Here we go again. Chasing horizons. I didn’t know where to go. People do keep telling me where to go. I get a lot of that. But I need an excuse. A target to aim at. Something to achieve. So I cast my mind back to some previous trips and dig up some unfinished business.
There is a bar in a scrappy dirty town on the border of Iran. They were hostile and didn’t want to serve me. I sat, I waited, I watched. The kids outside kept approaching the bikes. We banged hard on the windows and they scattered like pigeons only to land a few feet away, look around and start back towards the bikes. A young woman fixed on us with huge moist brown eyes. A group of blokes tried hard to not start beating their chests. I need to go back there.. to see if my breakfast ever arrived.
I was in a hot and sweaty hotel room in Russia. The local youth were racing up and down the street outside bounding their valves. Engines barking and spitting through the silence of the night. I was writing something, the top came off my pen came off and dissappeared. I suspect it rolled under the bed. I need to go back and check.
I was sitting at a collection of cheap plastic seats at a table covered in flies. I have an uninterrupted view across a fast flowing river directly into Afghanistan on the opposite bank 100m away. A group of Afghans on horse back slowly approached the water. Old and worn rifles hanging loose and familiar across their chests. I raised my hand and they replied, pulled the reins, turned and got into a canter then disappeared in a cloud of dust. I almost sure I finished my drink. As I went to leave, a priest in full regalia was passing. I asked him to bless my bike. He looked at me, mumbed a few quiet words and made the sign of the cross towards the exhausted Ktm sitting in the shade. It’s got to be time for another blessing. I think the Ktm manual says blessings should be administered every 10,000 and I’m way past that. I need to find the priest.
I woke up in a yurt high in the mountains in Kyrgystan after a freezing night. My nipples were harder than the nose cone on an SR-71 blackbird. I got up, dragged on my boots and went outside. It was like I had caught God getting the day ready. Arranging the sky and the lake to absolute peak perfection. He got hold of the sun and placed it just above the horizon, sprinkled a blanked of mist over it and clapped his hands to get all the birds off the water and into the sky. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. I need my exercise all my emotions like that at least one more time. I need to see if they’re all still working after being ground down and ignored for too long.
What a load of bollocks eh. Get used to it, or leave now
I’m only going to have myself or this screen to talk to for a while so you’re likely to see me on the inside. Beware that’s not always a nice place.
Anyway, I’m feeling strangely calm about this now. Yesterday I felt like someone caught taking a dump when the front doorbell goes. Stumbling down the stairs with my trousers round my ankles and definitely not ready to open the door to the public. But today feels different. It feels like all the hands of fate have all had a meeting and planned in minute detail everything that is going to happen. All I have to do is go and play my part.
Let’s go and join the dots.
Time to twist and go. My wife has done this so many times now that it’s just like putting out the bins. She opens the garage, wheels me out onto the pavement and goes back indoors. She’ll come and put me back when I’m done.
This isn’t The Bitch’s first rodeo either. Sure enough she wants to stop at Cobham services to wee against the bush in the biker bay. Marking her territory. Letting the others know who’s boss.
My mate Rob bought be a new Sat Nav recently for this trip. It’s connected to my phone and loads of little messages keep popping up as I ride.
‘Accident in 19 miles’
I hope that’s for information and not an instruction. I hope it’s not secretly tapped into the list of activities that fate has planned out for me.
Then I get a red bank alert warning me that my wife has apparently done a supermarket sweep down Sainsbury’s cosmetic aisle with a bulldozer. Perhaps I’ll turn those alerts off, or have the local rioters target Sainsbury’s.
Get to the Eurotunnel and sure enough there are loads of bikes packed to the rafters with everything including the kitchen sink. I make a real effort to pack as light as possible. I pack the bathroom sink because it’s smaller. Every little helps.
