Ok. So I'm finally ready. I leave tomorrow for a trip from London, England to Bangkok, Thailand. I'm riding with Marcin, a Polish rider who has been living in England for the last 11 years and is now emigrating to Australia. I'm stopping in Thailand, at least that's the plan.
I'm travelling on a BMW Rotax single, the G650x Country, my companion is riding a KTM 990 Adventure. Chalk and cheese really, I want to travel as light as possible, he wants more power and is carrying a lot more gear than I am so it should be interesting to see what happens.
Along the way we're hoping to catch up and meet up with other riders doing the same journey but there aren't many people travelling this time of year. It's going to be cold, probably wet and generally unpleasant.
I've left a lot to the last minute and while I'm sailing tomorrow at 2 I still have some things to do before I leave like get money sorted out and even add things to the bike.
Today I did, with the help of my baby brother a service, oil change, new oil filter, new spark plugs and a general tidy up, this afternoon I fitted two new tires, Continental TKC80s. I've been using them before, they're great off-road and decent on it but a bit slippery in the wet. My last rear has put up with nearly 10 000miles and still had some life in it, my bike is not powerful and not heavy and my treads last well. Spark plugs were Iridium because again, they work well and help her run smoothly. Every little helps.
It's been an uphill struggle getting this far, Visas are a nightmare and I'm burning through money at a shocking rate. By tomorrow, I should be ready to leave on time with no hassle.
I'm crossing into Dunkirk and then riding into Kassel, Germany. I've booked a low-cost F1 hotel there for the night. I've been to Kassel before recently and so I can find the hotel easily. I don't expect to arrive until quite late so I can do without the usual blundering around I do looking for things in foreign countries so I'm doing this to make my life a little easier.
So the bike is ready, pretty much. Today I bodged on a screen and it looks a bit crap but should work nicely. I prefer naked bikes but not for doing hundreds of miles a day in windy, wet conditions. The screen comes off in a minute or so so if I get a chance to ride for fun then I can whip it off and dump it in my tent/hotel room.
I'm riding from London to the Oakdene cafe for breakfast with my brother and best mate and they're coming with me to Dover to see me off. I use the Oakdene a lot so this is a like a spiritual farewell for me. Farewell to greasy junk food served on chipped plates maybe but I love the Oakdene. I should have thought it through a bit more and left on Thursday so I could go up there on Wednesday night when the bikers meet. Oh well.
I'm completing a blog too as I go. Nothing special but the link is here

Jtw000's Traveler Profile - TravelPod

I will add photos as I go to but the entries will be pretty much doubled up although I might write different things in both on occasions, I'm going to use this is a diary.

Have a safe trip and I look forward to reading your blog and seeing the pictures.

Everytime I click on your blog link I get....Not found, then internet explorer says its not responding then shuts down! Anyone else getting this problem?

__________________
'He who laughs last, was too slow to get the joke'
Never confuse the map with the journey.

Just comes up with 'file requested not found'...not good...

Jtw000 - TravelPod

Thanks, and to HU !

__________________
'He who laughs last, was too slow to get the joke'
Never confuse the map with the journey.

Cheers. I tried to get the clapping thing too but my shitty PC won't let me. When are we all upping sticks and hitting the road, preferably not face-first..?

