Where the hell is Transnistria?

Moldova. We'd all been looking forward to Moldova. It's not that we knew much about the place. Most people have only heard of it because it's one of those footballing nations that put out a team of shopkeepers and bus drivers and still manage to hold the England team to an excruciating 0:0 draw.

We hadn't even done any research on it. It just sounded like a place that was going to be an adventure. And it didn't disappoint. Right from the moment we got through the border (at the second attempt) we knew this place was different. In contrast to the green valleys and towering peaks of Transylvania, we were now in a parched and dusty landscape where the temperature was the far side of 30c. But it was beautiful in a different way. In an isolated way. In the feeling it gave us that the adventure was really starting.

The only visible road was the one we were on. There were no street lights, no road signs, no roadside barriers, no road markings and no signs of life in any direction. The only sound was a gentle breeze blowing through a sunflower field and Charles pissing like a racehorse in the corner of it. After 4,500kms of riding on mostly tarmac roads we'd finally made it to the fun zone.

It didn't matter that the road surface was like an army training ground. It didn't matter that the only thing we had to drink was warm fizzy mineral water which had been heating up in the van all day. It didn't matter that the Sat Nav had gone mental and thought we were in the middle of the sea. It didn't matter because we were in a country where none of that stuff mattered.

Basically we were in a massive playground. For any bikers who have ever done green-laning in this country you'll know how few places there are to take a bike off-road legally and even then you're likely to incur the wrath of some militant ramblers who'd rather skewer you with a fencepost than see a perfectly good pile of mud ruined by a tyre track.

And yet in Moldova, those mud tracks that go straight up the sides of hills and through the middle of a cornfield ARE the roads. There is more square foot of tarmac in your average Homebase car park than we could find on our meandering travels through this place.

The villages were just how we'd imagined them. Women in headscarves selling produce at the side of the road (we couldn't imagine who to as we hadn't seen any other traffic), horse and carts, and toothless old men sitting around in Xmas jumpers watching the world go by. Or in this case 3 craps mopeds and a Transit.

Let us remind ourselves there were only 3 crap mopeds at this point, since Charlie's bike had to be ditched in Romania after he'd spectacularly left the registration document at home. His misery was only compounded by the fact he was stuck in the hot van while we went to great pains to tell him how much fun we were having, and to rub it some more, we decided from now on to do as the locals do and ride with no helmets.

Eventually caution got the better of us and the helmets went back on when the road surface got rougher than a checkout girl in Aldi. As it turned out the T80's were surprisingly good off-road and this was the first time on the trip we'd been able to outrun the Transit. Surprisingly good that is as long as you didn't hit anything bigger or harder than a cowpat. The further we got the more confident we got until we were soon maintaining speeds of almost 35mph.

And then the inevitable happened. One of us finally found a pothole bigger than the bike itself and hit it full on. Despite momentarily leaving earth's gravity, Oz did manage to land and stay upright although his arms and legs had swapped places. This led to wild claims that he actually meant to do the jump and was feeling particularly smug with himself for not crashing until we pointed out that his top box had flown off during the impact and was now lying in the road with its contents of camcorders, cameras and lenses lying all over the place. 4 cable ties later and we were back in business.

With all the distractions of the day we had kind of lost sight of where we were actually going. We were it seemed, totally and hopelessly lost. So in the end we resorted to the most basic navigation method and used the sun to head in an easterly direction. That actually works pretty well in Moldova bearing in mind that you can just keep going straight and if that means riding through a field of bewildered goats then you just do.

Unbelievably we came across not only a roundabout, but a road sign, and not just in Cyrillic but in English also. This is just as well otherwise the "Bender" joke would have been lost on us. Needless to say, from that moment on it was our mission to enter Bender from behind.

To do that all we had to do was penetrate Transnistria, a country that only exists according to itself and with officials who have a particular disdain for Western tourists. After a succession of navigational disasters we found ourselves riding an old roman road up a steep hill. As we crested the hill we could see a town ahead of us down in the valley, the only problem was we didn't know what town, or even what country it was in.

Our suspicions should have first been aroused when we passed a statue of Lenin. And then when we passed a building so ugly it was offensive. The clincher came when Kaspars got some money out of a cashpoint and it spat out not Moldovan Lei, but Rubles. This was not good. This meant we'd somehow slipped in to Bender without permission and the Transnistrian border guards were not keen on being violated as we were about to find out.

