Posts Tagged ‘adventure’

The end of my Latin American motorcycle adventure (and perhaps the beginning of another)

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

So this is it. My last post. I’ve been back in England for a month now and life is… well life is normal I guess. One thing I can say though, is that riding across the high-desert in Peru feels like a lifetime away when you’re caught trying to steal someone else’s pushchair outside your nephew’s nursery. William, the little rascal, assured me that the pushchair was his but promptly bailed on me when the real owners walked over and politely informed me that I was making a mess of their pushchair. The situation was made slightly more embarrassing in that not only was I taking the wrong buggy but I couldn’t even assemble the damn thing. In the end the ever so helpful (and slightly smug) victims of my attempted theft had to help me erect my sister’s pushchair; something that proper parents appear to accomplish with only a flick of the wrist. Rather than stand by his uncle as events unfolded, my ‘sweet little’ nephew pulled the old crying trick and took shelter in the bosom of a nursery teacher. Whilst I’m hurt by his treachery I’ll let him off this once as he is only two and a half. In fact, the more I think about it the more I admire his quick thinking and resourcefulness. Smart kid.

The long awaited reunion with my motorbike was emotional but not in the conventional sense. No misty-eyed embrace between man and machine. More along the lines of: “Surely you can’t charge that much to dispose of the crate? You thieving b@stards! Oh, if you put it like that I guess I’ll have to. Here you go.” Followed by installing the battery the wrong way round, thus unknowingly blowing the master fuse, and then worrying that none of the electrics worked. It took a while to realise that the battery could have the + and – terminals switched and after doing this it took another 10 minutes or so of frantic key twisting and calling the RAC breakdown recovery service before I thought to check the fuses! Replacing the master fuse brought back the electrics. Unfortunately this didn’t appear to be enough to make up for over 7 weeks of neglect and the infernal machine refused to start. I think the engine finally caught on about the 20th push start so I cancelled the RAC call-out. And then as one final test I had to pump up both tyres from 4psi to 30psi with my mini-now-broken-foot-pump. Why hadn’t I just ridden the bloody thing into the sea in Brasil and left it at that! Thankfully my sister was there to take the luggage home and of course my nephew provided moral support with the occasional helpful statement like: “Ollie. What that?”; “Ollie motorbike broken” and “Mummy, I need wee, wee.”

Before:Crated motorbike delivered from Brasil to England

After:

Finally unpacked and ready to ride off

With both bike and rider finally back on British soil I feel that my Latin American motorcycle adventure has come to an end and although the bike needs a lot of love and my right ankle still occasionally aches and bruises I reckon we did ok. It’s good to be back and I’m actually looking forward to knuckling down to a bit of normal life for a while. I’ve even started to make a living…

However, whilst the wanderlust is quelled it is by no means extinguished. In a previous post I mentioned a couple of ideas for future travels and I’m pleased to say that my dad is up for one of them so we’re looking into it. If we go ahead with the idea I’ll produce and online resource for others that wish to do the same (as I did with www.greasysprocket.co.uk) and will also keep those that are interested up to date with a blog. I’ll post links to the online resource and blog here. The planning and preparation involved will be considerably more than that needed for riding a motorbike across a couple of continents so I can’t guarantee that we’ll make it. I am fairly sure though that father and son travelling over strange lands in a confined space will be anything but uneventful. If you thought I was absent minded at times you should meet my dad!

Here’s the PLAN.

If I can learn how to do this…

PPL flight traning manuals

… and we can take this…

Piper Archer 4 areoplane

…we’re going to try and fly here.

Map of Africa

Got to go now as I have quite a bit of work to do. Thanks for reading and good luck in any future adventures of your own.

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First Section Compete (2,415 miles)

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

So that’s the practice section of this adventure over. Time to get amongst it south of the border.

Before I leave I need to write something that will probably amuse some of my close friends. Here goes…

When asked, my friends would probably tell you I am a politically ‘left leaning’ European. (That doesn’t mean to say I like any of those dirty money embezzling Members of European Parliament though.) This means that in the past I may not have had much time for America as nation.

I now admit that was very narrow minded of me.

In the last 2 weeks everyone I have met here has been extremely friendly, helpful and generous (apart from a transsexual bus driver I met in Vegas. Before you ask, it was in a professional capacity. S/he was driving the bus and I was a passenger. S/he was the moodiest person I’ve met in quite a while.).

So, I now have a lot more time for this nation. I can also understand why many people don’t leave their country (or state) very often/ever as everything is so large and plentiful here, why bother. I guess there’s often no need to trouble yourself with matters going on a few states away, let alone on the other side of the globe. As long as they are harmless then I guess just let them be. We had Jade Goode after all.

