Extreme Trifle

Sun block. "Check". First aid kit. "Check". Inflatable guitars. "Check"

2012-01-27T15:36:00.000Z

To the trained eye heatstroke is an acute condition of hyperthermia caused by prolonged exposure to excessive heat. To the untrained eye it means a person with no sense of humour who is generally useless. So it was only when Greg lost his sense of humour that we knew something was not quite right.

A few hours earlier we were standing at the "crossroads", the one which the locals had given us stern warning about. The correct way would take us on to an oasis in the Erg Chigaga dunes where we could find shade and re-stock with food and water. The wrong way would take us into a barren no man's land where we would likely get hopelessly lost. The trouble was not one of us could now remember if they had said left or right. It was not a decision to be taken lightly as we only had twenty litres of water between four of us, which at best would see us through until the end of the following day.

The satnav (which had come back to life after Kaspars had accidentally fed it too many volts) appeared to be traumatised as it was insisting we should turn around because we were in the middle of a lake and that a speed camera was approaching. This was clearly ridiculous. No lake had existed here for 6,000 years. The map was not much help either as you need to know where you are on a map in order to know which direction to go in. It was with some irony then that we based our decision on the one thing that would likely kill us first if we got it wrong. The sun.

Due east was to be avoided since that meant ending up in Algeria without a visa where we would likely be shot. Due south was to be avoided since that meant ending up in Algeria where we would likely be kidnapped, and shot. Due north was to be avoided since that meant heading home and we weren't ready for that just yet. So west was best we triumphantly agreed until realising we still didn't know if that meant going left or right. We went left.

As we motored on, ahead of us was a seemingly endless expanse of sand and rock and it invoked some mixed emotions. This after all was the reason we had come here, to experience the raw environment of the Sahara desert. But at the same time we couldn't help thinking that if things went tits up our lasting impression on this earth would be a newspaper headline saying "Four tourists die in Sahara" but actually meaning "Four muppets on mopeds venture into the Sahara unsupported in July and die. Who didn't see that coming?"

We were now so far in to the desert that access to any form of help or assistance would be through a pure chance meeting with another vehicle but we hadn’t seen one in four days. Mobile phone signals had long been non-existent. So we decided to pop our iPod's in and ride as far as we could that day.

We were so zoned out that no one noticed that one of Charlie's panniers had bounced off along the way. We had stopped to stretch our legs and grab a quick snack and water when Charlie realised there was only an empty space where the bag containing all his spare clothes should be. Still it could have been worse, it could have been the bag containing the water. This minor incident aside we just kept racking up the miles hoping that a pub would magically appear in the distance serving ice cold cider and steak and chips. It didn't.

As the light began to fade the riding conditions got more difficult. The terrain begins to lose definition and you lose your sense of depth, a bit like skiing in poor light. Everything starts to look smooth and you constantly have to strain to make out rocks and holes which is both physically and mentally tiring. We already knew we were on borrowed time when up ahead a huge arc of sand sprayed in to the air, containing what looked like a back wheel, then a front wheel, then Charlie.

The benefit of being behind the lead rider is that you can stop before the same thing happens to you. We all pulled up to find a rather dishevelled Charlie spitting out a mouthful of sand whilst his bike and luggage had spread itself in all directions. As it turned out this had actually done both him and us a favour. Not only had Charlie inadvertently found us a perfect camping spot but his bike had already unpacked itself.

The rocky hamada had turned in to a stretch of erg and the soft sand would be ideal for sleeping on. We set up the tents, lit a fire and tucked in to a well earned meal and even managed to rustle up a final cup of coffee from the dwindling rations. As we sat around we realised it was the first time all day that we'd actually sat still and talked to each other.

And then as the fire faded and we laid back on our roll mats to sleep we were met with one of those sights that you can just never do justice with a photograph. With zero light pollution there were literally thousands of stars above us and huge great swathes of the milky way which you could just never see in the cities. We just gazed for what seemed like ages, transfixed as satellites streaked overhead through the night sky as clear as anything.

We all had trouble sleeping in the end. A combination of feeling slightly vulnerable in this place, the sheer weirdness of it all, and Charlie and Oz's farting which was always followed by a bout of schoolboy giggles. But then the mood changed a bit. "Charlie" Oz whispered. "Who the fuck is that?"

Just beyond the horizon was a shimmering light, small at first but getting rapidly larger. Our first thoughts were that it must be the headlights of a convoy of 4x4's. We sat bolt upright and stared in silence as the light source got more intense and then suddenly swept up over the horizon. It took a few seconds to register, but the convoy of 4x4's turned out to be...the moon. It was so weird. The moon is either in the sky or it isn't. We've all seen a sunset and a sunrise, but certainly neither of us had ever seen a "moon rise". Weird.

Eventually the exhaustion of riding all day took its toll and we slept if only for two hours or so. We all stirred about an hour before sunrise, woken by the same thing. An insatiable need for a drink of water. Bleary eyed we ate the last of our ration packs. All we had left now was biscuits and boiled sweets. The oasis couldn't come soon enough.

We packed up and headed off, struggling in the soft sand but at least thankful that the sun had barely risen so we had a chance to make distance and hopefully find the oasis before the desert became a furnace. There were some encouraging signs within a couple of hours. Firstly in the distance we could make out some dunes and then we spotted a camel, but significantly the camel had its two front legs trussed with a rope so clearly someone didn't want it wandering to far. There must be someone around.

We perched atop a gently sloping dune to get a better vantage point and were busy slapping on sun block when in the distance two locals came trotting towards us. It was difficult to tell at first who was the more surprised, them or us. But once they saw our mopeds and that we were carrying inflatable guitars it was definitely them. They explained their camp was just a few kms away, jumped on the back of the bikes and guided us in.

Our spirits soared. It was the oasis. Food, cold water, shade! The camp was right at the foot of a vast section of sand dunes. It was the type of desert scene you see in the films. Huge dunes with sharp crescent edges as far as you could see. The berbers hopped off the bikes and asked if we wanted tea. We nodded enthusiastically but then got a bit carried away with ourselves and decided that before sitting down for tea we'd go and tit around in the dunes. Inflatable guitars in hand we then ran up the nearest dune and started stage diving off the top. Then we thought we'd try it with the bikes.

Things didn't go quite as expected. Charlie got about twenty feet up the first dune before the bike ground to a halt and then almost flipped backwards. He was stuck with his front wheel pointing vertically skyward. Naturally our instincts were to leave him stranded, laugh hysterically and reach for the video cameras.

For the next hour or so we lost ourselves in the moment and took it in turns to see who could get to the top. We used longer and longer run ups so that in the end we were hitting the dunes at about 70 kmh just to try and get over one. This did eventually work but once we got over the first dune we realised that the only thing on either side of us was another dune so we no longer had a run up. Dragging the bikes by hand back over the dunes took it out of us physically. It was now about 10.30am and fast approaching peak midday temperatures. The sand was now starting to get too hot to be stood in so we called it a day and went back to the camp.

Tea was served. Right then, time for lunch!! We were already salivating at the thought of fried chicken washed down with some watermelon. The berber guides rather apologetically explained that the camp contained no supplies at all. They were just a skeleton crew who looked after the place periodically during the summer months. They weren't expecting supplies for another six weeks since no tour operators were stupid enough to venture into the desert from June to August. Our spirits sank.

They did find some cheese of the Dairy Lea variety but when it was unwrapped it was mostly green and furry. Our spirits sank a little more. It was now midday and we knew this meant we would be going nowhere for the next four hours. Too damn hot. At least they had water and plenty of it. We had no option but to sit things out. It was only then that we realised Greg had gone extremely quiet and in the space of about an hour had gone from looking tired but healthy to a terminal AIDS victim.

Something was not right.

Sun block. "Check". First aid kit. "Check". Inflatable guitars. "Check"

2012-01-27T15:25:00.000Z

Something was not right.

"It's definitely left. Or right"

2012-01-20T17:07:00.000Z

A wrong turn is rarely more than an inconvenience. In the desert it's the difference between reaching your destination or running out of water, dying a slow dehydrating death before being torn to pieces by hyenas and picked clean by vultures. So here we are with a choice of going left or right having all forgotten what the locals told us.

Just two days ago we were stuck at 3,000 metres in the High Atlas mountains with a back tyre stuffed full of pants and socks as an emergency puncture repair. After losing each other on opposite sides of a valley, all four riders were eventually reunited. We made our way to a small village where cold water, tea and a good feed put us back on track. We even fixed the puncture so Oz was now able to change his dirty pants for a dirtier pair which also had that stale aroma you only get when letting air out of a tyre.

The puncture/navigation debacle had cost us half a day and we still had over 200km to do to reach Zagora, the last place that we could make repairs, refuel and stock up with provisions before leaving civilisation for the mighty Sahara. We decided if we got our heads down and motored we could reach Zagora before nightfall if we didn't have any more problems.

The first problem arose when Charlie's bike decided to start dismantling itself. During a particularly rocky stretch a bump too far caused the struts holding his top box to snap. Only the back wheel was holding everything up. Luckily we'd prepared for such an eventuality and without hesitation the gaffer tape and cable ties were deployed. Good as new. Luckily we were able to pick up the main route down to Zagora which had the luxury of tarmac but with just enough potholes to make sure you couldn't ride in a straight line or at a steady speed. And then it hit us. Nothing had prepared us for it.

As we crested the rise of a hill the flat plains of the Sahara were stretched out before us and coming straight at us was - the Chergui, an arabic word which presumably means "shoving your head in an oven and sandblasting your eyeballs". If Chuck Norris was a wind, he'd be the Chergui.

We were all simultaneously exchanging glances with each other and shaking our heads when a massive truck went past and all hell let loose. An angry swirl of dust and sand blasted us full in the face, went in our eyes, our throats, and seemingly removed the top layer of any exposed flesh. We had to pull over and have a rethink. We thinked a bit. We thinked a bit more. We carried on.

With our keffiyehs covering our faces we ploughed on determined to reach Zagora however long it took. After two hours of squinting and ducking everytime a vehicle went past, our shed got that little bit closer to collapsing. It got dark. We now had a choice. Ride in the dark with sunglasses on, and end up in a pothole, or ride without sunglasses and have our corneas slowly shredded. A broken arm seemed preferable to blindness so we rode on with sunglasses. After all, Bono gets away with it. After what seemed like an age we saw the flickering lights of Zagora. Obviously a dodgy power supply. Still, all dust clouds have a silver lining. Zagora had a hotel, a bed, a shower and...what, noooo, you have got to be kidding?!

The next morning we went down for breakfast. The hotel owner asked us if we'd slept well; "like a log". He didn't know what a log was but he could tell by our faces it was something good. "After eat you swim" he said. We didn't know what swim meant so we just nodded enthusiastically as he led us out the back of the hotel. Our jaws dropped. Imagine a wall. On one side is nothing but a desolate dusty landscape of rock and the odd bush. On the other side is a lush manicured lawn, some decking, and... a swimming pool! If Elvis had been floating on a lilo we wouldn't have been any more shocked.

It's a weird, weird feeling to be shivering and chattering teeth when its 52 degrees centigrade. Even though the water was warm, such was the difference in temperature with the outside air that it felt like a cold bath. It made no sense whatsoever but then neither did venturing in to the desert in the hottest month of the year.

The considered view was that you avoided riding in the desert between 11am and 3pm when the sun was blistering, literally. There is a good reason why the Paris Dakar rally took place in January. So we decided we'd set off in the afternoon which gave us time to wash our clothes, buy food, water, and get the bikes repaired.

Mohamed Gordito was something of a legend in these parts. He had a big workshop in town full of bits of works rally cars which had met their end in the desert. The locals had no hesitation in suggesting we go there for repairs. Without question, Mr Gordito had never seen let alone worked on a Yamaha Townmate. But a fine job he did too. Once he'd stopped laughing.

With everything sorted we sat down for what we knew would be something we wouldn't experience for quite some time. A meal. It felt a little bit like being on death row. If death row is a cafe serving up freshly squeezed orange juice, grilled chicken and watermelon. With a final round of handshakes and "in sha'Allah" from the locals we made our way out of town passing the sign which tells you that Timbuktu is 52 days away as the camel plods.

Before we'd even realised it, Zagora was lost in the heat haze and all that lay before us was desert. For the early stages we could at least follow the tracks used by the tourist 4x4's but as we got further in the tracks petered out. At one point we strayed across a section that must have once been a fast flowing watercourse as it was strewn with suitcase size boulders. It was a bad move as the bikes took a pounding and damaging a crankcase or bending a wheel out here would have been game over. We made it through on to a flatter section but then Charlie found that he'd lost first and second gear. Bearing in mind Oz's toolkit disaster and the fact we hadn't seen fit to buy any tools in Zagora, stripping the gearbox was not an option.

To our immense relief it turned out the gearbox was fine. Charlie had just twatted a rock and bent the gear lever so much that it didn't have enough travel to actually change gear. With the aid of another rock we re-twatted the gear lever in the other direction. Fixed. Wipe brows. Carry on.

One thing you can't under-estimate is how much water you need. In Zagora we'd stocked up with as much water as we could carry. But we also needed spare fuel, and fuel and water is heavy so we were limited. Although we'd been advised not to drink the water, when we did come across a well we filled up. Better to have a dodgy tummy than die of thirst. We drenched our turbans with water to bring some welcome relief from the heat and pushed on. By our reckoning we had about 70kms to do to reach our first planned stop. We weren't aiming for anything in particular, we just knew we had to make that sort of distance to keep the schedule. Trouble was in the last two hours we'd done only 30kms, and we only had two hours of daylight left.