Ups, downs, and round and rounds...

All great adventures have their highs and lows. Those moments of jubilation and those moments of utter despair. The great thing about these moments is that in the end they all become highs, it just takes a little time to appreciate them. It may not seem like it at the time but the breakdowns, arguments, border problems and bouts of rampant diarrhoea, all become favourite pub stories once you've actually come out the other side of them.

Admittedly death might be a low you'd struggle to see the funny side of, or perhaps an unexpected gang rape by wild boars, but when all is said and done, most of these moments are what make adventures an adventure, else they'd just be a trip to the post office.

On the Wrong Way Round we've had a few. In fact if the trip was a polygraph it would fluctuate slightly more than when Bill Clinton proclaimed he did not have sexual relations with that woman. I mean right from the off there was the joy in the pub when we agreed to do the trip. And then the depression of realising we weren't joking.

Then the school boy excitement of meeting up with Charley Boorman and Russ Malkin at the Long Way Round HQ, followed by the your-in-detention moment when we realised that neither of them had the meeting in their diaries, followed by the we've-got-a-supply-teacher excitement when they both turned up anyway by sheer fluke. Hmm must stop thinking about school boys.

There was the low when we realised our own new HQ had no toilet facilities, only for us to land a sponsorship deal with Shit Box. The high of reaching the first 1,000 cans on the Stella wall and the low of Charlie passing his bike test.

And once we were on the road the roller coaster just cranked up a level. No sooner were we smoozing in the complimentary P&O Club Class ferry lounge than the morning papers were telling us the great Michael Jackson had snuffed it, and not even in a good way. Just your average overdose of painkillers, anti-depressants and monkey sperm.

Then in Assen we missed our long awaited photo shoot with Suzi Perry only for the gloom to be lifted by the Dutch police officer who failed to clock the support van was RHD and promptly breathalysed the passenger.

Oh and then how about two lows in quick succession. Nick's engine failing followed by the realisation Oz had packed the wrong spare engine. But matter not, cos you always know it's going to be followed by two highs, which incidentally were the Hungarian camp site owner's home made Palinka and the fact that Nick could start the spare engine in less than 12 kicks.

Then a high in every sense. The 2,000 metre altitude Transfagarasan Highway which we not only conquered, but we also overtook a moving car and nobody suffered multiple injuries from an unscheduled diversion off the cliff edge. In fact it was almost too good, as Nick's bike didn't even blow up. And then it just kept getting better. We popped in to see Dracula, the sun didn't stop shining and then we fluked across the most stunning campsite in Transylvania. I swear if the day had lasted just an hour longer, the Hawaiin tropic girls would have turned up offering free rub downs.

This inevitably meant the next day would redress the balance by perhaps pissing down or producing a crash, a blow up etc... But the day dawned to beautiful sunshine so that wasn't it. Nobody crashed and nobody blew up so that wasn't it. And then we reached the Moldovan border...

Bear in mind this was the first "proper" border. Up until then the borders were all EU countries so the only way you knew you were in another country was the fact they wouldn't accept cash from the previous one, and the police wore slightly different hats (which by the way get bigger the further East you go). I was fully anticipating that by the time we reached Kazakhstan the Chief of Police would need scaffolding to hold up his brim.

Anyway suffice to say this was a proper border, with proper barriers and proper guns and the first occasion when we needed to produce our documents.

Passports: Check.
Vehicle registration documents: Check*
I do not have Swine flu declaration: Check
No we are not smuggling cigarettes and vodka: Check

* at some point the man with medium-sized hat points out he has 5 passports but only 4 registration documents. At the same moment Charlie is seen scrabbling round the floor of the support van sifting through old socks and empty Pot Noodle cartons looking for his V5. Five minutes later Charlie confidently explains to man with medium-sized hat that he doesn't know where his V5 is but he can remember what it looks like if that helps.

Cue man with larger hat and more stripey bits. "No V5, no entry".

At this point we resign ourselves to the fact that this is going to involve a complete search of the van, and most worryingly, dangerous exposure to multiple-worn underpants which have thus far remained in quarantine in the remotest corners of the van. We roll our sleeves up to get stuck in when to our relief Charlie reveals that he knows where his V5 is.

"In Manchester...in my front room...sitting on the scanner"

Words failed us. Well when I say failed I'm pretty sure we managed "Fuckwit", "C**t" and "Raging bellend" before silence descended.