Get on the train and have a chat to a Swiss bloke with a 42 year old Laverda. When I was a kid there was a Laverda garage about 200m down the road. He’s had the bike from new and says it’s never given any trouble/. That’s probably why Laverda went out of business. They were giving Italian bikes a good name.
I’ve got 500 miles to do today and I’ve not eaten. Stop for a piss and they want 80 cents! Jesus. 80c X the number of old man bladder emergencies is more than it would cost to just piss in my trousers and pay the dry cleaning.
Get to the hotel and it’s a bit of a worry. There are white vans everywhere. Either there is a new city being built round here and all the trades are staying at my hotel.. or.. I’ve chanced upon the local chapter of the German motorcycle theft club and my bike is going to be passed around the white vans all night like a plaything and left in a ditch somewhere in the morning.
I go for a walk to get some dinner.. I’m guessing from the road name I’m in for a sausage
Close enough, and washed down with my favourite tipple. I’ve put out an all cows alert on my route to make sure they get their udders into gear ready to supply me with as much of the good stuff as I need.
After a fretful night imagining scruffy Germans taking it in turns to ride The Bitch in the backs of their vans I wake up to find the car park almost empty. Except for a beautiful Ktm. She’s survived the night. She can take care of herself.
A quick eurobland cardboard breakfast that’s deliberately disgusting to discourage you from eating it, a quick tickle of my helmet by some Fräuleins and I’m almost ready to go.
But first a bit of repacking. I didn’t set the suspension up for luggage and the bike isn’t happy. It’s following lines in the road like a Chelmsford chav chasing his Charlie, and it’s dragging its arse like a dog that’s tried its first dinner of vindaloo winnalot. I need to sort it out.
This is my main packing. My wash bag and my all my clothes and shoes in the green bag. A weekend. A week. A month. It’s all the same. 2 pairs of trousers, 2 T-shirts, 2 pairs of socks, a jumper and one pair of shoes, plus the ones I’m wearing. And this is my pannier. 30% is books. 20% is sponges to stop everything rattling about. I think I must have forgotten to pack something..
And then I remember. I’ve forgotten to pack a Brian. I first met Brian one evening in a hotel in Saratov in southern Russia. We were gathering for my first trip across China to Bangkok. That was 2014 and even since then we’ve been all over the world together. Brian fills my mirrors when we’re riding and keeps me amused when we’re not. He’s a superhero. He’s Super(old)Man. He’s virtually indestructible but rough roads are his nemesis and on this trip it’s going to get very rough indeed.. hopefully.
So onto the autobahn I go. It’s early and all Germany’s Green Party members are flying down the road at 200mph in 3 litre Porsche’s to have vegan smoothies at a restaurant made entirely out of used bathwater. One of them nearly took me out yesterday. Day 1. I’m in the fast lane doing about 75 mph following another car. I’m a few lengths behind the car in front but at the same speed. I feel more than see the car appear on the left as it overtakes me between the bike and the barrier to get in front. Same thing happened again today. It’s absolute insanity.
Time for a coffee. Take a random turn into a random bakery with delicious coffee and cake for less than the price of 8 wees. It's worth the effrort.
Someone has left a turd on the pavement I see. Oh, my bad, it’s a Moto Guzzi. Famous for being unable to get from the service bay to the client in reception without breaking down. Sorry Hugo! Anyway this one is parked outside a charity shop with a price tag of ‘1 Euro of offer’ on. I bet I could get that for less than the price of a wee too.
Another hour and the Bitch is bored again. She wants to go on a photoshoot. She really wanted to go topless but getting a pair of bangers like hers out near a public road is bound to cause an accidents so I told her no.
And so to Regensburg. Another place I’d never heard of. Another collection of old buildings and people. Just another stop on the road.
I see an old friend of mine seems to be doing a european tour. I find her signature near a doorway. No prices though. Shame.
Last night was in an old nunnery. It felt like God CCTV was watching your every move. I’m sure I heard tutting when I farted in the night.
Take The Bitch for a quick liquid breakfast and we’re on our way.
