Category Archives: Planning

Always a pot of gold – Karma

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Riding down the coast road near Ytre Svartvik, I was pondering the need for waterproofs… if you ride you know that time. Picture this, it looks like its going to rain so you need to decide if the chance of wetness is greater than the faff required to put on a one piece over-suit designed to keep your textiles from dripping all over the place at the campsite? Trust me putting on wet clothing the following morning is not a pleasant experience but then is neither squeezing yourself into your boil in the bag waterproof over-suit. As I waited, contemplating outpacing the clouds, an Italian scooter rider stopped and with the international language of gesticulation we agreed he needed petrol and with the R1150GSA holding 30 litres I gave him enough to see him on his way, I thought that was my good deed of the day but then I got a puncture…. so much for karma!Always a pot of gold - Karma

Planning to get lost

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I love maps, I masochistically enjoy the whole tactile experience as I struggle with my unwieldy foe in the wind or rain. Whilst a Sat Navs may get you to a destination with little stress they fail to give you any sense of the place or the terrain you are travelling through. I spend hours pouring over my maps, the flat two dimensional representation of my three dimensional world and then by adding time scales into the mix the adventure starts. Ten cm on Michelin 711 is only 100km but that takes a whole day, standing high on the pegs of the bike as I navigate the 890 to Kjolnes and onward to Gulgofjord – getting lost… what’s the worst that can happen?Planning to get lost

Beast of Burden

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Why ride a bike… the connection to place, to the land, the wind, the sun, stars, the moon… it sounds romantic, but it’s true – the visceral experience of motion, of moving through time on some amazing machine – a few cars touch on it, but not too many compared to motorcycles. I always felt that any motorcycle journey was special – Antoine Predock

GS in Sweden

الصحراء الكبرى – Sand gets everywhere

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After a really early start this morning, I fell asleep again in the sand of the eastern desert, on the edges of the great Sahara, awoken only by a strengthening onshore wind, I watched the sun rise. So close to the equator there is really no discernible length of twilight at either end of the day and sunrise to full strength takes a matter of minutes – pulling my self together I could not help notice tracks in the sand made by an unknown nocturnal visitor as I snoozed, seems he was not interested in me at all – I just like to think it was something small and fluffy…

Tracks in the Sand