Unfortunately for us, one of the European Union's stipulations for prospective members is not to take bribes from tossers who forget their documents. Even the man with the biggest hat could not be swayed by vodka, cigarettes or porn. In fact they wouldn't even let the bike through on the trailer. Now this really was a problem. We'd obviously planned for the fact that we might lose an engine or two along the way, but not a whole actual bike.

The reality was we were going nowhere with that bike. We considered our options. We could run the border. That would be great for the video but their guns looked liked they worked so we discounted that idea. We could smuggle the bike back through the next day by cunningly hiding it on the roof where no one would ever look. Except that was one of the first places they had already looked. And so the harsh but grim reality was that we were going to have to ditch the bike.

Now ordinarily that wouldn't be a complete disaster. We could just buy another one. Except that nobody else in Europe is mental enough to import Yamaha Townmates. Well apart from Albania which says it all really, but that would mean a detour of over 2,000kms and put us behind schedule by 2 weeks which was just not going to happen.

At this point this was looking like one of those lows that was going to take a long time to be funny, like Bobby Davro. There was no silver lining. Someone had switched off the light at the end of the tunnel.

We retreated back to Romania, stripped the bike down for spares and contemplated our next steps. Whatever happened there was no way we were turning round. The next morning we got up and went back to the border. It was a change of guard but they knew all about our failed attempt the night before. Typically they didn't search the roof so we could have smuggled the bloody bike in after all.

Next stop Transnistria - now that is another story...

Riding the Tranniefag…Traffick…Old Traff… A bloody big pass

With Nick’s bike now glugging oil faster than a Glaswegian chip shop, we needed to make for the Romanian border quickly. Top speed was down into the 30s and then only if we managed to draft a passing Soviet tractor. Faced with an incline, Nick’s bike, crippled by Oz’s inability to pack the right spare engine, needed a long stretch to pass even the local horse and carts safely. This was serious.

So we did what any well-prepared expeditionary force would do: travelled a good couple of hundred kilometres out of the way to climb a 2000m mountain pass.

Ever since we tried to reach the Tranfagarasan pass in the Car Trek mission back in 2008, we’ve failed to pronounce it properly. Now we were about undertake a road so twisty only the hardiest of bikers will attempt it, and then only once they’d purchased the entire option list for their GS and consulted Ranulph Fiennes personally.

We started down the 92km road and almost immediately the expression on the locals’ ruddy faces turned to one of 10% alarm and 90% indifference. Undeterred, we sped into the forest that heralded the start of the climb.

With all our concentration focused on the getting the hairpins just right for the camera, we had no time to inspect the glorious views. Which was lucky because the glorious views were behind thick damp cloud. As was much of the road ahead.

With Nick’s bike running at maximum revs in first gear, the treeline gave way to rocks and scree. What lay either side of the road we still couldn’t see. Eventually we got high enough above the cloud to realise that we’d barely got halfway. We pressed on.

It’s true treacherous switchbacks aren’t so dangerous when taken at the speed of an enthusiastic uphill cyclist, but they are when you’ve got Oz mucking about for the camera inches from your trellis.

Eventually we made the top and celebrated this unlikely event with thelocal delicacy of undercooked sausage. I’d like to say we also exchanged fulsome praise for the efficiency of our donated Frank Thomas jackets, but what actually happened post-sausage was that Charles mooned a local flock of sheep, for some reason.

Now for the really silly bit. With a descent dangerous enough even for machines without double digit horsepower, the race was on to reach the limits of the 20-year-old suspension. Maybe in an act of respect to the paranoid foolishness of the dictator who built the pass back in 1970 to keep out the Soviets, the damp and gravely one-km tunnel beyond the summit was completely dark. After 500m Oz remembered to remove his sunglasses and switch on the headlights, but they barely helped.

Then the road dipped in and out of cloud, coating the surface in a film of damp to join the grit, potholes and, in one tunnel, a stray donkey. But this was the first real speed we’d seen since the Dover/Calais ferry and nothing was to deter us as we piled in the corners, each trying to take the lead. The usual slowing procedure of pulling the front brake was abandoned after we discovered that doing so pitched the nose up, instead of down, and set the suspension off into a series of undulations lasting throughout the corner.

We might have got a knee down had the footpeg not got there first, sending up a shower of sparks. That and the sight of four riders jockeying for position on what looked at first glance to be armoured bicycles persuaded most of the local tourists in their Dacias that the normal rule of ‘might is right’ should be abandoned. Most gave way quickly, which was lucky because the combination of speed, competition and crap machinery had taken Matt back to his banger racing days and he was starting to incorporate other vehicles into his racing line.