A few things I’ve learnt for motorbike travelers in America:

  • It’s easier to find cheap unhealthy food than cheap healthy food. If you’re in California buy fruit and vegetables by the side of the road.
  • American motorcyclists wave to each other (rather than the customary English nod). I guess that’s because they have longer, straighter roads over here.
  • When camping wild, keep all your food in your hard luggage on your bike and put a cover over the whole lot.
  • When they say ‘canyons’ they mean ‘ mountains’ (6,000-10,000 ft).
  • If camping with no spare water you can survive on ‘wet-wipe and talcum powder showers’ (but not for long).
  • Use the Wanderlust World Map form www.smellybiker.com but also keep a paper map with you.
  • If you like off-road riding, head to Utah and Nevada. (I’m sure there are plenty other states but those were the best I visited.) See – www.transamtrail.com – www.utah.com/offroad – GORP
  • US highways chew up your tyres. Use a harder compound if you can.
  • To avoid getting cramp on the long, straight roads here you need to keep your body moving. Develop a motorcycle dance if you will. The small loss in dignity when caught ‘motorcycle dancing’ by other motorists is far outweighed by the benefit of not getting cramp…
  • If you’re in or near Nevada pop into Sam’s Cycle Supply – 3900 N. Rancho Drive, Suite 101, Las Vegas, Nevada, 89130. 702-367-7267.
  • And finally. If our Queen does pop her clogs. Don’t let on if the person you’re talking to doesn’t know. They love her over here.

That’s about it. There may be radio silence for a while as I’m heading into Mexico, Baja California back-country and I don’t know what internet access will be like.

You can find out more about Ollie´s trip by visiting his Greasy Sprocket website.

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Yosemite National Park (780 miles)

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

Just cooked and eaten breakfast and writing this in the sun overlooking Camp 4 in Yosemite National Park. I like Camp 4 because there are no cars or RVs (it’s a walk-in campsite) and everyone shares the camp space. Last night I met 2 Germans, finishing a 4 month world tour and a Swede who appears to be cycling across America! Fortunately, English was the language for the evening. Another bonus of Camp4 is that you are in earshot of the 5th highest waterfall in the world (2500 ft). The omnipresent roaring and crashing of water  in the background is actually rather soothing.

2 Nights ago I decided to camp ‘wild’. Various officials and camp rangers told me that until 1st May you can camp anywhere in the National Forrest (outside the National Park) without a permit (or a campfire). The 2 reservations I had a bout this were:

  1. Being attacked by locals in a ‘Deliverance’ / ‘Wolf Creek’ style.
  2. Being eaten by bears (as camping wild you don’t have the ‘bear-proof’ metal food boxes they all talk about up here).

When I asked officials about this I got a couple of replies that I think  basically amounted to the same thing. I’ll translate for you:

(in American country accent)

“Well now. There haven’t been any problems here but I live 13 miles away and we’ve had bears going through our trash. I think you’ll be ok but I don’t want to say so and then something happen to you.”

AND

“Hey buddy. You put a cover over your bike and metal boxes [containing the food] and they [the bears] won’t even notice. Now, it’s the cougars and snakes I’d watch out for. The only good snake is a dead snake…”

TRANSLATES TO:

‘I think you’ll be ok but legally (and for my own piece of mind) I don’t want to tell you to do it just in case you do get attacked.”

Well I’d come here for an adventure so an adventure I was going to have. So off I motored and found a beautiful spot off a dirt track a few miles away from the paved roads. Trying to put thoughts of ‘Deliverance’ and ‘Wolf Creek’ behind me I set up camp, cooked, ate, drank a few beers and generally enjoyed my first evening in the wild. Before going to bed I put the remains of my food in my hard luggage on my bike and covered the whole lot with my bike cover. I also turn my bike alarm on. The thinking behind this was that if a bear starts rummaging around the bike the ‘pre-alarm’ will beep, giving me time to arm myself and then if the bear persists for 10 seconds and the ‘actual’ alarm goes off it will either scare the bear off or I will burst from my tent and… well I hadn’t really thought much further than bursting from the tent.

One other thing I didn’t know about Yosemite was that it gets cold here at night. Really cold (zero deg C). Anyway sleep eventually came, occasionally woken by the cold or a strange noise. Then, I may have dreamt it but the bike ‘pre-alarm’ beeped. I sat bolt upright. Heart thumping at about 180 bpm. In the dark, miles away from any civilization with MY F*CKING BIKE BEING TAMPERED WITH BY SOMEONE OR SOMETHING! In 10 seconds time if that full bike alarm goes off I’m going to have to get up and do something. Oh God. Oh Sh*t, Oh F*ck, etc.

At that moment it then became painfully obvious that whatever I originally had in mind for a heroic battle with bear, cougar or gap-toothed inbred was replaced by sitting motionless in my tent, sh*tting myself (not literally mind). By the time I’d be able to unzip and un-hook the tent door and crawled out whatever it was out there would have had time to chuckle to themselves as they deliver a punishing blow to the back of my head! Not much of a fight really.

Anyway, after what seemed like hours the proper alarm didn’t go off and the final battle did not have to be played out.

Was there something out there or did I just dream it? However, I survived my first night camping alone in the wild and all in all rather enjoyed it.

The Swede (cycling across America) camps by the side of the road all the time and he hasn’t had any serious problems. So I’ve decided I’m going to toughen up and do a lot more of it.

Right, off to climb to the top of that waterfall now.

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Finaly, I can ride a big motorbike

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Re-took the test (after the mandatory 10 days wait) and passed it this time. With my irrational fear of driving tests overcome I managed no minor or serious points this time. Motorcycle adventure is now back on.

I now need to decide on a motorbike for my trip. Help with choosing a motorbike can be found here.

You can find information on motorcycle test types in the rider preparation section of Greasy Sprocket.

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