I’ve quite a way to run today. 360 miles of A roads through Germany, Austria and into Hungary. I’m going this way because I’ve not done it before and it should be quite nice, and also because a day’s tolls on the Austrian motorway is equivalent to a trip into space on Blue Origin.
It’s also a low photo day. The ride is over 8 hours so I’ll split it about 2/3/3. No time for messing about.
Now you might think that a day riding a motorbike across miles of smooth bendy tarmac, alongside fat twisty rivers and through valleys filled with fields of sunflowers would be fun. A pure blue sky and bright sunlight shining the way. A big engine filling the air with loud Austrian rock and roll. I can see how you might think that, but it obviously wasn’t all fun and games. I mean I had to stop once at a cafe by a big river and be served coffee and cake by a young lady that has mistakenly picked up her two sizes smaller sister’s T-shirt and shorts. I had to endure the scent of oven fresh strudel mixed with warm body lotion. Now I’m not complaining, I’m quite prepared to just suck these things up and get on with it. But it’s not easy.
By the end of the day The Bitch is bored. She wants to play a game. ‘What do you want to play?’ I ask. ‘Hide and seek’ comes the reply. We’ve played this before in Siberia and I nearly died getting her out of her hiding spot. But anyway, I rode into a field on the edge of some woodland, turn around and count to 20. And she’s gone.
WTF. I hope she’s not run home or gone looking for food. She’s got to be in there somewhere. I smell her before I see her, but she’s done a reasonable job.
Now all I have to do it ride her out.
I get to Veszprem quite late and the hotel/haunted house is unattended. I can’t open the gates so the Ktm has to breathe in and go through the side gate. She got wedged but it’s amazing what 150hp and an angry hot and sweaty rider can achieve when they want to.
Go down town looking for milk and dinner. Get the milk and sit in a restaurant but I have absolutely no appetite for anything but sleep. I’ve not eaten properly since leaving home. My bowel is bunged up like a blunderbuss, rammed with a riot of roadside rubbish it’s not used to. Once I’ve pulled the trigger on that I hope things will get back to normal.
There is a bar in a scrappy dirty town on the border of Iran. They were hostile and didn’t want to serve me. I sat, I waited, I watched. The kids outside kept approaching the bikes. We banged hard on the windows and they scattered like pigeons only to land a few feet away, look around and start back towards the bikes. A young woman fixed on us with huge moist brown eyes. A group of blokes tried hard to not start beating their chests. I need to go back there.. to see if my breakfast ever arrived.
I was in a hot and sweaty hotel room in Russia. The local youth were racing up and down the street outside bounding their valves. Engines barking and spitting through the silence of the night. I was writing something, the top came off my pen came off and dissappeared. I suspect it rolled under the bed. I need to go back and check.
I was sitting at a collection of cheap plastic seats at a table covered in flies. I have an uninterrupted view across a fast flowing river directly into Afghanistan on the opposite bank 100m away. A group of Afghans on horse back slowly approached the water. Old and worn rifles hanging loose and familiar across their chests. I raised my hand and they replied, pulled the reins, turned and got into a canter then disappeared in a cloud of dust. I almost sure I finished my drink. As I went to leave, a priest in full regalia was passing. I asked him to bless my bike. He looked at me, mumbed a few quiet words and made the sign of the cross towards the exhausted Ktm sitting in the shade. It’s got to be time for another blessing. I think the Ktm manual says blessings should be administered every 10,000 and I’m way past that. I need to find the priest.
I woke up in a yurt high in the mountains in Kyrgystan after a freezing night. My nipples were harder than the nose cone on an SR-71 blackbird. I got up, dragged on my boots and went outside. It was like I had caught God getting the day ready. Arranging the sky and the lake to absolute peak perfection. He got hold of the sun and placed it just above the horizon, sprinkled a blanked of mist over it and clapped his hands to get all the birds off the water and into the sky. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. I need my exercise all my emotions like that at least one more time. I need to see if they’re all still working after being ground down and ignored for too long.