Finally we were on flat ground and standing in Transylvania, home to Dracula’s Castle, Dracula’s Campsite, Dracula’s Motel, Dracula’s 24-hour Provisions…

Our stupid grins told the whole story: never, ever again.

The 4th Rider of the Apocalypse

In the last episode we witnessed a lack of preparation rivalled only by the last time we went on a trip. The failure of Nick's engine to be fair wasn't anticipated since we had always assumed the rest of the bike would fall apart first. This disaster was then compounded by a certain individual who managed to pack the wrong spare engine when we left HQ leaving Nick with a bike that topped out at 35mph and spewed oil out of every orifice.

Some might say though that this situation was inevitable since Nick was in possession of the "jinx". For those of us that have witnessed a number of rallies involving Nick there is an undeniable propensity for things that he touches to either explode, crash, or crash and explode. And when this happens there is always a common denominator. The Porsche keyring.

Some people like to carry good luck charms like a Saint Christopher. Nick has the Porsche keyring. Unfortunatley it seems to embody the anti-christ when it comes to good fortune.

It started some 18 months ago on the Piste & Broke rally. His Porsche (which was attached to the key ring at the time) ended up leaving the road and coming to rest in a forest with damage from which it never recovered.

Then during the Car Trek rally in a moment of drunkeness Nick threw his own trousers on to the campfire along with his car keys. The subsequent polyester inferno consumed the key required to turn off the immobiliser on his spaceship though somehow the Porsche keyring survived without a scratch.

And now in a layby in Hungary, in about 35 degress of heat we found ourselves seriously behind schedule with a bike using more oil than petrol and refusing to start. And in the ignition, there was the Porsche keyring. We should have driven a wooden stake through the keyring there and then.

With us dropping further and further behind schedule we really needed to get some distance under our belts so it was agreed that we would only stop when absolutely necessary. A short time later we noticed Nick had gone missing. He was found by the side of the road claiming that he had only stopped out of absolute necessity. He'd run out of fuel. By the time Kaspars in the support van had noticed we'd all gone missing we were another hour behind schedule.

Finally we crossed the border in to Romania and pulled in for a fuel/water/pee stop. As Nick went to turn off his engine he noticed something unusual, no ignition keys. He then had a vague recollection of something bouncing down the road a little while back but admitted so many things had fallen off he'd assumed it was another non-essential item like an indicator.

Fortunately security is something of an extravagance on a Yamaha Townmate so we found that we didn't really need the key since a lollipop stick was just as effective. As you can imagine things were not boding well for the trip. Europe was meant to be the easy bit but here we were having to stop virtually every hour for some mishap or another. The good news was that now the Porsche keyring had committed suicide, the jinx would be lifted.

And then just when things had gone for a couple of hours without incident we got caught in a violent thunderstorm while halfway up a mountain in Transylvania. Bearing in mind we were actually in the clouds at the time the thunder was deafening and lightning was bouncing off the hill just in front of us. By the time Kaspars had arrived in the support van we were beyond wet. It seems although the keyring was gone, it was wreaking havoc in the afterlife or maybe Nick himself now possessed its powers. Admittedly we had no proof that Nick had caused the thunderstorm but whilst huddled shivering in the back of the van we asked Nick outright whether he was christened Damien Omen. Despite his protestations we were only prepared to continue once his scalp had been thoroughly checked for a "666" birthmark. We did consider driving a wooden stake through him but we ended up burning that to keep warm.

Then when the rain stopped and we dared venture outside we found Charlie's bike on its side in a puddle of oil and petrol after being blown over in the storm. I swear at that point a black raven landed on a nearby tree and exchanged glances with Nick.

Then the reality of the situation began to hit home. Waiting for us a few miles up the road was the Transfagarasan Highway, an epic mountain pass reaching to over 2,000 metres with not much in the way of safety barriers. It's so steep and winding that even in a half decent vehicle the average speed is only 25mph. It would be a big strain on all our bikes and in hindsight we should have invested heavily in oil stocks since Nick's bike would be sure to push OPEC to its limits with its demands for oil.

With a shrug of our shoulders we clambered back on the bikes and headed further up in to the mountains slightly wary of the fact we might be in the company of the 4th rider of the apocalypse...