We did get a good long stretch of hamada which enabled us to cruise for long periods at a mind-blowing 40 km/h. And then we reached that crossroads. "It's definitely left. Or right". Not one of us could remember the instructions the locals gave us but we could all remember them saying one way was good and the other way was "very very not good".

Up the creek without a pump

2012-01-12T16:48:00.000Z

In hindsight, following a route that all the locals said was impossible was a bit daft. We have a habit of doing this in the belief that it all adds to the sense of adventure, which to be fair it normally does. Being stuck at 3,000 metres on a trail used only by goats wasn't the adventure we'd envisioned however when we all said "yeah bollocks lets go that way".
The main cause of this predicament could be traced back to the night before. After an exhausting day crossing the Middle Atlas mountains we found a market town and decided to reward ourselves with some proper food for a change. Amongst the carts laden with tomatoes and watermelons was the local butcher who advertised his stall with a row of freshly severed goat's heads. The attention with which he'd made sure each goat head was looking in the same direction and precisely spaced from its neighbour gave the impression of a man with pride in his work and attention to detail. It was only the massing swarm of flies feeding on eyeballs and windpipes that cost him the Michelin star.

Back on the rooftop terrace of our hotel, we fired up the petrol stoves and set about making goat meatballs. Now, at the mere mention of rooftop terrace you've already started thinking we were in some plush hotel with a pool overlooking the mountains. In reality we'd climbed out on to the roof because the "hotel" had no windows and no air conditioning. In other words it was basically a kiln with beds in. We could indeed see the mountains though so it wasn't all bad.

As the sun disappeared and the first stars began to appear we ate our dinner in torchlight and mused that the only thing missing was a cold beer. A warm one would still have been good. A warm one with a beetle floating on a layer of cheese would still have been preferable to our staple diet of stale water, mint tea, and the occasional bottle that said Fanta on it, but was just as likely to be Toilet Duck.

We were just remarking about how we wished watermelon was alcoholic when Kaspars turned up with good news and better news. Firstly he'd managed to fix the large hole in his bike frame courtesy of a bloke with a welder. Unfortunately it was a carbide powered welder so the five minute job took three hours. Oh how we laughed. On the plus side this allowed Kaspars enough time to explore, and like all good Latvians (who are trained from birth) he tracked down the local home brew.

So we now had two innocent looking bottles of "Best Good Cooking Oil" containing the local berber moonshine, reportedly made from figs but judging by the taste, somebody's flip-flop. It did however become more figgy and less flip floppy the closer we got the bottom of the bottle. By bottle number two it was up there with an XO Cognac.

The next morning was not good. The combination of sleeping in the kiln overnight with a skinful of the local sauce meant we were all stumbling around half dazed and wondering why we had tongues like a baguette. Packing up took ages, packing the bikes took ages, paying the hotel owner took ages, everything took ages. It was because of this that when it came to looking at the map and deciding on whether to go the established (but longer) route, or the impossible (but shorter) route we uttered the fateful words "yeah bollocks lets go that way".

Four hours later we find ourselves on the afforementioned goat path with a flat tyre. Except it's much worse than that.

Things were going so well. It did in fact appear that there was a route across the mountains. In the early morning sunlight we wound our way up through the mighty peaks surrounding Mt Toubkal and took in the views whilst congratulating ourselves on finding an epic shortcut. It's just a shame the shortcut was about 50kms short of being a full cut. Whether it was the result of an earthquake or whether the locals just decided they had no need to be this high up a mountain we didn't know. All we knew was that the route ended abruptly in an impassable wall of rubble.

The thought of backtracking was too much to bear so we pondered on a strategy of heading down to the valley floor to follow the river bed. The most direct route was straight off the side of the path down a ridiculously steep slope but with absolutely no way to get back up if it turned out to be the wrong choice. The other option was to backtrack quite a way and drop down in the other side of the valley. We would have all gone with the latter option if Oz hadn't already lobbed himself off the side of the mountain and was now sliding with both wheels locked up in a haze of dust trying not to become a human landslide.

This created a problem since it was apparent that neither Charlie nor Greg could follow. Charlie's front brake was held on with gaffer tape and his back brake was somewhere in the Middle Atlas mountains so he simply couldn't risk it. As for Greg, it wasn't so much a matter of whether he would die horribly, just how quickly and how horribly. So Kaspars was sent down after Oz and the plan was to "wave at each other from opposite sides of the valley and meet somewhere in the middle". This was quite possibly the worst idea ever conceived.

After half an hour or so of mopedaneering, Oz & Kaspars reached a small village. People only ever arrived in this village from below so the locals were somewhat taken aback to find two people descending from above...on pink and orange mopeds. They invited us for tea and bread and then took great delight in telling us we were the only motorised vehicles to ever set wheel in their village. This was plainly awesome but also meant no road out. We paid our way, shook hands and set off. After picking our way through the tiny gaps between the houses and trying not to fall in to the open sewers we made our way to the donkey trail that would take us out.

Not only had we made it down the valley but the track was now much wider and smoother and by luck more than judgement we’d timed it just right to see Charlie and Greg on the other side of the valley, albeit high above us. As per the plan we stopped our bikes and commenced the pre-agreed signal (frantic waving). When that didn’t appear to work we upgraded to shouting:

“Oi”, “Down Here!”, “Oi”, “Wankers”, “Oi”, “Are you fucking blind or WHAT!!...OI! OII!!! OIIII!!!!”

We abandoned the plan, got on our bikes and took off to catch them up. We got about one kilometre before Oz's back tyre ended up with a three inch nail in it. This meant we now had no chance of catching them and worse still the realisation that Charlie and Greg had both the pumps and the puncture repair kit. None of us had a mobile phone signal.

Kaspars headed back to the village in search of a pump. He quickly realised that miming the action for a hand pump was easily misconstrued. Miming the action for a foot pump didn’t fare much better, with most people assuming he wanted to find a place hosting country dancing. Two hours later he came back empty handed.

All we knew was that somehow we had to get further down the valley or hope that Charlie and Greg would find us. They didn’t find us. After three hours we were running out of options. Oz remembered reading about a biker who’d got a puncture in the desert and had stuffed his tyre with a blanket. It was enough to stop him wrecking the tyre and reaching a place where he could get a permanent fix. We didn’t have a blanket but we had some pants and socks.

It was a risky bodge since we had no spare wheels and if this one caved in it was game over. Setting off at a snail’s pace all we could do now was hope we found help soon. What we did find was totally unexpected. Propped up against the side of the track was Charlie’s bike, seemingly abandoned. A little girl was sitting on a rock opposite. We motioned to her “where is the rider?”. She pointed back in the direction we had come but down into the bottom of the valley. After some searching we spotted Greg and a local both attempting to push his bike up the side of the valley. We could only guess that they’d tried to cross to our side of the valley and got into difficulty.

About an hour later, Charlie appeared on Greg’s bike with Greg and the local running along behind. “What happened?”. Charlie's reply; “we are the only motorised vehicles ever to cross that valley”. “Funny you should say that” said Kaspars.

It's scorching. Let's do coffee.

2011-12-19T15:29:00.000Z

Location: Imilchil, Middle Atlas Mountains.

After the cess pit of a campsite and the 400km ride the day before it was a welcome break to have had a bed for the night and to wake to a breakfast of coffee and pastries.The hotel owner had even valet parked our bikes in the restaurant as we were now entering the more remote regions of the mountains where some of the things we were carrying such as fuel were quite desirable to a passing tea-leaf.

The plan today was to cross the High Atlas mountains all the way to the mouth of the Dades Gorge. The “road” had long since ended and the path through the mountains was nothing more than a dirt track rarely used by vehicles.

With the bikes all packed up we headed off to refuel to find the whole town was without power. No power = no petrol pumps. The options were either to hang around waiting for the power to come back on or set off with only the fuel we had on board and hope we didn’t end up stranded in the middle of the mountains knowing that there would be no villages for 100km either side of us.

After a group discussion we decided the safest thing to do would be to wait for the power to come back on, so we ignored that and steamed off up the mountain. Imilchil is over 2,000 metres up and our route through the High Atlas would take us to over 3,500 metres (due to a slight navigation error, see episode four, ahem). With night time temperatures plummeting compared to the daytime we really didn’t want to get stranded overnight.

Our tactic was to keep a slow and steady pace using as little fuel as possible. Unfortunately conditions conspired against us. The track was strewn with rocks and was so bumpy that trying to maintain throttle control was like trying to not spill your pint on a bucking bronco. On top of that the gradient was so steep that we had to drop down to first gear and generally nail it to get anywhere.

On the plus side the scenery was amazing, only spoilt by the fact that if you took your eyes off the track long enough to marvel at the surroundings you either hit a rock and fell off or got vertigo and fell off. After a couple of hours of steep ascent we crested a summit to be greeted by a view all the way down the valley as far as the eye could see to the Sahara itself. In the face of such an awe inspiring panorama, we decided it must be time for lunch.

From here on in “lunch” no longer meant freshly grilled kebabs, fresh fruit and freshly squeezed fruit juice. We now had to carry food impervious to both scorching temperatures and being rattled around constantly on the back of the bikes. We needed sealed or dried food with a half life of several thousand years. Or put another way, Lithuanian army rations.

Kaspars had used a contact to secure us a job lot of army rations, the only problem being that with the ingredients written in Lithuanian we had no idea whether we were eating Tuna pasta or depleted Uranium. You have to be slightly wary of a brown stick that looks and tastes like chocolate but which doesn’t melt at 40 degrees. And so the daily ritual of “Ration Roulette” was born.

Whilst unpacking the food and firing up the petrol stove (having momentarily forgot we were supposed to be conserving fuel) a goat herder appeared. It never ceases to amaze that no matter how remote you think you are a local will always appear as if from nowhere. It happens the world over and never makes any sense. If it had taken us three hours to reach here by moped and we hadn’t passed a single house, where the hell were he and his goats going? Bizarrely the only other humans we’d seen all day were three lads from Manchester in a Volvo.

The herder and his goats eventually meandered over and after a few nods and the motioning of his fingers in to his mouth we got the jist he was hungry. We bunged him a sealed foil bag of something which he seemed delighted with until he actually tasted it and then started spitting it out all over the floor and gagging slightly.

He wiped his mouth and shuffled off without saying anything, head bowed. Obviously not as hungry as he made out then if he could afford to be picky about it. It was only later that we realised we’d tried to feed a Berber with pork meatballs in beans. This did raise the question though, how does someone who doesn’t eat pork know that they are eating pork? Anyway, we rid ourselves of any guilt by blaming the Lithuanian army for not writing things down in English.

After a hearty lunch and a quick check round the bikes to check that nothing essential had fallen off we pressed on towards the horizon as the temperature continued to soar. By mid-afternoon we were really starting to flag. The combination of the terrain, heat and dust was tiring on the body and the eyes and the problem was there was absolutely no shade of any description since we were now well above the tree line.

Enter, Hotel Tizi, a “hotel” of such randomness that it wouldn’t have been all that surprising if it was staffed by pandas. Located on a mountain top, it was hardly prime High St location. At best that day they would have had passing trade consisting of us, 3 blokes in a Volvo and a goat herder.

We were enticed in by the thought of an ice cold Coke but alas although they had a fridge with a plug on it, there was no plug socket to put the plug into so it was basically a cupboard with a glass door. We asked for cold water. There was no tap. So we settled on the only thing that was available, steaming hot coffee.

In the circumstances it was not as horrendous as it sounds. To be honest anything that wasn’t warm water from our Camelbaks was a welcome change. The combination of caffeine and 18 sugars was actually a good pick me up and set us up for the remaining 4 hours or so that remained until we’d descended down to the mouth of the Dades Gorge. Assuming no mishaps occurred on the way of course...

Which bit of "bring the tyre levers" did you not understand?

2011-12-13T20:06:00.000Z

Wrong Way Round Sahara - Episode 2

We had now left the relative tranquility of the Mediterranean coast and began heading inland towards the Middle Atlas mountains. To get some distance under our belts we decided to take the main route. We'd only just started thinking that Moroccan driving wasn't as bad as it used to be, then we arrived in Fez. It all came flooding back. In places like this the highway code might as well be replaced with the Beano.

By comparison to say India, it was actually fairly well organised chaos as opposed to total chaos but even so it pays to keep your wits about you. Every set of traffic lights was like the start of a Moto GP race, only with slightly more riders and a lot more donkeys.

Etiquette dictates that the horn must be applied constantly with only brief silences permitted when your spare hand is otherwise engaged in lighting your pipe or combing your moustache. There is no such thing as a two or three lane highway, just as many lanes as there are vehicles that can physically fit in the space without a pile up.

The entertainment value reached its peak when Charlie failed to slow down for a roundabout which was either 5 lanes or 8 lanes wide depending on whether you count people selling melons as traffic. We looked on in awe as Charlie weaved through the tiniest of gaps narrowly missing a bloke walking against the traffic pushing a wheelbarrow made from a bath tub. We assumed he'd simply earned his Moroccan stripes quicker than the rest of us until we found him later at the side of the road looking for his rear brake pedal.

We decided to make a tactical pit stop for fuel and food and after a long lazy lunch of grilled kebabs we decided to get clear out of Fez and head towards the mountains to camp for the night. More often than not, our overnight stays are decided by necessity rather than choice and today was no exception. As we started to ascend in to the mountains it became clear Charlie was now having a problem maintaining “speed” and was starting to go so slow that he got overtaken by a crisp packet floating in the breeze.

