Author Archives: nick

Croatia

Posted on August 13, 2011 by nick| Leave a comment

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I can’t say I have the best memories of Croatia because for most of my time there I was sick. On our first night near the capital I managed to eat something which didn’t go down to well, so on our second day of riding I had to stop often as I felt like either vomiting or having the squirts. Luckily I did neither but there were some times where it was a close call.

We were told the Croatian coastline was amazing but my enthusiasm for enjoying the view was overcome by a desire to share my insides with the side of the road. We did both comment that what passed for beaches were actually rocky patches or concrete areas that you could barely see for people. I don’t think we were impressed.

We spent two nights in a town called Split, where our good friend Caterina (from London) offered to put us up for the  couple of nights when our accommodation fell through. Apparently “yes, we want the room” means “yes, we want the room, but feel free to give it to someone else if they get there before us” in Croatia. I needed a break and time to recover and we had been riding quite hard to get here so felt like some chill out time.

Cat went to Croatia to get away from it all, so we decided to help her by making a mess of her apartment with all our gear. Tris’ snoring kept her awake the first night, but lucky for her I was still awake with stomach pains and severe heartburn to keep her company. I’m sure she relished our farting and burping, crude jokes, indecision, mess and general boyness. What better way to relax than with friends.

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The day I dropped Donkey

Posted on August 13, 2011 by nick| Leave a comment

View across Vilac

I’m not the dumbest guy in the world but I certainly felt like it when Tris and I decided to go visit the local historic castle in Villac, Austria.

The road up there was incredibly steep, so being the lazy arses we are, we road up on our bikes. To be even mre lazy, we skipped all the sensible flat parking bays further from the castle, and road straight to the parking directly at the entrance. The problem we faced was the angle of the road and parking bays was quite steep.

Tris made a first attempt to park and almost took out an old lady. While he corrected himself, I managed to successfully face up hill and then reverse my bike into the parking bay. I was quite chuffed with myself… I made it look easy.

The problem I next faced was getting my bike on my stand. The stand was on the uphill side and when I extended it my bike was completely upright. I decided to test if it was balanced by taking my right foot off the ground.

I started to fall down hill to the right.

No worries, I thought, I’ll just put my foot down again. But by now it was too late. The weight of my fully laden bike was too much and my foot was slipping. For several seconds I managed to stop Donkey from slamming into the ground but she kept on falling further over, and I couldn’t hold the weight on my one precariously placed foot. Eventually I just had to let go and she hit the ground while I went flying into the red car next to me.

Dumb arse.

My time at the gym wasn’t enough. I struggled to get Donkey even a few inches up off the ground, and still faced the issues of some simple maths; angles, weight, and me.

A man who sensibly parked further down the hill passed and immediately jumped to help. Tris, after sensibly parking at the flatter bit further up, eventually came back down and put his shoulder into it as well. After a short while all three of us managed to get Donkey upright and held her there long enough for me to get back on her and started (she flooded).

I parked further up, and we settled down to enjoy the amazing view at the café inside the castle walls, ordering a well earned coca-cola to settle the nerves.

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The air up there

Posted on August 6, 2011 by nick| Leave a comment

It’s  hard life sometimes…

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Let there be beer… and plenty of it

Posted on August 6, 2011 by nick| Leave a comment
Villach friends at the Beer Festival

Villach friends at the Beer Festival

Part of the fun of this trip is the fact we don’t really have a definite plan of where we are going. We have a rough idea, with a need for me to be in Paris on the 26th of August, but where we stay each night is partly up to random chance.

By random chance we ended up in Villach in Austria. We had intended on making it to Lubijubijubi (I can never remember how to say or spell that place) in Slovenia, but a local festival was making it hard to find a place to stay. By midday we had decided to go elsewhere, and sent out some couchsurfing requests to places this side of the Austrian/Slovenian border. Within an hour we had a friendly “Yes” from a lovely woman called Nikki. Just by chance, Villach was also having a local festival… a beer festival. The gods be praised!