After a good nights sleep in a warm bed I did feel a lot better this morning. Today I had to face the horrors of the efficient German road system which is not efficient, barely follows a system but did seem to be a road... of sorts.
What the big problem is, from my perspective is the roads are all over the place and to get onto the main ones you go through a random twisted lane so your GPS points one way then by the time you get on the road you think you want you’re point in a totally different direction. Also my European map, Google, GPS and the German authorities have very different ideas and senses of direction so my progress was slow, so slow in fact that it barely qualified as progress.
I had lunch today around half past 2, (European time) somewhere between Essen and Hannover. It was such an easy ride according to the maps but directions dried up as soon as I got on the road. Talking of getting on the road, I got out of a nice warm bed, wrapped myself up in multiple layers and even added wet-gear as a wind breaker and by the time I actually reached the main road it was cold. The wind cuts through my gear like it’s not there and around 9.30-10 when I headed out it was only 4 degrees and by lunchtime it had risen to 12. Add the wind blast and the outcome was a sorry little Jack freezing off his favourite bits for hours. On the plus side, I’m carrying bottled water and it’s like getting it out of the fridge, actually it’s a little colder than I usually like it. There were a few places with no trees by the sides of the road and some even had sunshine on them but without cover the wind blasted across the relatively flat fields and into me. It almost felt like Germany was picking on me.
The German drivers are arrogant to the point of it being ridiculous. They have no empathy whatsoever for other people. They see you indicate to pull out after a truck decided to pull out on top of you and they just head straight for you with no consideration of your continued survival. This happened more than once today.
My first encounter with the police was a mostly positive one. The police are not like they are at home in London. I pulled in to check my map and got chatting with some locals and a copper came over to help. He filled out a list of directions, shook my hand and stayed to chat with the pair of local builders. In England they would have tried to arrest me for crimes against humanity just for the horrific crime of owning a bike. The only drawback was that his directions were almost but not totally incorrect. They did get me back to the main roads and after that a mixture of common sense, directions, maps and GPS pink arrow got me heading in the right direction.
After hours of heading in the right direction the cold was starting to get my mind wandering. I was having a bit of trouble focusing and remembered I hadn’t eaten yet. I resolved to stay on the road until I found a place with something to eat and fuel for the bike. No point making more than one stop. By then I was wearily resigned to making an early stopover in Hanover tonight at the local F1 hotel with a mad dash into Poland in the morning. I should make Hannover by late afternoon so I think I’m going to do that. I can dump my gear and sort things out, find some local shops and get some relatively healthy food without any meat (I’m a vegetarian) and get an early night. I can then make an early start and blast through Berlin. I don’t mind going through there fast as a month ago my girlfriend and I spent three days in Berlin so I feel like I’ve “been there, done that!” If I remember rightly I couldn’t wait to leave although there was a few nice Kebab places and that might be dinner if Hannover decides to be nice to me.
So I found the F1 hotel with no real problems although my Garmin sat-nav has now completely packed up again. It played up badly during my trip to Europe and is up to its old tricks. Tomorrow is an almost straight ride into Poland so I’m not overly concerned at this point but I wouldn’t recommend owning one to anyone I liked or might ever meet again.
The weather added some intermittent showers because that might be some additional fun. After I arrived at the hotel it actually got a bit worse so luckily I missed most of it. Once the sun went in it got worse, the roads got icy in a matter of a few minutes. When winter properly takes hold then this route is not a fun one to take. I dread to think what’s up ahead. Behind us is Damon, a dude we met in London. He’s following us out in a few weeks but the journey is going to get harder every day he leaves it. Winter is coming here and it’s going to be rough.
So I asked the guy if there was a supermarket and he gave me directions to a local Aldi. I grabbed some bits and they told me they don’t take Visa. I queried the fact that they have a card machine on the counter to take payment and yet they don’t accept the most common form on the planet. He didn’t speak the most common language either so we were onto a loser with this conversation. I went on and found a “Penny Market” which is more or less the same thing. They didn’t take it either! I was told there was a cash machine somewhere and then a guy found me on the street and showed me where it was, my faith in humanity strengthened if not restored to previous levels. Try as I might I don’t like Germany. It’s too like England but with all the bad things amplified. Riding here on the motorways is like circling the M25 but with never ending German-made estate cars flying up behind you at 120mph. I was riding today at an average 75mph and was a slow mover by their standards.
Interesting question... What has a Virage 535, a BMW R1150gs and a black R6 got in common? They were all on the road today. They were seriously the only motorcycle I’ve seen all day, a stark contrast to the summer when Europe is swarming with them. I guess the cold relegates them to the garage while their owners go and vent their frustrations by trying to knock over weary travellers with the sporty family cars driven flat out until the top end bursts.

What is it with this shatnav of yours? It seems determined to lead you to your doom. Maybe it needs compromising with: it gets you in the general direction in which you wish to ride and you allow it to feed from the power cells on your beast. Or the bike. If you're in the mood to, share some details about the grub you're on..this will be interesting when you get to the deserts and mountains of Nowhereistan. Are you listening to your 3-track random player?

