Dijon today, another short ride in miles, but it feels longer in the saddle of a Honda C90.
We took a day off yesterday in the forest de Orient, chilled out, drank wine and didn't ride our bikes.
We've scored another cheap hotel and have begun drinking the miles away agian. Is there nothing that booze can't fix..
we've spent nearly 6 hours a day riding. We take smaller roads so as not to get swamped by speeding traffic over taking us and blowing us off our bikes.
I am writing this drunk and broken, but I can still remember the joy I felt as we cut our way through the french country side, our route often flanked by poplar trees and farm land that is unmistakingly French.
You feel so much more connected to the land when travelling by motorbike, probably because you feel every bump and twist of the road...
I must sleep now and rest for tomorrow's mamoth journey to Geneva.
Jamie
Saturday, 30 August 2008
dijonnn
I'm sat in a strange bar in the center of dijon.. listening to weird smooth jazz, a it drunked up, and having real problems adapting to this topsy turvey keyboard.. and its a bit to hot in here.. but i guess thats a good thing.
What to say of today...... if i could find the question mark key, that would have been a quesion...
I'm in good spirits after leaving the forest a little late this morning, but liam arrived all annyed.. with jamie close behind.. fortunately beer has fixed that, and we're all on the straight and narrow again.
It was an amazing drive down here today, with perfect driving conditions. every type of terrain, and not too many massive lorries.
arriving around three, and only looking for a hotel for short while.
the hotel is ok, an cheap too. Alix, the receptionist is nice too, and a sassy redhead.
well, i hope that was an exciting insight into another day in the "crazy" life of a road dog..
bon
What to say of today...... if i could find the question mark key, that would have been a quesion...
I'm in good spirits after leaving the forest a little late this morning, but liam arrived all annyed.. with jamie close behind.. fortunately beer has fixed that, and we're all on the straight and narrow again.
It was an amazing drive down here today, with perfect driving conditions. every type of terrain, and not too many massive lorries.
arriving around three, and only looking for a hotel for short while.
the hotel is ok, an cheap too. Alix, the receptionist is nice too, and a sassy redhead.
well, i hope that was an exciting insight into another day in the "crazy" life of a road dog..
bon
Dijon, country roads and moods
We're all writing stuff in some bar cow we're all a bit drunk essentially. Jamie's just got some cold lager's in though so its all cool. Today I started off all pissed off and it was a bit embarasing, no idea why. I was fine when I woke up at the campsite at 'foret d'orient' which is a great big nature reserve in the middle of France pretty much. It is a really beautiful place by two ajoining massive lakes. There are beaches and watersports but we were a bit out of season, which worked for us because we are always knackered. This meant loads of space at the site and nobody around when exploring the surrounding area, a bonus really. Still, a little bugger called 'Robert' (an english baby) kept us awake most of the night with incessant screaming.
Anyway back to today. For the first time I felt what Jamie has been feeling. That horrible chafing raw arse essentially. I've sat still for a long time before but its the vibrations, they make it really painful and its a bitch. I cheered up later because we were cruising down the most amazing country roads, massive hay bales, little french towns and hills. It was truly one of the highlights of the trip so far. Tried to film some stuff on the way too. So,ehow ,y ,ood caught up with me however, and I was all wound up on our arrival at Dijon (home of mustard i suppose). This was mainly due to 8 hours riding and trying to find a hostel, all that stuff. I feel fine now, some cans later and more bread, cheese and tomato's for dinner. Its pretty hardcore this trip, but the highs are very very high, and the lows pretty low (something we've all confessed) but we expected that I suppose.
Tomorrow then we plan on a really early start, to try and avoid this kind of thing. Dijon is pretty beautiful too but full of rich people looking at us like tramps. 6am start then boys lets do it!!!
Oh and the bikes are totally mint, you can't hurt them, they'd go longer if we wanted them to.
Liam
Anyway back to today. For the first time I felt what Jamie has been feeling. That horrible chafing raw arse essentially. I've sat still for a long time before but its the vibrations, they make it really painful and its a bitch. I cheered up later because we were cruising down the most amazing country roads, massive hay bales, little french towns and hills. It was truly one of the highlights of the trip so far. Tried to film some stuff on the way too. So,ehow ,y ,ood caught up with me however, and I was all wound up on our arrival at Dijon (home of mustard i suppose). This was mainly due to 8 hours riding and trying to find a hostel, all that stuff. I feel fine now, some cans later and more bread, cheese and tomato's for dinner. Its pretty hardcore this trip, but the highs are very very high, and the lows pretty low (something we've all confessed) but we expected that I suppose.
Tomorrow then we plan on a really early start, to try and avoid this kind of thing. Dijon is pretty beautiful too but full of rich people looking at us like tramps. 6am start then boys lets do it!!!
Oh and the bikes are totally mint, you can't hurt them, they'd go longer if we wanted them to.
Liam
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Paris...and loads of country roads
Its been four days since we last wrote to you and by jove a lot has happened in that time, lets explain where we have been.