We pulled in to the next town and asked for directions to a campsite. The majority response from the locals was to point to the top of the hill that overlooked the town. We assumed this meant that there were no campsites and they were simply directing us on to the next town. In actual fact the top of the hill was the “campsite". There are several reasons why this is a shit location for a campsite. More than several as it happens so let’s just stick to the top three:

It was windy and exposed to the elements
We had to camp on a steep slope since it was somewhat difficult to get 4 tents pitched on the summit
It's quite difficult to get a metal tent peg into limestone

We should add that the owner also seemed to have the area's largest collection of stray dogs who kindly left it until about 3am before they started barking and fighting and then a donkey which sounded like it was either giving birth or dying joined in the chorus.

This was only topped by waking to find that an irrigation pipe was leaking and rather than irrigating a patch of dying grass it had in fact irrigated our tents. On a positive note, Charles, assuming that he’d pissed himself got up at sunrise and so by the time the rest of us awoke he’d already pretty much fixed the problem with his bike (dirt in the carb) and set about knocking up breakfast.

It was a beautiful sunny day and we had an awesome ride ahead where we would be experiencing the first 3,000 metre peaks. In all the excitement Kaspars was already out of the gate and winding his way up the valley before the rest of us had finished our morning ablutions (one wet wipe under the armpits and one down the pants). By rushing off Kaspars broke one of banger rallying's golden rules which is that you never lose sight of the person travelling behind you. For the most part this is a failsafe to ensure two things:

That someone who has broken down, run out of fuel, crashed etc. does not get left behind
That the person following doesn’t lose sight of the person ahead and end up taking the wrong turn.

It just so happends that on this occasion neither of those reasons applied. A few hundred metres up the valley we started findings bits of Kaspars' luggage. First a bungee strap, then his jacket, and then his rucksack. A few hundred metres more and we started finding bits of Kaspars' bike. First his number plate and back light and then his top box. At this point we were expecting to find bits of Kaspars himself but fortunately he had noticed that his bike had started handling really well and realised this must mean half of his luggage was missing.

The nuts and bolts holding his luggage rack to the back of the bike had made a bid for freedom and in the process so had everything on the back of the bike. After spending an hour combing the roadside for the rest of Kaspars' belongings we deployed the "banger rally temporary fix procedure" and set about his bike with gaffer tape and cable ties, such that we could limp to the next village for repairs.

Some friendly locals who were cannibalising a Peugeot 306 as spare parts for a Mercedes 230E duly stepped in and found us some replacement nuts and bolts and after a bit of spannering we were on the way again albeit an hour or two behind schedule. Not normally a problem this, in fact to be expected, except that today we’d set ourselves a massive target of 350km to reach the village of Imilchil, gateway to the incredible Dades Gorge.

Things went well from this point and we had time to enjoy the stunning national parks despite having being in the saddle for nine hours already. Our thoughts were now on finding a hotel in town and downing some well earned home brew.

As we rounded a mountain bend we nearly went head first into a group of villagers coming back from market. The donkeys got spooked by the bikes and carnage ensued as villager after villager got catapulted out of the saddle and tomatoes and oranges started rolling down the hill like someone had emptied the kiddies ball pit in McDonalds.

After some apologies and general rebuilding of cultural ties we got a few kilometres further on when karma struck. Kaspars’ back tyre was as flat as a pancake and it started to piss down. Again, not normally a problem and to be expected, except that at this point no one had questioned the contents of the toolkit or envisaged we might need waterproofs in Morroco.

We hurriedly fashioned some waterproof jackets whilst Oz strode over holding the toolkit with a sense of purpose. A sense that was short lived when it became apparent that he’d packed 5 spanners all of the wrong size and no tyre levers. So in summary, we were stood half way up a mountain wearing bin liners, with no way to remove the back wheel or get the tyre off. And the sun was already setting and the temperature dropping.

At this point we had to deploy the "banger rally dig-yourself-out-of-a-hole procedure" which basically means using items for other than their intended purpose. Since Oz (as far as we can work out) has no intended purpose, he was sent to the naughty step. By luck more than judgement he had at least packed a pair of mole grips and pliers and these along with a large rock were used to get the wheel spindle out. The tyre was then removed with the combination of a screwdriver, bottle opener and one of the metal struts holding Kaspars’ luggage rack on.

By now piss wet through and in near darkness, we still had over 50kms to go to reach Imilchil which on these mountain roads meant another 2 hours of riding. We finally stumbled in to town, shivering and aching to find Chez Bassou, a hotel frequented by many explorer.

20 minutes later we were tucking into hot tea and a sizzling lamb tagine. All hail Moroccan hospitality. It beats a muesli bar from a Travelodge vending machine any day of the week.

To be continued...

Two Wrongs Make a Wrong

2011-12-07T09:00:00.023Z

Calling a trip the "Wrong Way Round" was always tempting fate. About the only thing we got right was the prediction of failure. There were many reasons why we "fell a bit short", but mostly we like to blame Charles. And the Transnistrian Chief Prosecutor.

There was quite a lot of debate at the Annual General Meeting about whether to attempt another "Wrong Way Round" adventure. In fact it took until pint number two to decide we would, pint number four that it would be to the Sahara, and pint number six to decide to do it in the hottest month of the year, cos that would be funnier.

Pints eight through to ten were mostly spent debating about how Charles would cock this one up and who would be most likely to crash, die and get eaten by hyenas. There was also a moment involving speed-eating Watsits in hot custard but this is not generally relevant other than to portray the overall state of events.

So we dusted off the T80's, gave them a new lick of paint and upgraded them with desert-spec accessories (a rack and a toilet roll holder).The plan was all going to plan until we got the news. Matt, who had finally gone to the doc's after spending a few weeks failing to put his own slippers on was told that a life of banger racing, drunken trampolining and generally dropping himself on his head had not been kind to his back. In fact he was about six inches shorter than he used to be but his wife Jaki hadn't noticed, assuming that perhaps he just had tall hair before.

Suffice to say, the doc was not impressed with the plan to ride a moped 7,000kms off-road and Matt was quarantined. Enter stunt double Greg McBride, Extreme Trifle veteran and Co-founder. He was raring to go and seemingly unperturbed by the fact that he did not possess a bike licence. Mind you neither did Kaspars, a fact he admitted on the day we were leaving.

Matt nobly handed over his beloved "Purple Peril" in the full knowledge that a blind chimp is marginally better at riding a bike than Greg. To add insult to injury, as Matt waved us off through gritted teeth we then realised the headlights didn't work on the Transhit and so we sat around drinking tea while Matt had to fit a new switch.

Kaspars meanwhile was waiting to be picked up from Gatwick and now we were running late and in danger of missing the ferry. After limiting ourselves to one pitstop for the bog and essential travel supplies (pasties, dunkin donuts, espresso) we made the ferry port with 20 minutes to spare and then got pulled over for a search which was the last thing we needed.

After the sniffer dog had sniffed the back of the van and eventually been resuscitated we waited for the inevitable "what is the purpose of your trip" interrogation. This could have gone either way. Either they would decide we'd actually consumed a good portion of the drugs we must be stashing or they might believe us and let us on our way. Since no one seemed to be slipping on a marigold we assumed it was the latter, and after a few shakes of the head we were let on our way to join the ferry queue. Bellend last obviously.

The next two days consisted of the customary spank across some bit of Europe and there is nothing further to report of proceedings until our arrival at base camp in Marbella, since by now you will already have assumed that we had the typical mishaps on the way down such as getting the van and trailer stuck in a churchyard or ordering spaghetti bolognese for starter AND main course by accident.

Thanks to Roger Bruton, Plymouth - Dakar Rally veteran, for putting us up on the first night with dinner and wine at his Ferme de Candeloup Hotel. It was a welcome treat after 15 hours on the road.

The campsite in Marbella was also a bit of a result as it had a compound where we could store the Transhit whilst we took the mopeds off to Africa. The owner was not that pleased since he assumed none of us would make it back alive and he'd have to pay to scrap the van.

Once the van was unpacked, the bikes were off the trailer, and the tents were up we gathered for a team "talk" in the bar. Things went downhill once Kaspars spotted a bottle of "VAT 69" gathering dust on the top shelf. The next morning our camp was a disaster zone of bent tent pegs and snapped guy ropes hence the packing and leaving process didn't quite go as planned since we had to spend some time finding and then fixing things.

Even hours later, Charles wasn't quite as fixed as we thought having spent 20 minutes at the ferry port looking for his sunglasses which were in fact on his head underneath his helmet...

The Moroccan border experience was fairly standard with everyone claiming to be the best fixer in town, "I know Chief of Police", "I know the King of Morocco" or our personal favourite "I am Del Boy, lovely jubbly".

It's hard to know quite how it managed to take over two hours when the actual border process went like this:

1) Hand over terrible quality photocopied customs form - STAMP
2) Hand over passport - STAMP
3) "Have you got insurance", "No"
4) "Will you get insurance at next town", "Yes"
5) "OK go".

We went to the next town. We didn't get insurance.

The plan was to head down the Mediterranean coast and find a place to rest up ready for a long following day inland towards the Atlas mountains. We found a beach front cafe and stopped for some mint tea which was the sort you could glue a rock to a ceiling with. Eventually curious locals started to mill around until a chap called Aziz asked if we wanted to stay the night as his place.

With an expectation of pitching tents in his back yard we were surprised to be offered the whole floor of a beach-front house with its own kitchen, bathroom, and walled garden to park the bikes in. Another result. The only thing to top this off would be some cold beers though we knew this was a long shot. Aziz took a deep intake of breath and shook his head saying it was not possible and as if by way of apology promised he could get us weapons grade hashish in five minutes if that helped. We politely declined.

Aziz then summoned his 10 year old son, gave him some money and sent him off in to the night. About an hour later he came back with a couple of carrier bags of...cold beer! Aziz said we could have it on the strict condition we didn't wake up his wife. Assuring him that we weren't likely to go all Torremelinos, he bid us goodnight and woke us the next morning with breakfast of hot coffee and cakes.

After the customary round of photos, swapping of email addresses and false promises of meeting up again in the future we headed out for the next leg of the journey out towards Fez and the Atlas mountains. Things had gone way too smoothly up until now so we knew we were due an incident.

On the outskirts of town there was some temporary roadworks which in Morocco means a hole that could swallow a tank with a traffic cone marking the edge. We all slowed to a halt to let a taxi through coming the other way only to hear a faint cry and the sound of a T80 sliding past us with Greg in front of it, rather than on it. Normal service had been resumed.

It was definitely looking like two wrongs make a wrong.
To be continued...

Wrong Way Round - Himalaya

2011-04-12T18:53:00.000+01:00

From the desk of Extreme Trifle HQ (96 ft above sea level)

In mountaineering circles "Touching the Void" is the stuff of legend. A story of man versus mountain and triumph over adversity. Inspired by this epic achievement, Extreme Trifle are taking on the Himalayas in their latest instalment of the Wrong Way Round series. Welcome to "Touching the Cloth".

The vehicles

On this occasion the team will be making their way to Kashmir to tackle the world's highest roads on 40 year old Royal Enfield motorcycles. These machines are a fine example of British engineering, unfortunately from a time when the finest examples of British engineering were Morris Minors and Mousetrap.

Since then the Indians have improved the bike by adding extras such as brakes but in reality they have only succeeded in polishing a turd.

This is a controversial and much debated move away from our tried and trusted Yamaha Townmates but due to Indian bureaucracy, by the time we've shipped them to India and had them clear customs, plate tectonics will have shifted the Himalayas to just north of Birmingham. So rent-a-heap it is.

The route

From "base camp" in Manali we will head north and immediately start an ascent to 13,050 ft to the top of Rohtang La which translated from Tibetan means "Pile of Corpses", which is nice. Shortly after we will realise we should have spent more time acclimatising as one by one we all get the sort of headaches you only get when drinking a Slush Puppie too fast.

To remedy this we will make a hasty descent down the other side which will guarantee that at least one of the group will forget that on an Enfield the gear lever and rear brake lever are reversed resulting in what was supposed to be an emergency stop, being a 4,000ft freefall to the valley floor in the wrong gear. But at least the headache will no longer be a concern.

According to the History Channel series "Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest Roads" someone dies (or gets reincarnated) every 5 minutes on these roads. On that basis providing we stop every 4 minutes we should be able to avoid avalanches, landslides, hypothermia, runaway buses or being trampled by yaks.

It has been compelling viewing watching 3 Alaskan truckers trying to enhance the image of Americans abroad by threatening to beat the crap out of every Indian they meet for having the audacity to drive like an Indian. Since we already drive like Indians there should be no such issues and instead we can concentrate on cultural harmonies such as helping remove wing mirrors from one anothers heads.

Having conquered our first mountain pass the journey will then escalate up and down Bara Lacha La (16,040 ft), Lachulung La (16,600 ft), Tanglang La (17,582 ft) before we take on the world's highest motorable pass, Khardung La, at a whopping 18,380 ft. That's almost 1,000ft higher than Everest Base camp. And then we'll be doing the difficult bit.

Although Khardung La gets all the plaudits for being the highest, Marsimik La is actually higher but because it is not considered "motorable" it doesn't get a lot of mentions. We don't know what the Tibetan transalation for Marismik La is but it's probably something like "considerably higher pile of corpses than Rohtang La". Rumour has it that there is an even higher pass (Ooh La La) but this has yet to be backed up by scientific measurement.