The truth comes flooding out...

There were a number of reasons for wanting to get to Dresden. Firstly we'd be picking up Kaspars, a man of many talents. He can fix things, speak several languages, and had promised us he had brought home brew from Latvia with him.

Secondly, Dresden marked the start of the 2 wheeled adventure since with Kaspars behind the wheel we could all get on the bikes and leave the dull autobahns behind.

Thirdly, it would be our first wash since leaving home 4 days ago.

The trip from Assen had been a slog since it's hard to entertain yourself on an autobahn, I mean you can't even break the speed limit. Our rendition of the Ace of Spades on our extensive range of musical instruments did help pass the time though, I don’t want to blow our own trumpet but from the admiring looks from other travellers we were bloody good!

So finally arriving at our digs in Dresden we unloaded all the crap out of the van, trying to ignore the mad fat woman shouting at us from an upstairs window. Only when the mad fat woman waddled downstairs to give us a bollocking did we realise we were in the wrong place. A few apologies about unloading a pile of shit in their garden and flattening their city a few years ago later we were in the correct place and Kaspars was greeting us with home brew in hand.

Only after we'd variously described the taste as a cross between creosote and sewage did Kaspars admit this was his "experimental" batch. Naturally the only way to wash away the taste was with copious amounts of Heineken.

So we saddled up for our first day on the bikes and headed for the Czech Republic and our first scheduled stop in Kutna Hora to visit the infamous “church of bones” where Leonard McCoy is rumoured to be buried, well when I say buried really he is on display with the 40,000 other poor sods who ended up there.

The ride there wasn’t without incident as Kaspars had downloaded some dodgy software for his TomTom (which he must have mixed up with his porn) since several fields, a slurry pit and a quarry later we had to confiscate the bloody thing from him.

At least we knew that the bikes were ok off road though, apart from Nick (our own personal cross between Tiff Needell and James May i.e. posh AND slow) who kept stopping without warning and causing mass pile up’s. To add insult to injury he kept banging on about his bike being the fastest,words which would come back to haunt him…..

In Kutna Hora we parked up and headed for the big church on the hill. Obviously someone had done a tidy seeing as there wasn't a bone in sight. Wrong church. Three churches later and we were still boneless. As it turns out 40,000 skeletons don't need a lot of room and the actual church was the smallest most unassuming one of the lot. Until you got inside. The Christians have got Lourdes, the Muslims have got Mecca and this place should be a pilgrimage for everyone who dresses in black, wears too much eye liner and listens to Marilyn Mansun. It really is a Goth's dream.

For the rest of us it's kind of weird and interesting.

After an unsuccessful attempt to exhume Leonard McCoy we headed for Slovakia and a campsite by a river overlooked by Trencin Castle. Next morning we were up early keen to crack on and following an hour or so riding we pulled into a lay-by at the bottom of a hill to check the map, after a few minutes we suddenly noticed a lack of faffing and realised that Nick was no longer with us. A quick glance up the hill revealed a speck in the distance which slowly materialised into Nick and coasted into the lay-by claiming that it had “just died”.

We all looked at each other wondering if we would rue the day we bodged a bike together and then gave it to Nick claiming that it had cost us £185.00 and was a "1 owner from new" bike. The truth was it had cost us about £15 and a couple of sexual favours to the MOT tester. I carried out a series of checks which involved removing bits from Oz's bike which inevitably led to massive sulking on his part since his bike was actually a 1 owner from new. The diagnosis was that the coil pick-ups had failed. Our cost-cutting plan had backfired and the truth had come flooding out.

As we were already behind schedule a decision was made to load the bike on to the trailer and put the spare engine in that night at the camp site. It was a fairly depressing position to be in after only 2 days of riding, espeically knowing that if only we'd doubled the budget on Nick's bike to £30 we'd probably still all be riding.

Nick climbed reluctantly into the van and we carried on until around 9pm that night, eventually crossing the border in to Northern Hungary where we accidentally found a beautiful campsite next to the River Tisza just in time to watch the sunset over the water. Kaspars was complaining about a new whine that the Transhit had developed but it stopped as soon a Nick got out.

1st job, put up tents and fix the bike, wrong, unfortunately instead of just cracking on with the bike we started cracking open cans of beer, the camp site owner then offered to cook us fresh fish (as long as we kept Charlie away from his daughters) and broke out his home made palinka. It was messy, suffice to say that thundertorms and putting up tents pissed do not mix.