Today I made an early start, got on the road around 7.30, that’s an hour earlier by the clock I’m still set to. It’s pretty cold here at that time of the morning, it was showing a meagre 4 degrees and even the bike started hesitantly and grumbled at me for pressing the “go” button. I pulled straight into the petrol station at the end of the road and was nearly wiped out by a van who didn’t bother to look. Luckily I’m dialled into the German attitude now so I’d already given him space to be a total ***** and no harm was done. He just looked at me and drove on, no emotional impact whatsoever from his act of arrogance and stupidity. This lack of consequence is glowingly apparent in the entire spectrum of German driving and in other areas of the culture. As I pass briefly through it’s rare that you’re smiled at for holding a door open or nodded to for some other act of courtesy. On the other hand there are just as many gestures here of genuine warmth. Clearly suffering from the weather a petrol station attendant offered to pour me some coffee to warm me up, unloading the bike a truck driver ran to help me with the door. The attitude here sucks but the people don’t. In England the manners are maybe more superficial and the people, once you scratch the surface have little substance, here the manners are virtually non-existent but there is a real empathy with some of them which makes up for the shortcomings of the drivers.
Once on the road the temperature climbed to 6 but the wind chill made it feel like a lot less. My muscles burned like a million red hot needles were being poked into my joints and I could feel my reactions slowing as the cold robbed my fingers of mobility and controls were sluggish and awkward. The sunrise before me painted the sky a dull effervescent orange as the brilliant light caressed the few white clouds that dotted the morning sky. The orange faded to yellow while growing brighter and then to white as morning broke on the horizon before me, lighting my way with the optimistic promise of whatever might lay ahead. It also hurt like **** as the light dug into my eyes like needles. Unlike a car or truck the only sun-visor I have is what nature saw fit to equip me with so I managed an hour on the road squinting like I was fighting out a gutful of german sausage.
I made good time, averaging, I guess around 73mph but I was a slow nuisance on the crazy German Autobahn. I more or less live in the middle lane, the right being full with a convoy of never ending slow trucks on a journey to everywhere and the fast lane full of old German drivers belting past in cars with so many electronic gadgets it’s a wonder they even bother with a driver. Even at 75mph cars were flying past me like I was an old woman driving a clapped out green Nissan Micra up the hard shoulder of the A2 back home.
I stopped for a passable coffee at a petrol station at 9am and let my gloves thaw out on the exhaust pipe and hoped that 10 minutes might warm my fingers through and allow the sun to take a little of the edge off the weather.
I bought a pair of fabric working gloves to wear under my unlined summer gloves and while it made it a bit tight it made the weather far more tolerable. I made good time for the next few hours and proceeded without incident. The roads were clear and the route couldn’t have been much more straight forwards because it was straight forwards. There are no turns, no deviations, I just keep going until I get to Poznan. It couldn’t be much easier.
I stopped again for more coffee and by then the daylight was warm and fresh but at 10 degrees it was still not biking weather. By then i had not seen one other bike on the road so only the crazy and the stupid were out on two wheels today and I guess I must fit in there somewhere.
I’m starting to get into the spirit of this mammoth road trip now. By this evening I’ll be meeting up with marcin and planning the first leg of our onward journey. I want a day off to work on the bike, I’m considering moving the auxiliary fuel tank to the front where it was before only this time directly drilling the mounting holes to the bash plate. That will free up enough space to safely clear the wheel in an emergency stop. There’s a slight vibration showing in the rev range and it worries me it might stress the alloy mounting bracket. I’ve experimented with moving the tank bag to the rear. It is actually a tail pack anyway and it seems to be working. I like having the tank free as it makes the front feel cleaner but it makes the back heavier. I worry for the subframe but all the weight is not balanced on the crossbeam where it’s designed to take the weight of a pillion and has done successfully for thousands of miles. I went around Europe with my partner on the back with no problem so I’m pretty confident she can take it.
It was a relief to finally cross into Poland, everything is a bit cheaper and easier here. Poland is also not really Europe, it’s different, different enough to be genuinely interesting. Riding through it is an experience, the people, the buildings, everything looks a bit different and it’s a welcome and refreshing change to the ceaseless, endless drone of monotony on the motorways. I made good time in Germany and seeing as how I was following the exact some road called the exact same thing I foolishly expected the same thing would follow. Of course it did not. The road in Poland is superb, or it will be if they ever get around to finishing it and until they do it’s a country lane behind endless trucks with blank fabric covers who, if the clichés are accurate are either coming back for some more illegal migrant workers or unloading stolen goods. In any case they don’t move fast unless they’re overtaking and coming straight at you which continues to be a disconcerting experience. Eventually I arrived at Poznan via a toll for a few miles of unfinished road which seemed cheeky at best. Poznan is pretty nice, plenty to look at and do but I must have come at a bad time. I agreed with Marcin to meet him tomorrow in Wroclaw and hunted around for a hostel/hotel. There was no space anywhere and even more worrying the bike went to reserve after only 115 miles when normally it delivers close to 200. In town and with a hell of a lot of sitting at traffic lights I was still expecting 160. I discovered the breather hose was twisted and the tank was mostly full so that was a relief. I eventually ended up in a slightly upmarket hotel outside of town and was warned it was expensive. It ended up costing me £35 with free internet and breakfast so everyone who thinks that is expensive should ride through France and Germany... and England, come to that.
So tonight I am pretty shattered. 531km plus hours of searching for a hotel and that on a 7am start. Tomorrow sees an easy ride into Wroclaw to finally hook up with Marcin. I gather from an email that his bike is stuck with KTM for a service. I don’t care, I like Poland and I’m happy to stay her for a few days.