Still, the view of K2 from the top will be breathtaking which is apt since actually taking a breath at that altitude whilst tugging on a well deserved roll up will be an achievement in itself, assuming of course we don't get lost and turn too far left and end up on the front line between Indian and Pakistan or get lost and turn too far right and end up in China to be sentenced to 10 years hard labour for spying. Either scenario is at best inconvenient and guaranteed to mean we'll miss our flight home.

So all in all it's the usual recipe for failure. In the unlikely event we do make the summit then we'll be securing our place in history by setting a new world record for the highest ever pizza delivery. Now that will take some topping.

The Bike of Shame

2010-06-02T20:00:00.003+01:00

The world's greatest adventurers have a lot in common. Meticulous preparation, determination, and careful use of resources. This is why we are not the world's greatest adventurers.

Ridiculous preparation, extermination, and a careless use of resources would be closer to the mark. If Extreme Trifle had been founded a few centuries ago then history would have taken a very different course. Christopher Columbus would have drowned a few miles of the coast of Italy, The Wright Brothers would have crashed on take off and Marco Polo would never have invented the mint.

On the plus side we would have invented the external combustion engine and custard would be the new oil which would mean instead of a disaster in the Gulf of Mexico we'd be having the world's largest food fight.

Anyway back to the here and now. Or more precisely back to the pub a few months ago when we decided that The Wrong Way Down would not be the fustercluck that was The Wrong Way Round. Yes we would be prepared, yes we would be determined and yes we would be careful with our resources. For starters this would mean we would not have a repeat of last year's stunt show at our Moto GP leaving party. Assen is still strewn with pieces of indicator lenses, brake levers and the entire contents of Nick's garden allotment. If you are not familiar with the Wrong Way Round that last bit won't make any sense. Never fear, making no sense is a common theme here.

The net result of our meeting was that TWO NEW RULES were introduced for this year's event giving us a grand total of two rules. Firstly, since the Moto GP leaving party is at Silverstone we don't need to take the bikes, we can just pick them up on the way back. This will save them from destruction by over enthusiastic celebrations if England beat Algeria on the Friday night or destruction by drunken yoofs if we don't.

Secondly, we introduced "The Bike of Shame". The idea being that we would all be encouraged to look after our own bikes by making the spare bike so embarassing no one would want to ride it. But seriously, how do you embarass someone who was already riding a T80?

Charles with a knowing wink said he had something in mind. "Think pink" he said. And so the debate started. "Pink? Hang on, didn't the SAS used to paint their landrovers pink as desert camoflage". "Yes they did". "Well it will hardly be embarassing to ride a bike that is bloody invisible!".

"This is no ordinary pink" said Charles as he strutted off to the garage with airbrush in one hand, roll up in the other and can of Stella in the....hang on. No Stella, blimey he was serious. So after a few minutes or so the bike was entirely stripped down (number plate removed) and prepared for painting (top layer of rust removed with wire brush). And then the first squirt of pink was laid down.

This was no ordinary pink. In fact the bottle probably had "Definitely Not Ordinary Pink" stamped on it. In actual fact the bottle had "Spangletastic Pornstar Acid Pink" stamped on it. Simultaneously everyone reached for their sunglasses and then stood around nodding approvingly. It was truly hideous.

The best bit about it is that it is no longer "The Bike of Shame". It is "Kaspars Bike of Shame". Since he decided he was ditching the support van and joining us on a bike we've had to give him the spare. Even better since he is in Latvia until the day we leave we can pretty much do anything we want to it and he'll have to live with it. In the end Charlie ran out of not ordinary pink paint before the bike reached full volume, though by this time it was clear that far from being invisible in the desert, the bike would actually be visible from space.

Charlie ended up taking the bike home and we arranged to next meet up at RAF Wittering for the annual "Moped Mayhem" event. This is a 6 hour endurance race on mopeds. In fancy dress. What is not to like.
Our only slight problem was that in keeping with our meticulous preparations we would resist trashing one of our T80's and instead rely on a Honda Melody that had been sleeping in the garage at HQ for 3 years but according to Matt "it used to work".That was reassurance enough for us.

Sure enough the day before the race we got the bike going and after a trip to the end of the drive and back declared that the bike had achieved full race specification. Unfortunately the Moped Mayhem racetrack is a tad longer than the drive. Long enough for us to realise that the Melody was incapable of reaching the manufacturer's claimed top speed of 31 mph. It is not cool to be overtaken by someone walking back from the burger van with 8 cups of tea.

Worse was to come. Charlie had trailered down both Kaspars bike and his own bike so we could take them back to HQ for storage until the trip. Here we had two fully prepared T80's that were about as fast as anything else out there and we couldn't bloody ride them for fear of wrecking one just weeks before the trip. In order to put them beyond temptation we lent both bikes to the race marshalls so that they could use them as safety bikes for removing objects from the track like mudguards and bodies and stuff.

We looked on in a decided huff as every other team bombed around having a laugh while we stood despondently looking at our arthritic Honda Melody which now refused to start. At about this time somewhere in the distance something which looked a bit like a packet of Haribo Star Mix exploding happened. This turned out to be one of the marshals losing the front end in to a hairpin bend and binning Kaspars freshly painted bike in a haze of dust and sparks.

Unbelievable. It would have been bad enough if we'd crashed ourselves but to think it had been caused by a race marshall (who shall remain nameless) was even more galling. We were sick to our stomachs and not at all looking forward to the awkward conversation that was about to happen and to inspect the inevitable damage that would have been caused. As the marshall walked sheepishly towards us pushing the bike with a bowed head (whose actual name of Mr Tim McGivern we shall disguise as "Nob Chops" for the time being) it began to dawn on us that the bike was still remarkably pink and pretty much the same shape as it was before.

By some miracle the rack that Charlie had fitted over the front mudguard to hold a tent and sleeping bag had taken the brunt of the crash and the paintwork was untouched. We were so deliriously happy that we immediately celebrated by removing all the bodywork from the bike and ragging the arse end out of it for the remaining 5 hours of the race.

All it needs now is new forks, a new rear brake pedal and a new set of handlebar grips and it will be desert ready once more. Just don't tell Kaspars.

Desert Storm (in a teacup)

2010-05-11T14:37:00.004+01:00

What better year to attempt the other Wrong 'un than the year in which the African continent hosts the World Cup. Just think how great it will be for the members of the England squad to say "we were there" as Extreme Trifle come rolling in to Johannesburg with an injury list longer than Capello's.

Maybe the manager would be sporting and let us take some penalties but with our track record we would have a lace malfunction during the run up and twat someone in the crowd with a loose boot whilst the ball remained squarely on the penalty spot.

Now whichever way you cut it, it would seem that for this next adventure we need to cross the big sandy thing called the Sahara. Evidently there are not many internet forums bursting with chat about previous crossings by our chosen method. People have cycled across it, ridden camels across it, run across it, but never it would seem, delivered a pizza across it.

Meaningful research was proving hard to find and then a mate turned up a copy of a book entitled "Scooters in the Sahara". Unfortunately the book would have been more suitably titled "Scooters near/geographically approximated somewhere close to/ but definitely not IN the Sahara". My personal favourite title would have been "Scooters on the Moon Vs Midgets from Mars" which would have been no less accurate. Suffice to say that was three hours of reading wasted by which time the only thing on the telly was "What Katie Did Next". I don't know what Katie did next but I hope it involved a hidden trapdoor and some sharks. Still we must cut the scooter boys a bit of slack, they were raising lots of cash for charity and they did still ride 4,000kms on C90's which is still daft in most people's book.

Anyway, back to matters in hand. We had barely got to beer number 3 before Kaspars decided there was no way he was spending the trip couped up in a support van with no air conditioning. This means everything we need for the entire trip now needs to fit either on the riders or the bikes. Furthermore, we will no longer have a spare bike as this will now be ridden by Kaspars. This is worrying for two reasons. 1) Kaspars has never ridden a bike beyond the driveway of HQ 2) The only thing that stopped Kaspars getting beyond the driveway was the gatepost.

Embarking on a trip to Africa, without a support vehicle and in the hottest month of the year presents a number of potentially dangerous scenarios with varying consequences.

We might find ourselves doing a Mark Thatcher and getting hopelessly lost for days. Our water would eventually run out and we would die slowly and painfully. Or we might forget to check our boots in the morning and get stung by scorpions and die slowly and painfully. Or we might camp the night at a desert oasis only to discover it is a watering hole for angry hippos who would trample us to death quickly but still painfully. Or we might stray in to the wrong place and get kidnapped by extremists and die very publicly and painfully. Or we might do another Mark Thatcher and get caught up in a plot to overthrow a small country and end up in jail, where we would die very slowly and painfully. But that of course is worse case scenario. It is more likely that we will merely end up horribly mutilated in which case we will live slowly and painfully.

But right now at least the only painful thing is working out how to fit all the kit to the bikes. Preparations are going well and we have already undertaken an extensive test of a desert prepared* T80 (see figure 1) which was fully loaded and unloaded without anything snapping off in the process.

* for this you will need, 1 T80, 1 rider, a five litre fuel can, a litre of oil, tools, spare tyres, inner tubes, pump, cables, bulbs, spoke kit, tent, sleeping bag, clothes, mosquito net, first aid kit, sun cream, haemorroid cream, whipped cream, SLR, lenses, video cameras, tripod, travel documents, maps, GPS, mobiles, solar charger, torch, firelighters, pots, pans, stove, water, food, bog roll, a Shit Box, lock and chain and last but not least, fancy dress.

Ultimately this will be a team effort. We bear no grudge against Kaspars whatsoever for making us carry several tons of equipment and this will be reflected in the manner in which we carefully prepare his bike to the highest standards...

Vote Trifle !!!

2010-05-06T08:14:00.000+01:00

The only party who pledge to make sponge fingers one of your five-a-day.

As the nation goes to the polls you would be forgiven for thinking that there were only 3 realistic choices to make. A month ago it was two but thanks to the televised leaders debates everyone now realises that Nick Clegg is a politician and not the bloke that used to be in Last of the Summer Wine.

Having seen how it is possible to go from also-ran to potentially running the country we’ve decided to make a last ditch effort to get in to Number 10. Apologies for the short notice but our manifesto can be read during a well timed toilet break.

Taxes and Duties

There will be no duty or VAT payable on any ingredients required to make a good trifle. This includes traditional sherry based trifles but also experimental recipes involving cider, all forms of beer and lager, home brew and cigarettes.

Petrol, tax and insurance will be free for all crap cars and motorcycles. This will be funded by a “Pavement tax” on mobility scooters.

Transport

There will no longer be any MOT “failures”. For political correctness the new test will merely issue an advisory that a car is “mechanically or structurally challenged” but is otherwise safe to drive to Namibia in fancy dress for no particular reason.

The Economy

Apparently there is a massive hole in this. There’s been no hole yet that we haven’t successfully fixed with gaffer tape and cable ties so our track record speaks for itself.

Furthermore we will bring fluidity to the markets with a sustained injection of custard. Admittedly there are fluids with more fluidity than custard but none that go better with whipped cream.

Trade & Industry

We will re-launch British Leyland and as a commitment all members of the cabinet (to be renamed the Fridge) will use Morris Marinas when on state business.

“Dress down Fridays” will become “Fancy Dress Fridays” and be compulsory for all businesses with more than no employees.

Defence

We intend to reallocate the £20 billion cost of renewing Trident in to a massive offshore fart machine in the English Channel. This will repel any invading forces whilst making us world leaders in wind energy and boosting organic farming as the demand for cabbage soars. Admittedly the defence strategy weakens if the wind changes to a north westerly and we could end up gassing our own people but that seems to work in other countries.

Foreign Affairs

All border guards will be obliged to take bribes. Banger rallies will be granted diplomatic immunity under the protection of The Travelling People's Republic of Custardistan. More countries will be lobbied to come up with road signs that mean something rude in English.

Home Affairs

We don’t recommend any affairs be carried out in the home as sooner or later the other half will come home from work early.

Health & Education

It's back to the cane and doing PE in your pants for slackers and dipshits.

Now THAT is a mani-FEST-o.

Go on, vote Trifle.

Note: due to not being able to raise enough cash to field a candidate you may find there is no listing on your ballot paper for Extreme Trifle. Fear not, simply register your vote by dropping a generous dessert spoon of your favourite trifle in to the ballot box. Thank you.

Trabi Tales #2

2010-01-18T17:30:00.019Z

And so the first mission of 2010 was to get the Trabi home to Blighty. 3,000 kms at an average speed of 60 km/h was a mere 50 hours drive. So we gave ourselves a week just to be safe.

Creature comforts are somewhat lacking in aTrabi. The seats were uncomfortable and not properly attached to the floor, the roof was too low and there was no radio. Even if there was we wouldn't have heard it above the din seeing as the dashboard had the soundproofing qualities of a Kleenex. But we did at least have adequate supplies of Haribo Star Mix.

The main problem however when driving long distances is the position of the foot pedals. Because the wheel arches take up half the width of the car the pedals are offset towards the centre of the car. This means you have to have your right leg at a ridiculous angle to reach the accelerator pedal. The only people anatomically suited to this layout are those with a dislocated pelvis. For the rest of us it's a pain in the arse, literally.

After 2 hours or so of contortion when you can no longer tell if your right leg is still your own you would normally swap drivers however we discovered it is perfectly possible for the passenger to operate the accelerator. In fact we successfully demonstrated that the passenger can also perform this function whilst fast asleep since there is no danger of flooring it and reaching a speed which is a cause for alarm.

The irony is the fastest speed achieved on the whole trip was reached in freefall. On a steep descent most people know to take their foot off the gas and use engine braking to slow up. In a Trabi the opposite is true. If you take your foot off the gas the clutch disengages which allows the car to coast to greater and greater speeds as it gathers momentum down the hill. Using this method we did at one point manage to get the needle beyond the 110 km/h mark. To slow down all we had to do was press the accelerator again. Mental.

