Practice makes perforations

I spent the weekend riding as a final prep-run on the bike. Whoever said "practice makes perfect" lied. I've burnt a hole through my panniers on the exhaust side (combination of cheap panniers and poor fitting on my part).

When I got home and emptied the pannier, I could smell cooking. It turned out to be my jeans.

Mental note: If you take the gas cannisters with you, put them in the left pannier, away from the exhaust.

Nic has agreed to use her industry sway and give me a sample of the wonderful Marmoleum that she sells (flooring). Since it has great fire qualities, carrying a piece of floor at the bottom of my pannier should hold things together for a couple of weeks on the road. I don't think the panniers will last the whole trip, but we'll give them a go.

I stayed the night at Wyke Down Farm surrounded by moo makers...

Whispering future

• Nic and I have handed over our UK passports to the Russian Embassy in the first of many visa battles in the trip.
• Someone has decided to take my room in the flat.
• I have handed in my resignation.

It is all go on the leaving front then... my room looks like a closing down sale.

I came to the UK with only a pack, and after ten years I will leave with just the same. I am not sure whether revelling in such underachievement is the right thing to do, but it feels fantastic. It is more poignant with the odd coincidence that the day we leave is exactly one decade since I arrived in the UK.

Ten years ago I came to the UK full of ignorance, happiness and hope. It is fabulous to know that ten years later I leave with Nic, still full of ignorance, happiness and hope.

Licensed to thrill

I've just passed my practical motorcycle tests after a week of intense riding with an instructor in the Direct Access course. Yay-o to the max.

We trained on GS500 bikes...


When I first got onto an open road on those things, I slammed back the throttle like I was on my bike and it leapt forward like a leopard chasing a kill. I had to clutch onto the handle bars to stay on the bike. I was grinning in my helmet the whole way. Fabulous.

The training and test were surprisingly tough.

So, now that I have a full motorcycle license, I can theoretically ride one of these...



However; since it isn't about the speed, but the slow wandering around the earth, I think I'll stick with my lovely bike...



Now that this mistake of not having a full motorcycle license has been fixed, Nic and I can concentrate on arranging the trans-mongolian and getting ready for the big trip together.

How to arse up a good plan

Nic and I have been planning the big trip for a while. We roughly know where we are going and for how long so that we can arrange the five visas we will need throughout, some of which require proof of where we will stay every single day. Not the easiest thing in the world.

So with all that palava, I rather surprised myself by completely getting the Morocco bike trip arsewards. I thought I could ride to Spain and Morocco on my learner's license. Not so it seems. It is illegal and they won't let me in on my bike.

I only found this out two days ago so I've gone into panic mode and have booked my theory test and practical in the next few weeks. The test isn't easy and I have to pass it or the whole Morocco trip is probably ruined. Ha!

Heh, at least it make things interesting. Nothing like time pressure to focus the mind.

I'll be practising figures of eight, shoulder-checks and U-turns for the forseeable future.

And to keep everything impractical and silly, I've taken the panniers off the bike because they weren't pretty enough and obscured the lovely lines of the bike. So, I will have to travel without any change of clothes or anything; just a credit card, a passport and a smile. Awesome.

99 Days

It has gone into double digits now. 99 days until it is bye bye to work (again). Nic isn't so lucky; but then again, she enjoys working for 'the man'.

For a while at least, I will no longer have to say things like "perhaps if we could get our ducks in a row here, we could be singing from the same hymn sheet to add value. The knowledge workers are moving the goalposts, but with imagineering we could all get on the same page and get some skin in the game" - Come again? Is this work or a catholic porno? (Not sure which would be more exciting - ahem)

Needless to say, the thought of being on a motorbike, riding the ridges of the Atlas Mountains or wandering the Navarra valley, easily beats dancing tango with customers over a 1m pound deal. The only liquidated damages I am going to suffer in a hundred days from now will come from a beer bottle!

99 days and counting...

Marrakech and the man who won't leave beavers alone

"Scooter to Moscow", I said. "On a scooter. London to Moscow", I said. So how did I end up not owning a scooter and not going to Moscow? And how on earth did it end up being a ride on a cruiser down Spain and into Morocco?

I won't bore you with the details. Needless to say that I am going down to Marrakech to meet up with Rob for a bit before heading up the coast of Portugal (or something) and then flying to Moscow with Nic rather than riding there. Let's just say the thought of not being let out of Russia didn't fill me with joy.