The satnav has one of two possible problems. It works fine at home and only screws up on long trips so my guess is it's either suffering from the cold or the vibrations. Tonight I'm going to stick on a movie and strip it down. It can't make it any worse and just freeing up the internals might reset the fault. The screen doesn't register touches properly and if I squeeze the casing hard it shows a button press so something inside is fouling or touching. As I said, i can't make it worse.
Today no MP3s as I forgot to charge the player but the wind-howl would have blocked it out anyway. Slower from here on in so music is a definite maybe.
No thoughts on food so far because basically I haven't had any. Lunch was a musili bar on the polish border and slowly working my way through a bottle of fizzy water. This evening I was late, in the middle of nothing so I just got some bits from the local Tesco and will grab something before I crash which will be early. Tomorrow breakfast is free so I'll eat something before I leave, I will actually blog while I eat so you'll get the live experience. My only issue is identifying things. I don't speak a word of Polish and it's quite different. I can muddle through in most of Europe but here I have no idea what I'm ordering and everything is deep fried in breadcrumbs.

I feel for you .. I did a trip to Spain this time last year and the drive thru France was bl**dy cold !!

Was in Poland this year... lovely country .. meant to stay for a couple of days and ended up staying for 6 ! even met James Blunt (blagged his autograph and got into his concert for free!)

I have a Tomtom rider and throw a clear plastic bag over it during the damp wet moments.... or it too locks up (and there supposed to be waterproof lol)

I also keep a little notepad and use google translate to write down the important words when Im in a new country... works marvels for getting the right things for breakfast etc

Well I hope you have a good trip

Keep up the reports
Cheers
Geordie aka Will

I didn't bother with google translates. I can scratch by in Europe, I know enough to communicate basic needs. I was meant to be meeting up with my Polish mate straight away so I thought we'd be ok but I've been delayed a bit by the cold.
I reckon I've narrowed down the problem with the Garmin. It's crap. Actually a google search shows mine is a common fault, my screen is peeling after being the rain and it looks like some dirt or moisture has got through the gaskit and is touching somewhere around the edge. Mine is only about 6 months old but I don't have the receipt so nothing i can do out here except regret buying the bloody thing.

So this morning found us in Budapest. I went out fairly early in the search for SD cards as someone stole the one out my camera and i choose to blame my girlfriend and for rubber hose because my fuel line had collapsed. I went for a ride to a mall I spotted on the way in and found a different one on our doorstep so went there instead. I found a Euronics store which could provide for my SD needs but nothing on the rubber hose front, rather disappointingly. I waited for the store to open and asked random strangers about a length of rubber hose. Nobody spoke English at all which I found a little surprising. In the end I drew a blank. I got my SD cards after considerable difficulty and my bike was running like a sack of shit. I assumed I had done bad things to her by fitting her with a petrol line that had gone hard and then melted. She wouldn't stay running at all which was reminiscent of the troubles I had with the spark plugs before. Then I got back, packed up and hoped for the best. It was raining when we left so i expected another day of abject misery. I stuck one of the SD cards in my GPS and mostly it started magically working as if Harry potter himself had rubbed his magic wand on it. We plodded on and I noticed that the engine stayed running. We stopped at a little alley with dozens of bike shops so I could get some hose but all were closed. We found an open scooter shop thing and they apologised that they could not accept cards and didn’t have rubber hose, all they had was proper fuel lines. They offered me a length of perfect stuff but the price was just under 2 euros and all I had was 5. I told them to keep the change which made them slightly excited and they accepted my terms. In England that hose cost me over £15.