Faced with our long journey the decision was made to break up the slog with plenty of cultural exploration. So we headed for Prague, but not before being fined in Slovakia for not buying a motorway permit. Well, on balance we broke even as we didn't buy permits in Hungary or Romania either.

We headed straight for our tried and tested hang out, Hotel Evropa. It's bang in the middle of downtown and is a crazy art deco hotel that is cheap and has its own car park. It also does a good breakfast though we can't vouch for that as we've never made it downstairs in time. After a bit of shopping it was time to see the sights. Clocktower = check. Charles Bridge = check. Favourite beer = Czech. Let's get down the pub.

So off we went taking great care to avoid all the pubs and clubs recommended on the free map and went of in search of the real Czech experience. It is something of a mystery therefore how we ended up in "Coyotes Bar". Within 5 minutes of arrival the (rather attractive) bar staff were emptying the ice buckets over the crowd as DJ Tiesto span up the tunes. At least I think he said DJ Tiesto though it was very noisy and it could have been "DJ Testes". Oz finally fought his way to the bar and was greeted not with a "Hi" but rather the full contents of the soda dispenser which blonde bar girl then turned on her fellow bar staff until they were all rather moist. Dripping, slightly taken aback, and trying to stifle an erection, Oz finally managed to order a couple of beers. Soon after alarm bells started ringing.

Or more precisely the bell behind the bar which was being furiously "donged" by brunette bar girl whilst a neon sign saying "Showtime" lit up behind the bar. Meanwhile DJ Toastie got very excitable and put on "Firestarter". At this point blonde and brunette bar girls started setting fire to things and performed a juggling act with flaming bottles that would put Tom Cruise to shame. And then to top it off they started breathing fire. Two girls spitting hot fluids...reminds me of a film... er, anyway, you could actually feel the heat as 8ft flames shot across the bar. Not content with their fire antics, blonde and brunette bar girls then leapt on top of the bar and were then joined by all the girls servings drinks to the tables. Suffice to say things got a big jiggy. The grand finale was them all walking up and down the length of the bar pouring free alcohol into the mouths of anyone who could reach.

We couldn't help thinking that this is exactly the sort of behaviour often quoted as being the ruin of modern society. We reflected on this and ordered two Absinthes. Many hours passed and the same routine was performed again only with increasing levels of enthusiasm and disregard for public safety. On the third absinthe Nobby forgot to blow out the spoon before stirring in the sugar creating his own hand held inferno. Without hesitation the brunette bar girl unleashed a volley of soda expertly extinguishing the flames before rolling her eyes and calmly getting on with the job of serving 10 Tequila slammers to a baying mob.

Oz's third absinthe on the other hand induced the "I am about to hurl" reflex. As he nonchalantly legged it downstairs to the bogs all plans of vomming were spannered when he opened the cubicle door to find DJ Topsy being noshed off by a drunk girl. Even though he had played "Las Ketchup" only 20 minutes ago Oz resisted the temptation to cover him and his todger in a hot mix of alcohol and Haribo and retreated to the sink.

We couldn't help thinking it was exactly this sort of behaviour that was causing moral standards across Europe to reach an all time low. We reflected on this and ordered two vodkas whilst eyeing up the clunge.

Waking some time the next morning, ok afternoon, we apologised for missing the hotel checkout deadline by 3 hours and headed for Germany. I can report with some confidence that absolutely nothing of any significance happened until the last 15 minutes of the day. We then asked the SatNav to choose us a hotel which it announced was only 3 km off the motorway but declined to tell us it was on 3km of untreated country roads covered in snow and ice. Neither us wanted to mess about putting the snow chains on because it was too cold so we decided to do it the old fashioned way. And got stuck. So once again we found ourselves checking in really late but to be honest we were so knackered it didn't matter. We were the only guests and the owner you could tell was genuinely surprised to see us, so much so he had to go and check he had something to make us for breakfast.

Next morning we had the usual ritual of bump starting the Trabi. At least we were stuck on a hill. A good reason to avoid Holland we thought. After another long day we made Calais and tucked in to a monster All Day Breakfast and then found that England was facing a freak weather phenomenon. Snow. Obviously the last 2 weeks of snow driving paid off as for the first time in recorded history a Trabant was seen overtaking in the fast lane.

And so we made it home. The Trabi was triumphant and in honour of this achievement we have created a new word "Trabi-umphant". Not much use in everyday language but good for a triple word score.

Now all that remains is for Oz to try and salvage some reputation. In his absence his mother had been proudly telling all and sundry at the golf club that her son had gone to "Transvestia" for New Year. Apparently in a moment of dementia she had combined Transylvania and Transnistria to create an entirely new nation. Might be worth a visit though. Banger rally in drag anyone?

"Lads I've Got A Great Idea" - The Sequel

2010-01-08T11:43:00.016Z

People like to celebrate New Year in many different ways. Perhaps a quiet dinner with friends, or an extravagant night out on the town in ball gowns and a tux. Or watching Celebrity Big Brother whilst eating a KFC family bucket. Whatever makes you happy.

Following the unexpected success of last year's New Year mission by Oz & Charlie to rescue the Shaguar, Oz & Nobby decided this year's mission was to get a Trabant to the top of a mountain in Transylvania.

For those of you now asking "what is a Trabant and why would you take one up a mountain?", then we can easily answer the former but perhaps not the latter. A Trabant is a car manufactured in the old East Germany. It's made of Duroplast which is a posh name for recycled cotton held together with glue which makes it the closest thing to a Lego car on the road.

Shown above is the top of the range "Flangewagon" model. Unfortunately we were taking delivery of the rather less salubrious "601 Smoker" model. Apparently there was a waiting list of around 15 years to get hold of one back in the Communist era but we think this was because people kept moving their names to the back of the queue for fear of actually having to drive it.

As we sat on the plane to Budapest we did start to question the merits of buying a 47 year old car on the strength of a photograph. Visions of being stranded in Vampire country and having to eat your co-driver to survive the frozen conditions did cross our minds.

Upon arrival we met up with friends from previous road trips and our host Karsci the chef (Hungary's equivalent of Keith Floyd) laid on a huge feast at the Silenus restaurant which we washed down with copious quantities of beer and palinka, before all going clubbing. The perfect start to a road trip, but only because the road trip hadn't actually started yet.

The next morning we found ourselves bleary-eyed standing in a frozen car park trying to push start the Trabant. Considering there is more voltage in your TV remote than under the bonnet this was not totally unexpected. Then once we were up and running it was just a matter of de-icing the car. From the inside. The doors looked like they'd been fitted by a blind cobbler. You could get a suitcase through the gaps.

Generally the next step is to make the car go forwards but unfortunately we then realised the gear stick was missing. After a search we did find what looked like the end of an umbrella handle poking out of the steering column. There was a brief moment of excitement when we thought it might have a Ferrari style paddle-shifter but unfortunately an actual paddle would still have been better than the contraption facing us.

With the tiny two stroke engine belching clouds of blue smoke in to the crisp morning air we launched ourselves into the bustling downtown traffic and eventually found all the right gears but not necessarily in the right order. Within 5 minutes we were already in love with this car.

Destination: Transylvania

We travelled in convoy. A collection of the usual suspects from Hungary, Poland and Germany. Well, when we say convoy, we actually lost everyone else in the group before leaving downtown Budapest but due to the modern day joys of sat-nav we were quickly hot on their trail at speeds approaching 80 km/h.

And then we made a schoolboy error and left the sat-nav on all day. As we crossed the border in to Romania the "Battery Low!" warning flashed up. Not normally a problem except we didn't have a cigarette lighter socket to recharge it and even if we did it would have been 6 volt not 12 volt. We still had 160km to go to the first night's meeting place and on these roads, with the snow and in darkness, that was about 5 hours away.

With the aid of some guesswork and some helpful locals we got within about 10 kms of the hotel. Then things went tits up. By now we were up in the mountains and there was no phone signal so we couldn't call the others. The hotel could not have been harder to find if you'd buried it. Two hours later we eventually picked the right route. In hindsight it was blindingly obvious that it was over the rickety bridge, up the unlit mountain road, past the monastery and left at the third snow drift.

As we stumbled into the foyer at 10.30pm though all was forgotten. No sooner had we dropped our bags than the staff were bringing out hot soup, pork and dumplings and of course the obligatory palinka. As Huba (chief un-organiser) pointed out, if we'd bothered to read the road book he had so painstakingly put together rather than leaving it in the boot, we would have arrived hours before .

Still, we were by no means last. The Germans having attempted some unscheduled off-roading in their Lada Niva found themselves stuck at such an angle that the fuel could no longer reach the pump. What followed was a 3 hour walk through mud and snow in search of more fuel. They arrived at 4am.

The next day was a much shorter journey to what would be our base for the next 3 days, a hunting lodge not far from "Killer lake". Although the distance was shorter the going was tough. The mountain roads were absolutely appalling. If you looked closely it was possible to see some tarmac amongst the potholes. With our little plastic car being bounced all over the road it wasn't so much a driving experience as a prolonged collision. But the scenery, as always didn't disappoint. Transylvania certainly has a a unique charm especially in winter. In between trying to keep the car on the road we were able to catch glimpses of the forbidding snow capped mountains amongst the deep forests.

At the hunting lodge Lazlo had made a roaring fire and had crates of cold beer chilling outside in the snow while Arpad the chef was a preparing a freshly roasted pig with all the trimmings. What is not to like.

We woke some time the next day. It was New Year's Eve. There was plenty to do around the lodge. The Hungarians of course were having palinka for breakfast. We decided to take the Trabant up a mountain. Which brings us back to that question. Why?

As we crouched shivering on the mountain-side attaching the snow chains to the front wheels of the Trabant whilst the bemused shepherd looked on, the question answered itself. Because its funny and a little bit naughty.

And so off we went. Chugging up the mountain-side puffing little plumes of blue smoke in to the atmosphere as the 28 horsepower engine tried not to die. If only we had a flag to plant at the top. Instead we settled for peeing our names in to the snow and gazing out at the amazing view. The shepherd showed his appreciation of our achievement by giving us the same bemused stare he gave us when we set off. We gave him a cheery wave and set off down the mountain, back to the lodge to celebrate a triumphant ending to 2009.

After another legendary feast we all gathered outside where the villagers had built an enormous fire which could peel skin from 50 feet away. At midnight the fireworks went off and 2010 was celebrated for the first time that night by everyone. An hour later the Hungarians, Polish and Germans celebrated midnight back in their homelands and at 2am us Brits celebrated as Big Ben clunked in to action.

So what kind of year was this going to be? Would the plucky little Trabant make it back to England or would Oz & Nobby be spending the first few days stranded on the hard shoulder of a Slovakian highway...

Watch this space...

Help us save Xmas!!!

2009-12-15T21:37:00.004Z

The news from Lapland is not good. Not only has Santa’s sleigh failed its MOT but apparently deep fried Reindeer has been so popular at the Copenhagen summit that Rudolph had to take a bullet. The carbon footprint of freighting Rudolph and friends by refrigerated truck has apparently been offset by taking caramelised polar bear off the menu.

The prospect of Santa being grounded is unthinkable. Children the world over will sob uncontrollably at the realisation that Xmas morning won’t be spent wasting pimps and hoes on their new Xbox. The only slight mercy in all of this mess is that the Joe McElderry CD won’t arrive either.

Unless we act now Santa may spiral into a life of Elf sex and crystal meth. Admittedly this would be fun to watch but we feel we owe it to the bearded one, even if the presents when we were kids had to be glued together and hand painted and then still looked rubbish.

So we are calling on YOU to help us save Xmas!! In banger rally style we’ve managed to fit Santa with a massive strap on (rocket) to help him get airborne. Only you can help him deliver!

Click here to play JET PAC SANTA!

Everyone who successfully completes the challenge will be entered in to our prize draw for a selection of presents where it was definitely the thought that counted.

MERRY XMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!
Extreme Trifle

Bordering on the ridiculous

2009-12-14T23:48:00.003Z

As a rule, it is never a good idea to enter a country illegally, especially one that only exists according to itself. The last time we had to adopt smuggling tactics was when we had 13 blokes in a minibus going to Le Mans for a stag do. The night before leaving 2 of the group remembered their passports were at the Russian embassy awaiting visas. Panic ensued though after a few pints we’d all convinced each other that Customs would let them through with photo driving licences.

They did not. Now, bearing in mind this was during Euro 2004 so all the ports were supposed to be on high alert for football hooligans travelling without passports this is not surprising. What is surprising is that our hasty back up plan worked. After being turned away from the port we came back about 15 minutes later and joined a different queue for passport control with the 2 culprits wedged under a pile of coats and bags in the back of the bus. A couple of hours later we were in France having duped British Customs and not even been stopped by French customs, who let’s face it were probably on strike along with French farmers, French fisherman, French lorry drivers and France.

Transnistria however was a different matter. Officially part of Moldova, but in reality a self-governing region, it has particularly tense relations with its neighbours and is a tad sensitive to travel through its territory, particularly by Brits armed with satellite equipment, cameras and a laptop.

The general consensus was that it would really not be a good idea to get caught so our plan was to slip out of the country the same way we came in. Through a field. The problem was that in order to pull it off we had to blindly stumble across just the right field which would lead us to freedom in the Ukraine. Our tactic was simply enough. Avoid the main roads. So we picked the most knackered looking road possible and promptly ended up at the main border checkpoint.