Nikki invited us to join her and some friends for some pre-festival drink, and then out to the festival with them. The festival was manic. There were thousands of people filling the streets, most dressed in traditional costume. We picked a beer tent that had a huge pig on a spit roasting outside it (it was awesome… hmmm, meat), opposite another tent playing some traditional Austrian music (which sounded like it was out of the 60s). We all got into the swing of things though by drinking beer an eating pork. Nom nom nom.

MEAT!

MEAT!

The festival was huge though. It took us forever to walk all the way through the streets jam-packed full of (drunken) people. They had fair-ground rides, and not just the small piddly ones either. I lost Tristan at one stage but found a bar selling more beer (like it was hard to find), where I waited with a young couple who I’d met earlier that night, talking about random drunken crap and giving them my sagely advice. Eventually Tris turned up with a grin on his face, and we all then found a taxi back to where we were staying. It was close to 4pm by the time we got to sleep.

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Whimper

Posted on August 6, 2011 by nick| 2 Comments

I couldn’t wait to get off the bike after our second day of riding. We travelled over 500kms on long boring motorways. Our aim is to get as far East as quickly as possible, but with 25k to go before our destination of the day, Besacon, I just wanted to get off the bike. In fact when we stopped, I got my helmet off as quickly as possible and threw my jacket on the ground. We had both had enough, especially after fairly much no sleep the night before.

Our plan for an early night went out the window when we took our host our for a meal, and then she suggested a walk up to the citadel. The view was great but the walk back to her house was draining. We didn’t get to bed until 1AM, which wasn’t good considering we had to get up at 6:30AM. Whimper.

The next day was a mad dash to Chur in Switzerland (nothing exciting happened), and then bout 580kms from there to where we are now; Villach in Austria.

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And we are off…

Posted on August 6, 2011 by nick| Leave a comment

Well, we were sort of off. The torrential rain in the morning wasn’t an encouraging start to our trip but by the time we actually hit the road it had cleared up.

I had promised myself I wouldn’t take as much gear with me this time. As I hefted my chokka full bag onto the back of my bike, forced closed my full top box and wiggled the jam packed tank bag into place, I wish I had remembered that promise. Dick.

We only had a short ride down to Folkestone then a few hours on the other side to a place called Amien for our first day. I remembered riding being exhilirating, and it definitely was that and more. The “more” bit was remembering how squashed one’s balls get, how sore one’s arse gets and how tiring it can all be. But we made it fine and were greeted by the friendly face of Anna our first Couchsurfing host. She set the standards pretty high as she plied us with beer and put on a BBQ. We hung out with her, her boyfriend and housemates for the night, with our incredibly poor ability to speak French not being much of a hinderance. Tris tries to speak the local lingo better than I do and has been a inspiration.

The highlight of day one was Tris learning how to remove a bottle cap from beer bottle using a lighter. I’m glad I was there to witness him finally becoming a real man.

The train ride over

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Just in the Nick of time… maybe.

Posted on July 19, 2011 by nick| Leave a comment
Best present opening experience ever.

Donkey gets out of the box

I’ve finally got all my Donkey drama sorted. After some legal advice I’ve had to accept the way things are and just pay to get my bike back. It was going to take far too long and cost me way too much to fight Anglo Pacific about the way I’ve been treated. That said, I’ve been told the Office of Fair Trading is going to do a review (which I must chase up).

The next thing I had to do was take her to a mechanic. Six hundred pounds later (MOT, chain and sprockets, new front break pad, lots of work fixing fused front callipers, oil filter, air filter and a new battery) she was ready to go. Unfortunately still not legal to ride.

I also got insurance, but then had to go through a process of getting Donkey re-registered and taxed. An hour at the DVLA in Sidcup and all was sorted… sort of. I’ve got to wait for the documentation to come through before I can take Donkey for a drive. I leave at the end of next week… still no documents. Sigh.

I’m sure they will be get here just in time.

I hope

The most important thing is that I have Donkey back. I’m a very happy man. Can’t wait to get out riding around Europe with Tristan again.

 

 

Posted in Nick, Planning

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Not long to go now and…

Posted on July 4, 2011 by nick| Leave a comment

… and I don’t have a my bike back yet.

