, and he and I set about assembling the rack for the panniers.
Beautifully made these Jesse panniers, stainless steel fasteners all round, perfectly fitting parts and sturdy boxes.
The last property being tested quite nicely when the bike topples off it’s makeshift centre stand of a pile of orange crates and slams heavily down on the handle of a lathe.
Barring a dent and a slightly skewed mount, the panniers are fine!
After being introduced to Adrian, an experienced mechanic who is simultaneously envious of my journey and raring to help, I shoot off home before it gets dark.
Until next time BMW! NEXT TIME!
Sliding down the tarmac
December 18, 2007 at 8:53 am | Bike | No comment
Blimey, quite greasy on the roads at the moment!” I think as I exit my company’s driveway.
I tootle along home as per usual, thinking more about the nice warm sofa than the road ahead.
I cross over a roundabout and think afterwards “Christ, I have no recollection of negotiating that roundabout, I really should get out of autopilot”
30 seconds later I’m tumbling along the tarmac thinking “Should I tuck my arms in or not?”.
It didn’t matter, by the time I’d made a decision either way I’d slid to a halt.
I tried to recall the past few seconds.
Somebody pulled out VERY close in front of me, I remember the actual process of waking out of auto-pilot and taking a noticeable split second to assess the situation and realise what was going on, then…
I grabbed the brake, idiot, I’d locked the front wheel up and contributed to an already bad situation.
In all my sliding and slithering I hadn’t hit the car that pulled out in front of me.
I lay there in the middle of the road for a second or two, wondering rather indignantly if the car was going to stop or carry on regardless.
It stopped, and a well spoken middle aged man of indian decent exited the drivers seat and enquired if I was ok or not.
“Nothing’s broken, can you give me a hand lifting this up and getting it out of the road?”
As we lifted my bike and pushed it onto the grass verge I noticed that the one thing that seemed to take the biggest damage was my disc lock, which had flown out of my rear compartment and smashed its plastic casing on the tarmac.
He gave me his card, wrote down his registration on it for me and gave me a lift home.
For my little escapade, all I had to show for it was a rather scuffed jacket, torn trousers (where my motorcross boots had ripped through from the inside) and a friction burn on the heel of my right palm where my £12.99 Tesco Value gloves had disintegrated.
My right pannier was very dented, big horrible scrapes down one side and the hinges had snapped, but they looked like with a hammer and the acceptance of no hinges, they could be made serviceable again.
Having left my bike at the scene, I asked for a lift from one of my colleagues the next day, who took me to my bike and hung around while I made sure it worked.
Beyond a broken indicator, a lot of scuffing and a twisted hand guard, the bike was right as rain! Maybe I don’t need those engine bars!
I started her up and set off for work.
Hmm, it’s not freewheeling very well and there’s a horrible burning smell, shit, that’s not good.
Erm… whoops! Turns out the twisted hand guard was sticking the front brake on, leaving a rather nice groove down the middle of the front disc which was revealed upon later inspection.
After removing the offending hand guard, the bike is happy as larry!
During work I started to experience some rather worrying neck pain, so I took the second half of the day off and went home.
Taking the time off as an opportunity, I took a hammer to my bugger pannier and set it to rights.
After half an hour of stress-relieval the pannier was bent inwards instead of outwards, but at least the lid fit on it!
A quick trial on the bike… Yup, works like a charm, still locks, still fits (not as well as it did, but hey!).
All in all, quite impressed with Jesse!
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