Only Kaspars could have known the road signs said “Border” but at this point he was too busy arguing with Charlie about who had iPod rights in the van. At least if there had been a queue we probably could have slipped quietly away but instead we drove straight into an open tarmac square under the full gaze of a watchtower and quite a lot of men in big hats. Just because there wasn’t a queue didn’t mean we didn’t have to queue. It was a full hour before anything happened. This was a good thing since it gave us time to stash all the sensitive stuff in the van under piles of socks which we hoped would overpower the sniffer dogs.

Having spent most of that morning off-roading on dusty tracks we resembled a group of moped riding chimney sweeps. All the ingrained dirt and the heat of the midday sun meant the sweat was running down our faces causing dodgy brown streaks. If you’ve ever pulled a bird in a Wetherspoons you know the kind of look we mean.

Then we remembered that we had remembered to pack something for exactly this occasion. Finally! Something Oz had bought from the Cash & Carry that was actually useful. Wet wipes. We wiped the muck from our brows and then for good measure decided to have a much overdue squaddie wash. If the guards were alarmed at the sight of 5 men simultaneously sticking their hands down their shorts whilst exclaiming “oooh that’s better” they didn’t show it. They were certainly the most stony-faced individuals since Mount Rushmore.

For a whole 20 seconds there was the blissful feeling of being fresh and clean followed by a faint burning sensation in our eyes and about our private areas which then turned into a rather more severe burning sensation. Far from the soothing aloe vera wet wipes we had been expecting, it seems Oz had actually grabbed some industrial alcohol wipes designed for killing everything that moves in a commercial kitchen.

As if we didn’t have enough problems already we were now all hopping from one leg to the other while making chimp noises as the alcohol started to invade our scrotums. Typically it was this moment the border guards chose to demand our papers and passports. Trying to act nonchalant while your plums are having the equivalent of an acid bath is not all that easy especially when you realise you are moments away from being rumbled for illegal entry.

There comes a point when you realise the odds are stacked against you. By the time Ewan and Charley reached Mongolia they were 3 days behind schedule. We hadn’t even got out of Europe and we were already a bike down, with no spare engines, and due to general incompetence and blind disregard for reality, already over a week behind schedule.

To top things off the border guards had escalated the problem with our paperwork at least 3 hat sizes up the chain of command. Up until now this just meant ages sitting around but eventually the news we had feared was delivered by the border guard equivalent of the work experience student (judging by the pitiful hat size). We were to be prosecuted for trespassing.

Even at this stage there was still hope. With every other country in Eastern Europe it’s a familiar drill. First of all you are going to jail and two hours later you’ve been sent on your way with a 20 Euro fine. The longer you are prepared to string things out the lower the fine. The only difference is in those circumstances the alleged ‘offence’ is usually nothing more than being an easy target with foreign plates. In this situation however we had actually fucked up good and proper.

The only way we knew what was going on was because Kaspars could do the lingo, only to later wish he had never let on he could speak Russian. All the tried and tested tricks that worked everywhere else were just not working here. Bribes were offered. Bribes were accepted. The problem was they made no difference. The only progress was that we got referred to someone in a bigger hat. Offering Nick up for gang rape had crossed our minds but the state of his arse after 4,500kms in the saddle meant they would have surely slapped a further year in jail for insult.

After a whole day at the border there was finally some great news. Our vehicles had been seized and we were to be presented in front of the ‘smuggling board” the following week for sentencing. Naturally we were delighted. All we needed was an outbreak of herpes to crown a perfect day.

At that very moment we felt like the crew of Apollo 13 when they realised they had lost the Moon. We had lost Magadan. The only difference was there wasn’t half the world watching on TV waiting to see if we were going to die in space. Instead we rather sheepishly returned home with our exhaust pipes between our legs to be told by our mums we shouldn’t have been so silly in the first place.

We fought the law, and the law won.

Where the hell is Transnistria?

2009-11-10T13:17:00.015Z

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...

2009-10-02T11:41:00.017+01:00

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

2009-09-01T16:37:00.013+01:00

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

2009-08-21T13:40:00.013+01:00

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...

2009-08-06T14:30:00.011+01:00

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

2009-07-14T21:07:00.030+01:00

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...

2009-06-22T22:07:00.009+01:00

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.

The Bike Test

2009-06-18T09:10:00.006+01:00

Having finally got over the trauma of taking my bike test I feel that I am able to re-live the experience and write about it without going into a cold sweat.

After all it was only a bike test. I'd like to think that if I had to take my driving test again I would pass easily having picked up several new skills over the years that would impress my examiner. Like the ability to merrily pick my nose at the lights in total confidence that no one can see me as as I am in a steel box or the ability to rubberneck totty at the bus stop whilst changing lanes in rush hour traffic, or steering with my knees whilst rolling a cigarette. Admirable skills I'm sure you would agree.

After passing my CBT I was fed up with the bullshit from the motorcycle instructor companies saying “ Yeah mate that will be 20 lessons it will cost you your soul and a large chunk of your house" without assessing my riding abilities. Fortunately I was introduced to a guy named Nigel from Stockport School of Motorcycling who I managed to persuade that I was capable of staying up on a bike for........... well ages, and that I have considerable riding experience. Well OK it is on my trusty peddle powered beer bike and if I can complete the Mobberly Wobberly cycle pub craw several times with a pint in each of the 12 pubs in my neighbouring village without coming to any serious harm (apart from wiping out after the 8th pub and head butting a 200 year old oak tree after trying to buzz my friends back tire, oh and misjudging a down hill bend, narrowly missing a stone bridge and getting my handlebars wedged in a hedge). He duly signed me up for a days tuition and a couple of hours on the day of the test a week later. I arrived in the morning to meet a slightly apprehensive Nigel who informed me that the last person to persuade him that he was a competent rider fell off on the 1st corner 100 metres up the road.

After pointing out which buttons and levers did what I swung my leg over a shiny new Honda 500cc twin and pressed the starter button. (The last time I'd been in charge of something this powerful was after an ex girlfriend returned with an item from an Anne Summers party but that's another story.) I pulled the clutch in selected 1st and promptly stalled! I could imagine what was going on in Nigel's head at the time, would I even make it to the 1st corner without ditching it. Oh ye of little faith, I managed the whole day without any mishaps. Although he did have to remind me to turn my indicator off on several hundred occasions. That's it, I was ready for the big day.

Sitting nervously in the waiting room trying to crack jokes to hide the fact that I was totally cacking myself I was informed there were 2 examiners, one was really amiable and the other was err most definitely not. Guess which one walked in? To say he was abrupt would be an understatement, even my attempt at some form of humour was met with a cold stern stare. This was not going well, and my stomach was somewhere between jelly and water and if we didn't get on with this now I might have an accident in the waiting room. Nigel gave me a few pointers to calm me down.
“Apart from barking directions at you, if he has to say anything else that's generally not a good sign.” Thanks Nige just what I need. I replied.

“At the end of the road I want you to turn right then immediately left” came over the intercom. As I was about to turn right I noticed at the last minute that it was a filter lane for oncoming traffic and in fact the right way was straight ahead.
“Glad you spotted that eventually” came into my ear, Oh shit ive cocked this up immediately I thought and this was the 1st junction.

He pulled me over and gave me some directions round the block to do the emergency stop procedure
“At the end of the road turn right, then 2nd right then left then blar blar blar.” Off I went and promptly got lost. As I approached him from the opposite direction to the one he was expecting me to come from I could see him shaking his head and he repeated the directions again. This time I came from yet another direction still not the one he was hoping.
“Get this into your head, right, left, right, right.” On the 3rd attempt I arrived where he wanted me and stopped next to him. What Muppet gets lost twice on a bike test?!!!

Back at the test station I feared for the worse, I think my expression gave it away to Nigel who came hurriedly over.
“Well you have passed but only just” said the examiner “when can you do 40mph from a 30?” he asked me.
“Err when I've past the sign” I replied
“Exactly.... Not when you see the sign in the distance”

I had passed, despite getting lost twice and speeding on my test. I guess my riding was OK even if I was a complete and utter fuckwit!

I would like to thank Nigel from Stockport School of Motorcycling If wasn't for his patience and no-nonsense teaching style I would be confined to 4 wheels and a support driver on this trip

Santa Pod - High Speed Training

2009-06-04T10:02:00.014+01:00

Unless you are a petrol head you probably think Santa Pod is something that Father Xmas was hatched from. It is in fact a field in the arse end of Northamptonshire with a long strip of tarmac going through the middle of it where people go head to head to see who's car can cover 1/4 mile in the fastest time possible. You've probably seen a variation of this in your local town centre involving some tracksuit wearing tosspots in Citroen Saxos tearing away from the lights with rear spoilers so big you could fit a couple of lesbians on them.

The difference with Santa Pod is that all this behaviour is actually encouraged, (apart from the lesbians on spoilers bit unfortunately). For those of you that have witnessed a Top Fuel dragster reach 300mph in 5 seconds then you'll appreciate how awesome drag racing can be.

On this occasion however we were at a "Run What Ya Brung" day where anyone can turn up and have a go. In performance terms this is the equivalent of chimps playing at Wimbledon. Last time we were here was back in the summer of 2005 in preparation for our Reliants to Russia trip. We were without doubt the slowest vehicles there clocking a time of 21 seconds for a 1/4 mile and a terminal speed of 56 mph much to the annoyance of everyone else waiting in the queue.

This time we'd brought the T80's and were about to redefine "slow". Matt was so confident of a terrible performance he bet £10 (all his sandwich money) that none of us would crack the 30 second barrier. So once Charlie had eventually turned up with the van and bikes having followed his cheapo Sat Nav in to a field somewhere in Yorkshire we could get on with the serious business of drag racing. Make no mistake, drag racing is a dangerous sport and should only be undertaken with the appropriate protective clothing. I don't know whether the marshalls were too embarrassed to check but apparently a Mr Blobby outfit passes all ACU regulations.

So we'd signed on, got kitted out, got the bikes running and were ready to unleash all 6 horsepower on the drag strip, but not before we'd all had a full english and several cups of tea.

So by mid-afternoon we were finally lined up in the queue when suddenly there was a near disaster. One of the more serious competitors had complained to the race officials that Nick's garden allotment represented a danger to other users. This is fair enough because at high speed a stray piece of rhubarb can cause untold damage. A garden gnome failure could have shut the entire event down. Eventually we persuaded them that even at terminal velocity there wouldn't be enough air tubulence to loosen a petal let alone a root vegetable. Obviously Nick could still crash and lose his load all over the track but all parties agreed that would be funny and anyway it was only Nick. We were good to go.

So with eager anticipation we lined up at the famous strip and attempted some burnouts to wow the crowd. Unfortunately the grip of our brand new Continental tyres was too much for the engines to overpower so we had to settle for the other crowd pleaser. Wheelies.

So with all eyes on the starting lights we readied ourselves for the days mission - to take a Yamaha T80 to maximum velocity and back without tragic consequences. It may only have been a 1/4 mile but as some wise old man with a wispy beard once said "even the 18000kms trip on shit mopeds requires the first step". Anyway we're pretty sure thats the first time Santa Pod has witnessed Mr Blobby performing a stand up wheelie. At least 4 people clapped so we were winners even before the timing lights confirmed the unimaginable - we'd broken the 30 second barrier and almost topped 50 mph to boot.

So we were able to walk away with our heads held high knowing that once again we'd set a new record for slow. Memories of setting the slowest ever lap of the Nurburgring came flooding back and all was well with the world until we learned we'd actually been out-crapped by a Volkswagen camper van that had actually managed a worse time. Never mind at least we could take comfort knowing there was no way the guy was going to get all the way home again without breaking down. Come to think of it VW Campers would be perfect banger rally vehicles (bearing in mind crapness comes as standard) if it wasn't for the fact people seem to like paying a lot of money for them. There really are some strange people in the world.

Long Way Round Vs Wrong Way Round

2009-05-14T20:55:00.011+01:00

So at last the meeting of minds has happened. It was back in October 2008 that we first bumped in to Russ Malkin at the NEC Motorcycle Show and talked of meeting up with him and Charley Boorman. It was always going to be difficult working around showbiz schedules but finally after 8 months we managed to find a day when we could accomodate them.

Now the day didn't start too well. First of all we still hadn't ridden the bikes beyond the driveway of HQ so the chances of riding all the way in to Central London without incident were slim so we loaded them all in to the support van. The meeting was at 11am and Matt feared the traffic in to London on Friday rush hour would be appalling so we left at 7am just to be safe. Imagine our surprise when we ended up sat in a breakfast bar at 8.00am having not seen a single traffic jam.

So about 10.30am we thought we ought to unload the bikes and get ourselves prepared for the hectic 1/2 mile journey from Homebase car park in Kensington to Long Way Round HQ. Some piss-taking ensued when I couldn't start my bike until it turned out Matt had forgotten to put a battery in it. Fortunately you can bump start a T80 otherwise I would have had an embarrassing pushing episode.

Then Charlie realised he'd forgotten to fit his L-plates. All of a sudden we were wishing we could have the time back that we'd just wasted in the breakfast bar eating ourselves to death. A quick search of the van turned up some red insulating tape. A few minutes later Charley had some truly shonky L-plates but they were at least in keeping with the overall theme of the bike.

So with 5 minutes to spare we eventually kit up and get ready to roll except Kaspars had now gone missing. Obviously the full english breakfast had got the better of him. Eventually he comes trotting out of Homebase looking relieved. Having rendered the gents bogs off limits for a few hours he felt obliged to buy something to make up for it, and so he proudly presents Charlie with some shiny new L-plates which would have been a good move had they not been magnetic ones.