We succesfully made our trip down to Dover in time for "The Pride of Kent" which sailed us over the channel with consumate ease. To be fair, it took a lot longer than we expected to ride to Dover, mostly due to our inexperience. Our heavy packs made it pretty difficult to negociate petrol stations, but we were already making friends...including a chap who used to build C90s.
On arrival in Calais we got the map out to remind us of the route to our couch surfers house in Wissant. There was more wind than kansas city and our dorothy's struggled courageously along the coastal road as we were almost driven back into the sea. It took no time at all to reach our destination however, despite numerous 25mph moments up hills with aformentioned wind trying to thwart our every move.
Our couchsurfers Tiphane and Mattheu gave us a warm welcome and showed us to a garage to house our steeds. We were greeted with a beer, a sofa and the promise of a barbeque, more than we possibly could have hoped for. Several glasses of wine later we were challanged with 'chest o' booze' which naturally we rose to. A couple of burning contreau's later (Jamie still bears the mark upon his throttle hand) we were shagged and sent straight to bed. During the night Bon not only spooned Jamie but also talked in his sleep all night "what are we selling, why are we selling it" stuff like that. He has done this every night since.
We woke up late and with booze coarsing through our veins so didn't get our packs sorted until about midday. We only managed to get to Amiens, instead of our proposed destination of Paris. Nevertheless that did involve about eight ours of riding through desolate farmland in oppressive weather conditions (waterproofs on!). Highlights included Liam running out of petrol where every village we passed had no petrol stations or they had been closed for thirty year. We camped on the edge of Amiens and were grateful for our stubbies from a nearby garage.
Off we go to Paris the next day nice and early. While it didn't take long to reach the outskirts once inside the living beating heart of the beast we risked life and limb on several occasions. We were carried through ring roads of death and junctions of doom against our will. We tackled the formidable Champs Elysses and the Arch de Triomphe out of choice savouring the challenge and enjoying riding the bikes for once in their element. It appears if you have a scooter in Paris you can do whatever you want; mount pavements, navigate one way streets (the wrong way) and ignore pedestrians. Our desired footage of all this mayhem is actually Jamie holding a camera zoomed in and sideways, which pretty much represented the feeling of the entire afternoon as he clung on for dear life instead of risking it for fame.
Thats it for now...of to Forest d'Orient today!
First we have to escape this labaryntine city
We succesfully made our trip down to Dover in time for "The Pride of Kent" which sailed us over the channel with consumate ease. To be fair, it took a lot longer than we expected to ride to Dover, mostly due to our inexperience. Our heavy packs made it pretty difficult to negociate petrol stations, but we were already making friends...including a chap who used to build C90s.
On arrival in Calais we got the map out to remind us of the route to our couch surfers house in Wissant. There was more wind than kansas city and our dorothy's struggled courageously along the coastal road as we were almost driven back into the sea. It took no time at all to reach our destination however, despite numerous 25mph moments up hills with aformentioned wind trying to thwart our every move.
Our couchsurfers Tiphane and Mattheu gave us a warm welcome and showed us to a garage to house our steeds. We were greeted with a beer, a sofa and the promise of a barbeque, more than we possibly could have hoped for. Several glasses of wine later we were challanged with 'chest o' booze' which naturally we rose to. A couple of burning contreau's later (Jamie still bears the mark upon his throttle hand) we were shagged and sent straight to bed. During the night Bon not only spooned Jamie but also talked in his sleep all night "what are we selling, why are we selling it" stuff like that. He has done this every night since.
We woke up late and with booze coarsing through our veins so didn't get our packs sorted until about midday. We only managed to get to Amiens, instead of our proposed destination of Paris. Nevertheless that did involve about eight ours of riding through desolate farmland in oppressive weather conditions (waterproofs on!). Highlights included Liam running out of petrol where every village we passed had no petrol stations or they had been closed for thirty year. We camped on the edge of Amiens and were grateful for our stubbies from a nearby garage.
Off we go to Paris the next day nice and early. While it didn't take long to reach the outskirts once inside the living beating heart of the beast we risked life and limb on several occasions. We were carried through ring roads of death and junctions of doom against our will. We tackled the formidable Champs Elysses and the Arch de Triomphe out of choice savouring the challenge and enjoying riding the bikes for once in their element. It appears if you have a scooter in Paris you can do whatever you want; mount pavements, navigate one way streets (the wrong way) and ignore pedestrians. Our desired footage of all this mayhem is actually Jamie holding a camera zoomed in and sideways, which pretty much represented the feeling of the entire afternoon as he clung on for dear life instead of risking it for fame.
Thats it for now...of to Forest d'Orient today!
First we have to escape this labaryntine city
Sunday, 24 August 2008
Saturday, 23 August 2008
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
Oxford Mail and other stuff
Oxford mail feature emerged today, you can check it out at:
http://www.oxfordmail.net/news/headlines/display.var.2428724.0.wheel_make_it_to_greece_despite_theft.php
Bought some baby wipes today.....good for a quick clean
Here's Jamie with his new purchase...
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