What a load of bollocks eh. Get used to it, or leave now
I’m only going to have myself or this screen to talk to for a while so you’re likely to see me on the inside. Beware that’s not always a nice place.Anyway, I’m feeling strangely calm about this now. Yesterday I felt like someone caught taking a dump when the front doorbell goes. Stumbling down the stairs with my trousers round my ankles and definitely not ready to open the door to the public. But today feels different. It feels like all the hands of fate have all had a meeting and planned in minute detail everything that is going to happen. All I have to do is go and play my part.
Let’s go and join the dots.
Time to twist and go. My wife has done this so many times now that it’s just like putting out the bins. She opens the garage, wheels me out onto the pavement and goes back indoors. She’ll come and put me back when I’m done.
This isn’t The Bitch’s first rodeo either. Sure enough she wants to stop at Cobham services to wee against the bush in the biker bay. Marking her territory. Letting the others know who’s boss.
My mate Rob bought be a new Sat Nav recently for this trip. It’s connected to my phone and loads of little messages keep popping up as I ride.
‘Accident in 19 miles’
I hope that’s for information and not an instruction. I hope it’s not secretly tapped into the list of activities that fate has planned out for me.
Then I get a red bank alert warning me that my wife has apparently done a supermarket sweep down Sainsbury’s cosmetic aisle with a bulldozer. Perhaps I’ll turn those alerts off, or have the local rioters target Sainsbury’s.
Get to the Eurotunnel and sure enough there are loads of bikes packed to the rafters with everything including the kitchen sink. I make a real effort to pack as light as possible. I pack the bathroom sink because it’s smaller. Every little helps.
Get on the train and have a chat to a Swiss bloke with a 42 year old Laverda. When I was a kid there was a Laverda garage about 200m down the road. He’s had the bike from new and says it’s never given any trouble/. That’s probably why Laverda went out of business. They were giving Italian bikes a good name.
I’ve got 500 miles to do today and I’ve not eaten. Stop for a piss and they want 80 cents! Jesus. 80c X the number of old man bladder emergencies is more than it would cost to just piss in my trousers and pay the dry cleaning.
Get to the hotel and it’s a bit of a worry. There are white vans everywhere. Either there is a new city being built round here and all the trades are staying at my hotel.. or.. I’ve chanced upon the local chapter of the German motorcycle theft club and my bike is going to be passed around the white vans all night like a plaything and left in a ditch somewhere in the morning.
I go for a walk to get some dinner.. I’m guessing from the road name I’m in for a sausage
Close enough, and washed down with my favourite tipple. I’ve put out an all cows alert on my route to make sure they get their udders into gear ready to supply me with as much of the good stuff as I need.
After a fretful night imagining scruffy Germans taking it in turns to ride The Bitch in the backs of their vans I wake up to find the car park almost empty. Except for a beautiful Ktm. She’s survived the night. She can take care of herself.
A quick eurobland cardboard breakfast that’s deliberately disgusting to discourage you from eating it, a quick tickle of my helmet by some Fräuleins and I’m almost ready to go.
But first a bit of repacking. I didn’t set the suspension up for luggage and the bike isn’t happy. It’s following lines in the road like a Chelmsford chav chasing his Charlie, and it’s dragging its arse like a dog that’s tried its first dinner of vindaloo winnalot. I need to sort it out.
This is my main packing. My wash bag and my all my clothes and shoes in the green bag. A weekend. A week. A month. It’s all the same. 2 pairs of trousers, 2 T-shirts, 2 pairs of socks, a jumper and one pair of shoes, plus the ones I’m wearing. And this is my pannier. 30% is books. 20% is sponges to stop everything rattling about. I think I must have forgotten to pack something..