Our grand arrival went equally badly since we'd left the arrangements up to Nick (never a good move bearing in mind this is a man who is usually still in his pyjamas at 2pm). Suffice to say Russ was not there nor was there anything in the diary about us arriving. Instead the lovely Hannah had to make small talk while we shuffled around trying not to look like some very sad individuals on shit mopeds.

Then things went from bad to worse when Kaspars asked where the toilet was. It was quickly becoming apparent that all we were going to achieve from this visit was a few photos for posterity and a plumbing bill from Dynorod.

And then as if by magic the shutters went up and dynamic duo arrived...

Off Road Training

2009-04-27T20:36:00.009+01:00

After the "Driveway Disaster" previously reported we thought it best to make sure that the next time we took the bikes out we were far far away from normal civilisation. This is how we ended up in West Sussex. We had searched high and low for somewhere we could practice riding off-road that presented us with a realistic simulation of the terrain we will face on The Wrong Way Round.

By a stroke of luck our location manager (Matt) was able to track down somewhere that fitted the bill and so when his mum and dad finally went on holiday we grasped the opportunity to rag some mopeds round their back garden. Now obviously there were some short comings in how closely we could simulate the actual conditions we'll face but there wasn't anything we couldn't accomplish without a bit of ingenuity.

For starters we didn't even need to simulate the European part of the trip as West Sussex is also in Europe. So with a big tick against that box we moved straight on to the arid desert sections in Kazakhstan. The big burnt patch of ground at the bottom of the garden where the bonfire goes provided more than an able substitute for this albeit several thousands miles shorter. We made up for this by making Charlie ride up and down it for 2 hours while we went to the pub.

Next we moved on to the high terrain of Russia's Altay mountains. In this instance the incline of the river flood control embankment provided a good test of riding on steep gradient albeit several thousand metres lower. We made up for this by making Matt wear a gimp suit to simulate low levels of oxygen.

The wild and windswept steppes of Mongolia were an almost perfect match to the steps leading up to the pond and the pond itself more than gave us an insight in to crossing a Siberian river raging with meltwater.

The body-jarring Road of Bones section was demonstrated by taking it in turns to give each other the bumps, and sticking ants down our pants to simulate mosquito bites. And finally the general feeling of malnourishment, nausea and diarrhoea was simulated by allowing Nick to make our lunch.

And the results? In conclusion, T80's do suffer somewhat with traction on anything other than tarmac. Either the wheel goes round and moves mud but not the bike itself or the wheel doesn't have enough power to go round at all. This is however entirely consistent with predictions so from that point of view we are completely on track.

All that is left now is to explain to Matt's parents why they have been served a noise abatement order, why there are muddy circles on the grass, and why one of the garden gnomes suffered a slight breakage of the total destruction sort...

The Test Ride - a.k.a "driveway disaster"

2009-04-22T22:15:00.006+01:00

Remember how excited you were when you last bought a car? Couldn't wait to get the keys and go out for a spin? The same cannot be said when you are taking delivery of a moped bought off Ebay for £112. The anticipation ranks up there with waiting for your test results from the clinic. Let's face it, if this vehicle was a lonely hearts advert is would go something like this:

"Ageing paedophile with club foot and stammer seeks anyone of low moral standards. Light cosmetic damage including slight ripping. Low fluid levels hence not willing to travel long distance. Likes: ritual humiliation and gentle spanking. Dislikes: Working. GSOH (great shit of heap)"

So in light of this I set my expectation levels on a par with the chances of bumping in to Kiera Knightley covered in jelly asking to be licked clean (I may be developing a semi at this point). Well, my expectations were fully met. The moment the cobweb laden, rust infested abhorration arrived I knew in reality I had bumped in to Dot Cotton covered in crunchy peanut butter (ok this is worrying, I'm firming up).

So here she is in all her glory. I can only take solace from the fact that the other guys variously took delivery of the equivalent of Stephen Hawking eating custard, Kerry Katona covered in doner kebab and Pat Butcher in a thong.

Anyway there was no point putting off the inevitable. We all knew at some point they would need to be mounted and ridden hard.

So ah yes, mopeds, sorry got distracted there whilst reaching for a sock. The test ground for our voyage of discovery was the driveway at HQ. A relatively safe bet you would think although in the space of half an hour there was a hole in the hedge and a dent in the side of a hired Skoda Superb (probably the most inappropriately named car since the Mitsubishi Charisma).

Still it wasn't all bad. We did manage to get 3 out of the 4 bikes running. The non-runner being Pat Butcher (Nick's bike). On inspection we found serious fluid leaks, a total lack of spark and a rusty shaft. But anyway enough about Nick.

Trailer Trash

2009-04-21T23:06:00.005+01:00

So Matt's phone rings. It's Dynamite Disco Dave on the line. This is either one of those calls where Matt has to go and help Dave retrieve his latest bargain motor (i.e. get dragged by the tow rope of doom wondering what will fall off first), or Dave's found something useful for our trip whilst bargain hunting.

Thankfully it's the latter. "I've found a trailer...it's free, and better still it belongs to the Rotary Club and was last used as Santa's sleigh". Such rare discoveries are quite normal for Dave. If only he could use those skills for finding gold-laden ship wrecks we'd all be a lot better off.

Hang on why do we need a trailer? Well this one has a massive Santa on it and its free and that's just funny so we'll have it. Having said that, having seen the pile of spares that we've had to accumulate to make sure the bikes and the Transhit have a fighting chance of making it, plus the collection of porn that Charlie wants to bring, it dawned on us that having a bit of extra space might not be a bad thing.

Unfortunately this just means everyone now wants to increase their personal allowances and where as we were originally going to restrict ourselves to 2 pairs of pants, a toothbrush and some bog roll, we've now got dressing gowns, candelabras and mood uplighters. You can see where this is all heading. I think it is unfair though to draw comparisons between the Transhit and the donkey. The donkey is faster and more hygienic, and in a crisis you can't eat the Transhit.

As it turns out the trailer was somewhat disappointing since even during the credit crunch Santa was demanding top whack for an appearance so for Xmas the Rotary Club had to downgrade to a nativity scene involving some astro turf and 3 ornamental sheep.

Nevertheless the trailer came complete with working lights and a trailer board, at least until Carl-should-be-on-Jerry-Springer-Holden went ape shit with a lump hammer and trashed it all.

Anyway, the trailer has now had a slight makeover and by my calculations there should be plenty of room for my vegetable steamer and spice rack...

Wrong Way Round preparations: street survival training

2009-04-14T20:10:00.006+01:00

This video has been disabled due to infringement of the Extreme Trifle broadcasting standards code. It is in breach on the following grounds:

1. It contains an offensive motorcycle. Namely a Kawasaki Versys which sadly has only been partially and not fully destroyed.

2. It contravenenes the acceptable number of times someone can say "aaaarrr...ummmm" between sentences.

3. There is no background music or air guitairing.

There are no grounds for appeal. By order of the Extreme Trifle Standards Committee

The Crap Van Of Horrors Or Trans(h)it, The Story Continues

2009-04-01T23:02:00.010+01:00

I finally delivered our beloved support vehicle, the Trans(h)it to Envy Automotive. for Colin and the team to carry out the work they had kindly volunteered to do, to be honest it was good to get it off my drive as the constant stream of Pikey’s ringing the door bell asking “wot you doin wif da tranny mate” and the ecological disaster that was forming under it on my drive were starting to get on my moobs. That means man-boobs for those of you who are not down with the kids like me. To tell you the truth I try not to get to down with the kids too often following a recent incident when I asked my 15 year old daughter what a milf was, ho-hum, you live and learn, I think child line is now on last number redial!

So anyway, on Sunday I took the old girl over to Envy, the missus even followed me over to give me a lift back, I was touched by her concern (assuming that she was worried that I would break down) until I found out that I had to take her to the pub on the way home. We dropped it off and all was good in the world until….. Tuesday when I received a text from Colin which read “rearrange the following to make a sentence - crap heap this of you have with bastard up me stitched” now I must stress that he is normally very courteous to his clients, I was so shocked to receive this I shot over to have a look.

I think it actually looks better like this!

When I arrived the first thing I noticed that they had actually let Asbo take it apart which was a bit worrying as I have witnessed him take over an hour to get into his lunch box before. Still it could have been worse, they could have let Greg loose on it! Let me explain why this would have been a bad thing, Greg (or “The Spunkster” as he is known for reasons I won’t go into) recently had quite a bad week at work….

Monday – A minor mishap, he was asked by Colin to put some new bulbs in the sidelights of his Soarer, Colin went to go home that evening, no lights at all, he had managed to screw the wiring up so badly it was blowing the fuses!

Tuseday – A large screw up, he was asked to cut a piece of rusty tube out of an oil cooler, he used an air saw and managed to cut through the oil cooler itself as well as the intercooler, Colin had to ring up the owner to explain and then pay to put it all right.

Wednesday – Although he came in he was not allowed to do any work and was told to sit quietly in the corner and contemplate what had gone on the previous couple of days, he was last seen licking the office windows and exposing himself to old ladies.

Thursday – This was a biggie and clearly the result of his day of reflection. He was asked to put Colin’s Soarer on the ramp (I should explain that this is quite a sorted car the has had loads spent on it under the bonnet and custom paint job, body work etc), the car was parked outside so he went out to get it and put it on the ramp, one of the lads noticed a huge gash down the side of it, when questioned he said “it wasn’t me” but upon looking outside there was metallic blue paint down the side of a customers Galaxy that was in for some work that he had clearly hit while moving it.

Friday – Left the country!!!!

I don’t want to think what the week of disaster cost the long suffering Colin (putting all this right), the customers were all happy though, they had lots of new parts, paint jobs etc on their cars. I keep telling Colin not to take pity on these care in the community cases but will he listen? Will he feck. I mean how can you employ someone who’s hobby is chatting up northern women online and going to meet them in his spare time, that doesn’t sound too bad but before he sets up the date he makes sure that they are ladies of shall we say a larger persuasion (is that PC enough) so he is more likely to get his leg over. I suppose we all need a hobby, he must know every mag back to front in the local STD clinic!! Oh and just to top that I heard a rumour that he pissed himself after the works Christmas party, girls if you fancy a bit of this I have his number (applicants need only apply if they need the local fire service to help them get to the dentist).

So anyway I think I may have strayed from the story in a Ronnie Corbet sort of way, I asked Colin what had prompted this text. It turns out that when he had started taking the van apart that he had found a few things of concern (apart from all the stuff on his first inspection), firstly one of the front springs was snapped, it also had no air filter fitted but then they discovered that one of the front brake calipers had actually been welded to the hub, if that wasn’t bad enough the welding job looked like it had been done by a blind badger with a fetish for scale models of the Himalayas, on top of this all the brake cylinders were leaking, it wasn’t good. This meant another begging call to the lovely Debbie at Camberley Auto Factors, I was fully prepared for rejection (well that’s what I get from most women) given what she had already agreed to supply but she came up trumps again, I am officially upgrading my previously declared love for her to lust and I am currently researching the possibility of having a womb implant so I can have her baby’s!

This is what the calliper nut should look like

This is what our welded one looks like!!

The stripped engine, they are even doing the valves!!

The broken spring and welded caliper

So the work continues, I think that James has now drawn the short straw of working on the shed next (not much to say about James, he seems to be as squeaky clean as the love child of Donny Osmond and Mother Teresa, sure he bins his bike every time he sees a cloud in the sky but that’s hardly a crime).

I have heard a whisper that Mick (The Stig) has been seen lurking around the van but as always this is not a confirmed sighting, we have left bait around the van (well Asbo dropped half his tools and lost them while he was taking it apart) but there have been no confirmed sightings.

I think that as I have mentioned everyone else it is only fair that I mention Sarah who works in the office as she is the glue that holds this bunch of crack mechanics together. Her matronly touch (hang on, Sarah, matron, nurses uniform, that works………………………Ok, I’m back now) calms Asbo whenever he loses his bag of marbles and when there is a backlog of work she only has to crack the whip (hang on, Sarah, matron, nurses uniform, whip, that works…………………….I think I have writers cramp in my right hand) and the cars fly out the door.

Disclaimer – The names mentioned above have not been changed to protect the innocent, I didn’t see any point as it’s all true!!!

The story continues…

That is gonna take some topping...

2009-03-26T10:44:00.005Z

"That" being the current world record for the longest ever pizza delivery at a whopping 19,870kms. Quite impressive until you realise that in order to claim the record all someone had to do was get on a plane in Spain and fly to New Zealand. Now if all we wanted to do was beat the record we'd just buy a round the world flight ticket. But no, we wish to uphold the tradition of pizza delivery. I mean when did the pilot of a Boeing 747 last arrive outside your door with a deep crust Hawaiian??

As everyone knows, pizzas are actually delivered by pre-pubescent youths on mopeds with as many scrape marks in their pants as down the sides of their bikes. Now it's not the scrape marks we are aspiring to here, rather the art of delivering a pizza by moped.

It is with great excitement then that after six tense weeks of waiting we have finally been given approval by Guinness World Records™ to attempt to break the record as part of our Wrong Way Round trip.

According to the shatterproof ruler and the drawing pins we stuck in our map of the earth, we calculate our trip is approx 18,000kms, however this assumes the earth is flat, and that we will not get lost or ride huge distances out of our way to go and look at a rock formation shaped like a bellend. So basically it's game on.