I got into stalemate situation with Anglo Pacific over cost and liability, with them thinking a “sorry, we fucked up” and an offer of a £100 discount was good enough. They admitted to me that screwed up but refused to admit that because of that I was unable to insure my goods. In fact, they blamed me… which just got me angry. So I went through a dispute process with the British Association of Removers. This proved to be just as frustrating as deal with Anglo Pacific.

My case manager at BARs took 6 weeks to actually tell me anything. In that time he said 3 weeks in a row that he’d have the report out by that Friday. Every Monday I was wondering why I’d heard nothing. In fact a week went by from when I first contacted them and I’d heard nothing. When I called up he didn’t know what I was referring to and couldn’t find the email I sent him at his request (he later said he did find it). I didn’t know what was going on as my emails where left unanswered and my phone calls were not being returned. So I lost confidence in that process and said as such.

After taking some legal advice, I was told that my fight would be long and expensive so in the end I’ve had to give in. I’ve paid the outstanding amount and will just have to battle it out with them if anything is damaged. I just need to get on my bike so I can get back to being familiar with it by the time I have to spend 5-9 hours a day riding it. But wait, there is more…

I’ve now paid my account and asked to pick it up on Thursday. I was told it hadn’t cleared Customs yet. What!?! My bike has been in the country since the 7th of April and it has still to clear customs! How completely incompetent can one company be?

My frustration continues…

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Donkey Drama

Posted on April 27, 2011 by nick| 1 Comment

I love my bike. I love my bike so much I sent it on a trip to New Zealand and back.

I haven’t seen my bike since the start of October and now I just want her back. We have been apart for far too long. But I’m having massive problems getting her back. I sent her to NZ when I was going to be moving back there last year. Circumstances changed and I’m now back in the UK, but unfortunately Donkey made the trip to NZ, sat on the dock for over a month then was finally loaded on a ship and returned to the UK on the 7th of April. It is now the end of the month and I’m nowhere near being able to ride her.

I am currently having a “debate” with my shipping company over costs. They have been absolutely shit when it comes to communicating with me and I’ve had to chase them up constantly over the past 5 months to find out what has been going on. They now want me to pay £1200 before I can get her (along with other household items). This is £400 more than it cost to ship her out in the first place… and I’m not happy about it. I wouldn’t have minded if I had known 5 months ago how much it was going cost, but to surprise me with it, and considering the lack of service they have provided, I’m arguing over some of the fees they are charging me.

I could just pay it all and be done with it, have my bike and all my stuff, thus ending a chapter of my life that ended unfortunately. But, damn it, I’ve decided to not accept the poor way I’ve been treated. I’m being stubborn. I might get nowhere, and I accept that, but I’m not going down without a fight.

I want my bike. I want to ride, and I want to prepare properly for my trip with Tristan. I will get there eventually, finally being reunited with Donkey and happily hitting the road again.

There is nothing quite like getting out on a bike you are very familiar with. Donkey and I have been some great places together and will be going to some even more amazing places in the future.

I’m going to sulk now.

 

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Donkey Update and New Gear

Posted on March 7, 2011 by nick| 1 Comment

I’ve had news recently that Donkey, my Honda Transalp 650 motorbike, will be back in the UK on April 7th. I haven’t seen the bike since I dropped her off at the shipping company on October the 12th, 2010. In that time she’s been half way around the world to NZ, sat in a container on a dock for 6 weeks, before being loaded back on a boat and setting sail for England.

I was supposed to move back to New Zealand at the end of last year, but plans changed and decisions had to be made, and I didn’t end up moving. These decisions happened after I’d shipped all my gear back. Long story…

So now I’m all excited and have started to look at buying all new gear. I’m pretty keen on the new Shoei helmets, with the appeal being their lighter weight and reduced noise (also something not white like my current helmet). I’m also looking at decking myself out in Alpine Star leathers instead of the textile based clothing I currently have. If anybody can make recommendations or suggestions, they’d be welcome.

 

Posted in Nick, Planning