We awoke the next morning slightly the worst for wear and realised that there was rather a lot to do. While Matt and Kaspars took the old engine out, Oz unpacked the new one, Nick rustled up some breakfast and Charlie, well we are not sure what Charlie was doing but he did emerge from his tent with a tissue stuck to his cheek.

Oz meanwhile presented the spare engine, which looked suspiciously oil-soaked. He assured us he had packed the correct engine and it was not the one that pissed oil everywhere during testing at HQ. The triumphant starting of the bike turned into disappointment as (probably predictably) oil spewed out of the engine, Oz, the cock-knocker had indeed managed to pack the wrong engine.

This was no time for quitting though so we convinced Nick all was fonzy. The unpalatable truth came out when a few miles down the road Nick complained about the bike being slow. The last time a bike was too slow for Nick it had seized.

Kaspars confirmed he'd been following Nick at 35mph in the van, and the seriousness of the situation was further evidenced by the film of oil spewed all over the front of the van by Nick's bike. It was going to be a long day...

To be continued...

In search of Suzi Perry

Even though we'd had 8 months preparation* for this trip I still felt the need to send a strongly worded email to the rest of the crew the night before departure to emphasise the importance of bringing stuff like passports, vehicle documents and Haribo sour mix.

* prep-a-ration; The act or process of pretending to be busy. Not to be confused with doing useful things that contribute to the success of the trip.

Our 4am start was surprisingly low key. In my dream a few weeks before, crowds had lined the streets waving Union Jacks as the Met Police gave us a priority escort to Dover. It had been tough leaving Angelina Jolie behind but she knew the rules. The reality was somewhat different, waking up in Matt's living room with Rodney (the most ridiculous dog since Scrappy Doo) asleep on my head. Admittedly I had invaded his basket thinking it was my sleeping bag.

Still, the excitement that we were finally off and that our first stop was the Assen GP and a photo shoot with Suzi Perry was enough to stifle the disappointment. So with the bikes loaded on the trailer we mounted the trusty Transhit. Now then, before we go any further I can already hear the purists muttering disapprovingly that sticking the bikes on a trailer is cheating and therefore we can't be real adventurers. I would like to plead our case at this point:

Reason 1. The sooner we get to Assen the sooner we can get on the piss.
Reason 2. See reason 1.

I think you will agree, a case well argued.

So on a sturdy breakfast of Hula Hoops and fizzy drinks we set off for Dover. It was nice to know we would be starting the journey in relative luxury since Nick had smoozed the P&O press office and got us a free sailing and an upgrade to Club Class. The full English breakfast was a winner.

We'd barely got out of Belgium though before the first in-fighting broke out over iPod rights. We eventually agreed on a rota system which involved the driver driving, window seat passenger in charge of snack distribution, middle passenger in charge of tunes, and rear seat passenger in charge of being annoying.

It was during our "spot the windmill" competition that we noticed the curious Dutch hobby of "bridge dwelling". In England a motorway bridge is populated by either a Nazi with a speed gun or a group of ASBO kids throwing things at passing traffic. In Holland it was cause for a picnic complete with tables and chairs. Still, I suppose a motorway bridge is probably the highest point in Holland so for them it's like a trip up Scafell Pike only without the knackering bit.

We rolled in to Assen early evening, pitched tents and cracked open some cold beers. Now still to this day I can't understand why at every biker campsite there is some fuckstick who thinks screaming an engine to the rev limiter while stationery is a crowd-pleaser. For the record it is only funny when a pissed mate then stamps the bike in to first gear and watches the aforementioned fuckstick crash in to the burger stand. Alas, fuckstick did not have any mates.

Naturally Matt took it upon himself to show the campsite some proper entertainment and promptly performed some stand up wheelies until his number plate was no more and since the beer was flowing by then, the rest of us thought this was a good idea and all joined in. Suffice to say things got slightly messy, the consequences of which only hit home when we got up the next day to ride the bikes to the circuit. Somehow Nick, having done the least number of "stunts" had caused the most damage. 3 out of his 4 indicators were smashed, his freshly re-potted garden was a total ecological disaster, and his trellis windshield was splintered. In hindsight our impromptu performance was not the best start to a 18,000km trip but at least we hadn't blown up any engines.