And then I remember. I’ve forgotten to pack a Brian. I first met Brian one evening in a hotel in Saratov in southern Russia. We were gathering for my first trip across China to Bangkok. That was 2014 and even since then we’ve been all over the world together. Brian fills my mirrors when we’re riding and keeps me amused when we’re not. He’s a superhero. He’s Super(old)Man. He’s virtually indestructible but rough roads are his nemesis and on this trip it’s going to get very rough indeed.. hopefully.
So onto the autobahn I go. It’s early and all Germany’s Green Party members are flying down the road at 200mph in 3 litre Porsche’s to have vegan smoothies at a restaurant made entirely out of used bathwater. One of them nearly took me out yesterday. Day 1. I’m in the fast lane doing about 75 mph following another car. I’m a few lengths behind the car in front but at the same speed. I feel more than see the car appear on the left as it overtakes me between the bike and the barrier to get in front. Same thing happened again today. It’s absolute insanity.
Time for a coffee. Take a random turn into a random bakery with delicious coffee and cake for less than the price of 8 wees. It's worth the effrort.
Someone has left a turd on the pavement I see. Oh, my bad, it’s a Moto Guzzi. Famous for being unable to get from the service bay to the client in reception without breaking down. Sorry Hugo! Anyway this one is parked outside a charity shop with a price tag of ‘1 Euro of offer’ on. I bet I could get that for less than the price of a wee too.
Another hour and the Bitch is bored again. She wants to go on a photoshoot. She really wanted to go topless but getting a pair of bangers like hers out near a public road is bound to cause an accidents so I told her no.
And so to Regensburg. Another place I’d never heard of. Another collection of old buildings and people. Just another stop on the road.
I see an old friend of mine seems to be doing a european tour. I find her signature near a doorway. No prices though. Shame.
Last night was in an old nunnery. It felt like God CCTV was watching your every move. I’m sure I heard tutting when I farted in the night.
Take The Bitch for a quick liquid breakfast and we’re on our way.
I’ve quite a way to run today. 360 miles of A roads through Germany, Austria and into Hungary. I’m going this way because I’ve not done it before and it should be quite nice, and also because a day’s tolls on the Austrian motorway is equivalent to a trip into space on Blue Origin.
It’s also a low photo day. The ride is over 8 hours so I’ll split it about 2/3/3. No time for messing about.
Now you might think that a day riding a motorbike across miles of smooth bendy tarmac, alongside fat twisty rivers and through valleys filled with fields of sunflowers would be fun. A pure blue sky and bright sunlight shining the way. A big engine filling the air with loud Austrian rock and roll. I can see how you might think that, but it obviously wasn’t all fun and games. I mean I had to stop once at a cafe by a big river and be served coffee and cake by a young lady that has mistakenly picked up her two sizes smaller sister’s T-shirt and shorts. I had to endure the scent of oven fresh strudel mixed with warm body lotion. Now I’m not complaining, I’m quite prepared to just suck these things up and get on with it. But it’s not easy.
By the end of the day The Bitch is bored. She wants to play a game. ‘What do you want to play?’ I ask. ‘Hide and seek’ comes the reply. We’ve played this before in Siberia and I nearly died getting her out of her hiding spot. But anyway, I rode into a field on the edge of some woodland, turn around and count to 20. And she’s gone.
WTF. I hope she’s not run home or gone looking for food. She’s got to be in there somewhere. I smell her before I see her, but she’s done a reasonable job.
Now all I have to do it ride her out.
I get to Veszprem quite late and the hotel/haunted house is unattended. I can’t open the gates so the Ktm has to breathe in and go through the side gate. She got wedged but it’s amazing what 150hp and an angry hot and sweaty rider can achieve when they want to.
Go down town looking for milk and dinner. Get the milk and sit in a restaurant but I have absolutely no appetite for anything but sleep. I’ve not eaten properly since leaving home. My bowel is bunged up like a blunderbuss, rammed with a riot of roadside rubbish it’s not used to. Once I’ve pulled the trigger on that I hope things will get back to normal.
