Stephen and I have a little joke… It dates back to long before this blog (was there even history before blogs?) to a time when mobile phones were black and white and you could only store 50 text messages before having to delete some…. Good times. Well, back in the day, Stephen and his long suffering parents invited me along with them on a camping holiday…
Category: Motorbike
No Sale
Well its been a year now and still no luck selling the Ducati.
Continue reading No Sale
Test Ride Pass
AIMI PASSED!!!! WOOP WOOP!!!! Girlfriend is a fully licensed BIKER CHICK!!!
So what’s the first thing you do when you pass your test? GO TEST RIDE BIKES!!!
Van Goals
I’ve got a motorbike, a big one. I’ve had it for MANY years and occasionally it breaks down. When it breaks down its a ball-ache to push to a garage. So, one of the reasons for owning the Van is to move the bike when this happens.
The Van with a Plan
The Van
I bought this van from a dealer who sells old police vans. It has windows in the back and structural tracking in the floor for extra seats. It’s got a roof vent with fan for ventilation. It’s short wheelbase so fits in a std size car parking space but medium height so I can uncomfortably stand and more importantly I can get a bike in the back easily. It’s front wheel drive so I keep max headroom in the back and also really powerful because it’s ex-plod and I refuse to be the slow camper crawling up a hill in wales.
Van-ishing Trick
Time to start a new adventure…
For a long time I have been thinking about my transport requirements and travelling. I love travelling by motorbike (can you tell?) day to day they are just better than cars but long distances by motorbike are pretty boring. Motorways are dull as dishwater and don’t do the bike any favours either in terms of mega miles on the clock. I’ve been all over europe on the Versys, my motorbike for the last 7 years. She’s a dear old lady now but I bought her new 47k miles ago. Continue reading Van-ishing Trick
Motorbike Turbulence
So I got home safely, it was likely to happen… however the plane driver operator pilot did his best to make me doubt it.
You know, I’m not sure turbulence is a real thing. It feels like the whole plane had just landed on cobbles but you are thousands of feet up and passing through air, not known to behave like victorian rock roads. I think the pilot just gets bored and announces to the cabin that there is some “turbulence” approaching. As if they just looked out the window and saw a herd of cattle.. “Oh look, some cattle at 35,000ft…” casual. And then the pilot and his piloty mates exercise the biggest con in aviation. I bet there is no such thing as turbulence, I bet the pilot just wobbles the steering wheel direction adjuster flying stick until he gets a few people to shriek or until he thinks the air hostesses will coo over him and stroke his arms saying “you’re such a skilled pilot to have controlled the plane in such terrible turbulence!” Maybe my imagination has wandered off on its own…
Homeward bound and gagged
Hanoi to Russia to Home 1.5
The day to leave had come. Bag was packed. Bike remained unsold. Mike was in bed (like any sane person would be at 6am) Bed checked and double checked for hidden items. Checked out. Egg Bahn Mi in my face. Coffee in hand. Taxi waiting.
The weather echoed my mood; Heavy overhead with persistent drizzle. If only I didn’t have to leave… the “real world” we had been talking about, in flying comma, beckoned and there could be no ignoring it now. I mean, I could ignore it, and I would be fine, but I would be seriously shooting my career in the foot. I like my job and I enjoy my career but in this moment I felt like nothing more than throwing the towel in and disappearing into the east asian distance. Just thinking about the possibility made me pause getting in the taxi.
Vegging out, vegging in
Hanoi chill out
I am glad I checked my flight details today. I had misread the time of departure as 1600 where it was actually 0955 tomorrow. The downside was that I had already spent the whole day relaxing and vegging out writing up the last 3 days of blogs. It was evening when the panic started to rise and I had to frantically pack and sort all my stuff out before the pub quiz. I had thought that with my flight at 1600 I could leisurely wake and do my packing and last bits of shopping before swanning over to the airport after lunch. It was not to be and I found myself running around collecting washing, trying to sell the bike, getting dinner, playing the pub quiz, buying a carry on bag, doing the pub quiz challenges and arranging a taxi in the morning with some of the islanders.
One of the things on my to do list had been drop off a Geocache somewhere in Vietnam. (See www.geocaching.com for literally the coolest nerdy thing to do for free) I had found a Trackable in one of the caches in England and decided to give it a boost around the globe. It had been in my bag for the whole trip, occasionally surfacing in my mind. I know it’s a silly 1st world problem to have but I have just been so busy doing cool stuff that I’ve not gotten around to it. Even today, where it was mostly spent administrating my life and catching up on blogging I was too busy to find time. I hang my head in shame that I have not completed my Geocaching mission.
Wobbling Wounded
Ha Long to Hanoi
The aftermath of the night before was evident this morning. The pleasant morning gong managed to rouse about 20% of the island. I was up, not one to miss a meal. I had the choice of enjoying the company of the angry omelette man or semi-conscious sandy islanders. None more sandy than Mike who had crashed out on the beach and made himself a sand pillow. Somehow in the middle of the night he had dragged himself, and half the beach it seemed, back into his bed.
Time is deceptive on the island. Because you have been partying all day and the only light is sunlight or that powered by generator, once everyone has given up and passed out, its not actually that late. It gets dark at about 8pm and after 4 hours of dancing like a loon I was knackered!