Apart from that all was Fonzy. The sun was out, Assen was packed, Rossi chalked up his 100th win and we still had our photo shoot with Suzi Perry to look forward to. The noise from the bikes was deafening so I diligently set my mobile to vibrate so I wouldn't miss her call. Sadly I had not factored in all 4 of us slipping in to a beer induced coma whilst sun-bathing on a grass bank.

Bollocks. "You have 1 new voicemail". In a flurry of activity I woke everyone up only to realise the message was left half an hour ago and Suzi was leaving for the airport in ...er.... half an hour. I can only imagine her disappointment at missing her chance to meet 4 pissed twats. Suzi, if you are reading this we are very sorry and we've put a signed photograph of us in the post to you as a small consolation.

An artist's impression of meeting Suzi

The remainder of the day/night is slightly sketchy so we'll fast-forward to the traffic jam leaving Assen the next day, and the police road block. The bikes were back on the trailer for the motorway stint to Dresden so at least we wouldn't be prosecuted for the multitude of mechanical defects our bikes had suffered during the campsite cabaret. There was the small matter of the breath test however. Had we actually left on schedule it may have been a cause for concern but in our typical fashion by the time we'd barbequed burgers for breakfast and badly packed our tents is was nearly 11am.

In a moment of Inspector Cluesoe incompetence the Dutch police officer failed to notice the van was right hand drive and promptly breathalysed Charlie in the passenger seat. It was almost a disappointment he passed as it would have been TV gold watching him get arrested for driving under the influence without the aid of a steering wheel. Anyway, the moment passed without incident and so we continued on our merry way to Dresden which was our rendezvous point with Kaspars (our Latvian fixer, support van driver, and Russian speaking negotiator). Now at least we could head away from the main roads and into the Czech Republic for our first serious mileage on the bikes.

To be continued...

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The Truth About Nick's Bike...

If you are going to spend weeks on end with a group of mates in the wilderness then it is important to all get on together. Like any relationship you have to cope with the ups and downs and above all have absolute trust in your fellow travel companions. A seemingly minor mis-demeanour like crapping in someone else's Shit Box or keeping a secret stash of Kebab flavour Pot Noodles when everyone else is down to their last Wagon Wheel, can quickly escalate into arguments and in the worst case could lead to full blown sulking over several days.

And so it is only right that we should set off with a clean conscience knowing that there are no secrets or hidden agendas. For my part I will come clean and admit that on one occasion at HQ I did swap the contents of one of Charlie's Stella Artois with a can of Morrisons Value lager. Furthermore I regret to admit that I dropped Matt's breakfast one morning and instead of throwing the contents in the bin I simply picked the woodlice and pubes out of the beans and served them up with a smile. Well what he doesn't know can't hurt him. Except he does know now and he might hurt me. But I'd like to think he'll appreciate my honesty and buy me a beer.

Now that I've got those little porkies out of the way I think it's time to reveal the enormous hog roast that's been casting a shadow over our preparations. This is a moment so huge that it eclipses Top Gear's revelation that Michael Schumacher isn't The Stig. Like an MP's expense claim for a butt plug it was bound to come out at some point so I think now is the time before untold damage is done.

The thing is, last year when we were scouring Ebay for our bikes we had some great success and managed to find mine, Matt's and Charlie's bikes in quick succession. We also managed to pick up two really cheap spares bikes which were only really any good for, well...spares. Then it crossed our minds that we might just be able to salvage a half-decent bike out of the two spares bikes. Not a good bike you understand, but good enough for Nick. In any case he had failed yet again to turn up to HQ having cried off with one of his standard school boy excuses, "the dog died", "I have a doctor's appointment", "I have a poorly tummy and mummy says I shouldn't leave the house". For the record, in the last 6 months Nick has lost 8 dogs to terminal illnesses, been to the doctor 9 times and had the shits 17 times.

I digress, but suffice to say we got one of the spares bikes running and decided it had Nick's name on it. By the time he next turned up to HQ we'd done enough of a job on it for him not to notice the worst bits. To be fair we had a head start since Nick normally rides a Kawasaki Versys, so he has no real concept of what a good bike is.

There have been the occasional forlorn murmurings about why his bike has 45,000kms on the clock and considerably more rust than everyone else's but as far as Nick is concerned his bike was owned from new by a little old man with a fondness for boiled sweets and choir boys. Well Nick, on behalf of the rest of the team I am ashamed to say we lied to you. The old man didn't like choir boys, he said they tasted funny. There, we've said it. We can all all sleep soundly tonight.