So we rode off, my bike now running fine. We stopped at a petrol station for some food. I had a small cheese pasty, Marcin ate... pretty much everything. They didn’t understand us well enough to get the order right which was again, slightly strange. We had two choices on how to proceed. Romania or Serbia. Romania was my choice, someone on the HUBB had said he was scammed for insurance in Serbia and that was the opposite choice of Marcin after the advice of a man we met in a bar. So with no reliable information and google just toying with us I did the most reasonable thing possible, I asked some lorry drivers figuring they did this trip and knew best. They sided with the man in the pub, Serbia was safer, faster and easier. We were sold. An hour later we crossed the border. In all it took 15 minutes, it was very straightforward. We offered our passports, got the back and moved on to customs. Customs looked at the passports and we were free to enter. Simple. The roads were indeed pretty decent but in a fairly bad state of repair. It was interesting how unfinished lengths of road were already collapsing and telling of the economy that stretches of motorway are open with cones along miles of length and already having a patchwork quilt or repaired sections before even being completed. Driving here was actually pretty decent. The roads may be poor but there was none of the rampant arrogance of other drivers in Europe. These people might have simple tastes but accidently killing bikers wasn’t one of them.

We made it into Belgrade after being lashed by winds for several hundred miles. It was a charming town and spirits were high. Here we were after our first proper border crossing into a strange, non European country. The city was huge, vast in fact and the architecture was interesting but slightly lacklustre compared to some we’ve seen. The outskirts range from ploughed dirty fields with Russian cars being used as tractors to little alcoves of chavs running amok.

We stopped off a few times to take some pictures, after all, how often do you ride through Serbia? We were stuck in traffic which is understandable considering the sheer size of the place. A lot of people still paid attention to the bikes but we’re getting used to that. Once we were in the centre we got stuck in traffic because with our gear we can’t filter thorough. We heard a beep and a young lad on the back of a scooter was waving to us. Even when we stopped to take pictures people came up to us to offer to take one of us both. Despite the preconceptions this is a pretty decent place with very warm and friendly people.

Once into Belgrade all was good but Marcin wanted to plod on for a few more miles. I didn’t mind but when we left I just couldn’t keep up. It was dark by now and we were doing 70mph and he was pulling away. I had repaired my fuse problem but can’t go to full beam so had no way to flash him and at that speed I couldn’t over-take and let him know I just couldn’t keep up.

Eventually I just slowed down to 50 and let him catch on that I wasn’t there. Then he slowed down and I overtook and took us to a motel. He was hoping to do 90 miles, we made another 50 and I said we needed to talk. He is burning rubber to get to Sydney by Christmas but my plans are different. I don’t see any way an extra day more or less here makes much difference. Through Turkey there are no motorways past Anchorage, Iran has a poor road system and then Pakistan we have to wait for escorts and India is a joke of international proportions. We chatted briefly about it. I really like Marcin and we’re happy riding together so we put it behind us and tomorrow we’ll compromise, we’ll slow the pace so my little single can keep up and we’ll leave earlier and ride longer. That way we all get what we want.

The hotel/motel is just this side of good and at a price Europe can't compete with. The waiter had a real sense of purpose and brought us plate of plate of local delicacies and drinks which we still cheaper than eating out in France.


So talking of my little single... She’s running fine but drinking fuel. With my partner in Europe my fuel system delivered 180-190 miles per tank. Now it’s giving me 135 miles. That’s a hell of a drop. Marcin says he’s noticing a similar drop in his bike too so we’re suspecting dodgy fuel. Both bikes are running fine, just delivering worse range. We’re keeping our eyes on that one....

Zoom.... zoom....zooom