So this weekend I did a trial run with the bike fully packed all the way down to Portsmouth where I have the ferry booked to take me to Bilbao on the 27th of July. I say fully packed, but once I had put the sleeping bag, tent, rollmat and cooking gear on, there wasn't any room for anything else. Not even space for a spare pair of pants. This is going to be one smelly ride to Marrakech. When I got back on Sunday my armpits smelt like a dead beaver's arse.

Bears, Beavers and Boobs

Nic and I wanted to know what Russia would be like before our big trip, so this Easter we er... went to Russia.

First Impressions

We took a mini-break to St Petersburg for a few days. I was very surprised to see that the airport was small and a bit of a dump with the old helicopters and planes littering the grassy verges (same as in Minsk). You would think that nowadays St Petersburg would be a bit different to this, but no, it was old-school Russian. As my American friends would say, "It was a bit ghetto".

The city itself is smaller than I imagined, and a lot more European; you could easily be in Italy or France instead of Russia.

Food

While we were there we had the chance to eat some local delicacies; brown bear and a lot of beaver. Please feel free to insert almost any smutty reference you like here.

Yes, I ate beaver. Nic forewent the beaver. She muttered something about having tried it once already back in Uni, but I wasn't sure what she was talking about.

The beaver was chewy and not to my liking. I always saw myself as a massive beaver fan, but not so, it seems.

The bear, on the other hand, was delicious.



Boobs

So, there we were having a quiet dinner in a lovely restaurant. They dropped the lights, a male DJ with a see through blouse and skin tight trousers started saying "poyskey loskey skoobsky titsky" etc and some dancers came out. All was okay, if not a little distracting from the meal.... well, until the girls took off their bikini tops!

It was extremely difficult to concentrate on a steaming beaver, while having a pair of boobs wobbled in your face I can tell you.

St Petersburg = Random but fun.

The bike, the road & the fetish gear

Riding a bike is fun. No one quite explained this when they talked bikes to me or, more likely, I didn't listen. It is wonderful. You lean into the corners and, with the roar of wind in your ears, you pull back the throttle and accelerate with a kick that knocks you back in the saddle.


Riding a bike in the rain at night sucks. You can't see, the bike is slippery and everyone in a car seems to think you are a pinball and their vehicle is the self elected bonus flipper.


But the one thing I can't make my mind up about is the leathers. I picked mine up last week. There is something weirdly pornographic about dressing completely in leather. Boots, gloves, jacket and jeans; I smell like a pile of dead cows - not that I find dead cows particularly pornographic. It is the ritual before the ride. Something more than just safety gear.


It feels wonderful to wear. It looks great. But something about it just weirds me out. I feel like I should be asking someone to spank me... and afterwards that I should thank them. Odd. But when you look this cool, go with it....

Compulsory Basic Training (CBT)

CBT, the training everyone must take in the UK before they can ride a motorbike. I am happy to say that I passed it on Saturday.

It wasn't without its issues. The instructor tells you to imagine as if you are invisible when you hop on a bike and boy was he right. During the final part of the training, I was riding out on the road, covered in L-plates and fluorescent training gear, and I still had cars cut me off and nearly run me over.

The instructor had a radio that I put into my helmet and all I could hear was his voice say "holy moley!" as a car stoppped in front of me in a roundabout and then cut across me as I tried to get out of the way. Even in a car I would have given her the bird, but I was gripping the handle bars so tight, I couldn't pry my fingers from them to do the dopey lady the service.

But, in the end, job done. I am now legally allowed to go out and cause havoc on the road on my bike... even if I stall it once in a while at the lights.

Happy days.

The scooter has arrived

I finally bought a scooter. It is a little bigger than I had originally anticipated. Check out my super scooter...



Okay, so this isn't exactly a scooter. It was supposed to be but I couldn't fit panniers on a scooter and I do like handle bar moustaches and tassles, so a custom cruiser was the only way to go.

Nicci was extremely kind to take me all the way to swindon so I could play with some boys toys. Once I sat on this thing, there was no going back.



Now to watch Easy Rider a few times.

By the way, I had to reschedule my Compulsory Basic Training (CBT), so I'm not actually allowed to ride it. I sat on it in the garage today when it arrived making brrmmm sounds. Roll on CBT.

Check out the trip

This is the proposed trip...

It's alive!!

Mark and Nic are sitting in the house trying to find out where the money for the trip is to come from