Now everyone knows that cold pizza in the morning is gert lush even if you wake up next to it and have to peel the cheese away from the duvet cover. However we're not so sure that a pizza a couple of months old will have quite the same appeal. In fact it'll probably be in a worse condition than Norris McWhirter by the time it arrives on a Siberian doorstep.

However we have checked and there is nothing in the rules which says the pizza has to be edible. As long as it was bought and paid for by the recipient and delivered to the recipient we might find ourselves in THE big book of records you used to love getting at Xmas just so you could find out who is the world's fattest dwarf or how many hot dogs someone could fit up one nostril whilst riding a unicycle.

Now all we need to do is find a Siberian who fancies a take away pizza delivered some time in August (ish)...

It's a hole in one, with a number two

2009-03-19T16:23:00.006Z

Every now and again an email comes through that sparks your curiosity. I don't mean the sort that says - "Barclays Bank Security Alert please give us your PIN number" or "Plunge her with your massive rod until she explodes". No this was one of those comedy links your mates send you where you can go and view a photo of an unfortunate student whose vomited in to his trousers or someone who's driven their car off a cliff. You know the really hilarious stuff.

So I was intrigued to follow a link for the Brown Corporation who have a rather special product which does exactly what is says on the...

You were thinking "tin" there weren't you but actually this a box. No ordinary box, it's a SHIT BOX. That's right it's a box you shit in.

Now this immediately struck me as perfect for the Wrong Way Round. I'm thinking that somewhere on the way to Magadan we are all going to need to take a dump. The thing is that the woods in Siberia have bears. Not mummy, daddy, and baby bear, but big brown Siberian bears, and although according to Wikipedia they only kill about 10 people a year, I would bet good odds that all 10 of those people were curling one out at the time.

With the Shit Box there is no need to run the bear gauntlet, or dangle your delicates in to a stinging nettle bush whilst being bled dry by mosquitos. Just pop the box, insert the bag, reach for the paper and well, you could almost be enjoying one in the comfort of your own home.

Now this all sounds good on paper (hahahaha), but there was no chance I was going to take a mobile bog half way round the world only to see it all go down the pan (hahahaha). I had to test one of these out. So without a moments delay I was on the phone to the Brown Corporation. A nice pleasant young lady answered so I enquired as to whether I could speak to someone about their "product". "You mean the Shit Box" she said matter of factly. Er, yeah that.

Once I'd explained our trip and stated my proposal that they might want to sponsor us I was informed that the decision would have to be referred. She put me on hold and then after a few moments announced that she was transferring my call to "The Big Shit". I kid you not. Quite possibly the most surreal business (hahahaha) call of my life. Needless to say a job lot of Shit Boxes arrived at Extreme Trifle Towers.

Now it just so happens a product testing opportunity arose on todays round of golf. I always get a twitch on around about the 16th hole, I don't know whether it's the sight of the club house in the distance or the rippling water in the lake, but ordinarily in this situation I would make a dash for the trees or whip out the flag and drop one french styley in to the hole. Not on this occasion. Bring out the Shit Box...

Seriously, I've never found a game of golf so liberating. One minute I'm putting the turf back in, the next minute I'm turfing one out. Suddenly golf made sense. My world was soon brought to an abrupt halt however.

The club captain caught a glimpse whilst teeing off from the 15th and sunk one deep in to the rough, which in hindsight which is what I should have done. Apparently I'd violated every chapter in the golfing code.

Needless to say my membership at Bath Manor and Country Club has been revoked, but the good news is that apart from the slight soilage whilst being manhandled off the course by security, the Shit Box performed admirably and I will be passing a motion (hahahaha) at the next Wrong Way Round board meeting that Shit Boxes be included in our essential kit allowances.

So there we have it, the Shit Box, official poo partner of the Wrong Way Round . It brings me out in a hot flush it really does. So that's my blog done. I was thinking "how will cistern out?" but I think you'll agree it's a proper job (hahahahahaahahahahahahahhahahaha).

OMG it's the theory test

2009-03-15T14:38:00.003Z

Well the day finally came, I of course was as usual totally unprepared for my theory test. I had my highway code book for several weeks leading up to the exam but had failed to open it thinking it was a great idea to thumb through it the night before. So I duly poured myself a glass of wine in ready preparation for a nights swatting, well one thing lead to another and several things got in the way and after a bottle and a half of vino I still hadn't looked at it. “I know” I thought I'll get up especially early and read it in the car before going in that sounds like a great idea and put off the inevitable for a few more hours. My test was booked in for 8.30am so I set off at 7.30am leaving plenty of time for the 20 minute journey there. I put the postcode into my shatnav and set off making good time or so I thought. If any of you have ever been to Runcorn in Cheshire you will know what a shithole the place is, more roundabouts than Milton Keynes and more dilapidated factories than an Eastern European country. My shatnav was well out of its depth and I was now running out of time. “you have reached your destination” it said proudly as I was bombing down a dual carriageway surrounded by wasteland “what” I shouted bloody thing, and proceeded to have serious words with it, it informed me that I had to put the whole address in to it for it to help us out of our predicament. Am I the only person ever to have a conversation with a Satnav?

2 minutes to go and I arrive at the test centre, highway code still unopened clutched in my now pretty sweaty hand.

“You can't take that in there or your phone, put it away in that locker” the man behind the desk in reception informed me. So in I went and sat down at a PC. The 1st part was a multiple guess on the highway code mmm this could be interesting I thought so after 20 mins of bumbling through it answering (sorry guessing) questions on tram speed limit signs and does a ring road sign look like I felt pretty smug.

Next section the hazard perception test. So after frantic clicking of the mouse at every person, car, pothole, and stone on the road thinking this is a piece of cake, a warning sign flashed up in front of me saying I was taking the piss and would score 0 points for that clip, shit I thought I better concentrate here. After 14 more clips and a lot less clicking I'd finished ready to tell the examiner what a load of rubbish that was and how the hell is anyone supposed to get through all that lot with a pass............... “Congratulations” he said ignoring my mutterings and handed over a piece of paper with the words PASS on it. Mmm maybe its not such a crap test after all.

FOR SALE 1 unused unopened as new highway code book!

The Trans(h)it goes in for life saving surgery

2009-03-10T17:14:00.016Z

Ok so we have a problem, we are the proud owners of a clapped out Transit that we expect to get us ½ way round the world. You would think that £380 would get you more but I have to face the fact that we have a 2 ton piece of mobile rust. It’s time to face the music and get it checked out by someone who has more knowledge than Nick about vehicles, basically someone who knows the difference between a spanner and a dead badger on a stick!

The Transhit In All It's Glory!!

There is only one company I trust to sort out my vehicles without stitching me up or letting a spotty work experience kid loose on it, not that they don’t try to help out the local delinquents but “Asbo” as he is affectionately called is restricted to making the tea, binning his scooter when ever there is so much as a cloud in the sky, dreaming about what it will be like when he finally gets laid and falling asleep in cars (while supposedly helping to MOT them) with his little hoody hood pulled up, bless.

Anyway I digress, the time had come to take the van to Envy Automotive. I have used these guys for years to look after my cars and vans, I have not owned a car yet that Colin (the owner) hasn’t taken the piss out of and then fixed! He even talked me into buying a Lexus Soarer once which if you have never seen one is basically a 2½ litre twin turbo go-cart! As well as the every day stuff they specialise in tuning Jap import stuff and currently have a Soarer that chucks out 700bhp, most people are impressed with that but as we have a Transit it’s everyday stuff to us!

Colin (right) And A Cardboard Cutout Of Mick The Munch (explained Later!!!) Of Envy Automotive

I went over to HQ to pick the beast up and after pumping the tyres up I tried to start her, nothing (I knew I shouldn’t have left Oz to disconnect the battery) a set of jump leads later she fired into life after what only seemed a couple of hours. So off I went to Envy. The omens were not good, after a few hundred metres I braked for some road work lights and she just kept on going with the back wheels locked, this was going to be an eventful drive. Luckily though I soon found out that a Transit can’t get up enough speed to have an accident so it was all good.

Colin had told me to come over on Saturday afternoon when he was shut so he “wouldn’t get interrupted”, interrupted crap, he just didn’t want people to see that he had a pikey wagon on his premises! As I arrived he had spotted me and was trying to get the shutters down but it was too late, I was in, he had to go through with it!!

I paced around like an expectant father drinking cup after cup of garage weapons grade coffee as he went through the van before giving me a list of parts and jobs required as long as both an orangutans arms with one of my arms welded on for good measure, this was not good karma. I was dispatched with our budget (£2.50 and some Argos Vouchers) in tatters and told to come back next week after Colin had “made some calls”, it all sounded a bit gangster like to me so I beat a hasty retreat.

I have been asked by our legal department to point out that although this picture may look like it was taken covertly on a mobile phone we are in no way claiming that Envy would let our piece of crap on their ramps and although that looks like Colin under the ramps it is in fact a very similar looking person from a nearby garage just down the road a bit and round the corner, I hope that’s clear.

Returning the following week Colin made a call to a mysterious woman and handed me the phone with instructions to talk to her about the stuff we needed, the woman turned out to be Debbie from Camberley Auto Factors. I explained our dilemma and that we were trying to get this heap of crap to Siberia and that I wouldn’t even trust it to get to Morrisons (they have a offer on Stella at the moment you see) with all the faults that Colin had found and that it was all in the name of Charity, Debbie said that Camberley Auto Factors would be delighted to supply all the spares we needed to get the van in fighting shape, I think I’m in love!!!

The good news kept on coming as Colin said that he had talked to his right hand man Mick and they would do the work on the van for us with no charge. I have to pause there and explain about Mick (The Munch), for many people in this area he is a beast of legend that is rarely spotted, basically he is Envy’s Stig. We set up cameras with an intricate system of trip wires for over 2 years and only captured this 1 image of him in his natural habitat, covered in oil under a bonnet.

The Only Known Picture Of The Elusive Mick

So after all that panicking we are going to have a decent vehicle, true it will still be a Transit but at least it has a good chance of getting us there now, watch this space……

Extreme Trifle forces Formula 1 boss to step down

2009-03-04T09:52:00.010Z

Ron Dennis, the Team Principal of the McLaren Formula One team resigned his position this week. The official explanation for this was that it was in the "best interests of McLaren". This is of course management spin for a totally different explanation - why would any sane person leave the high octane, jet-setting, botty-spanking world of F1?

Well first you need to know that the McLaren Team is based in Woking in a top secret location not open to the general public, however it can easily be found thanks to the enormous illuminated sign on the roundabout which leads to their place. Then you need to know what else Woking is famous for. Well let's see, there is Paul Weller and Harry Hill, and hey it's where the Martians landed in War of the Worlds. Clearly the Martians were not looking for intelligent life forms. But no, none of this is the reason for the Ron Dennis P45.

Is it just a co-incidence that the weekend Ron Dennis resigns is the weekend that Extreme Trifle opened their new Headquarters in Woking?! I think not. Let's face it he saw it coming. Better to quit now while McLaren are World Title holders than to watch us usurp their position as Woking's premier centre of motorsport research and development.

A McLaren associate told us "Ron was stumbling back from the chippy after a night out and decided to take a piss by the canal. Behind a tree he could see a garage full of Yamaha T80's complete with never-seen-before fairing designs and rear spoilers disguised as pizza boxes. He knew at that moment the fight for supremacy was lost."

Clearly the repercussions have yet to be felt but this could be a turning point in F1. Bernie Ecclestone was not available for comment as he couldn't reach the wall-mounted phone. We also tried Max Mosley but he was out on the lash...

And so HQ is open for business. Our extensive research paid off. We are in a prime location only 4 mins 38 seconds walk to the pub (though the quickest we've ever managed for the return journey is 17 minutes).

There's also a McDonalds (not usually a cause for celebration but the video will explain). So now the trip un-preparations can get in to full swing. All the essential items are in position, the beer fridge, the pinball machine and the coffee-table shaped like a giant nob.

Lad's we've got work to do (put the kettle on).

The Hearse Rises from the Almost Dead

2009-02-26T22:05:00.011Z

You may have seen our recent post where against all the odds the Shaguar was rescued from blizzard conditions in the Baltics and safely returned to the UK. You would think then that rescuing a car from a farm in Somerset and driving it 100 miles to our HQ in Woking would be a doddle in comparison. Like the Shaguar, the Hearse had been laid up since the Piste & Broke rally in February 2008. Back then, Greg and I somehow (never again) did a 36 hour stint behind the wheel to coax the Hearse all the way home from Latvia.

Not easy in normal circumstances but even less so when the car couldn't go faster than 56mph due to a massive split in the fuel hose. This gave us a dilemma in Poland where the choice was either stay in the middle of the road and have a 38 tonne truck inches off the rear bumper, or, move over to the side of the road to let them pass and risk mowing down a line of prostitutes.

Such was the relief to finally get home and never set foot inside the Hearse again that we abandoned it until just a few weeks ago when it dawned on us that the Hearse would actually be quite useful for carting loads of stuff down to Wrong Way Round Headquarters.

So with our usual level of blissful ignorance we trotted off to collect it. The first clue that all was not well should have registered when on opening the door we found someone had fitted white furry seat covers, except on closer inspection this turned out to be a generous coating of white mould. This was complimented by the collection of rare fungi that had taken hold in the footwells. Even the half eaten Burger King in the Shaguar didn't smell as bad.

The next setback came when turning the ignition key failed to produce a single light on the dashboard let alone turn over the engine. Clearly leaving the battery connected for a year was not a good idea. Our plan to attach jump leads was then thwarted by the fact we'd parked the Hearse bonnet first in between two walls thereby impeding any access for another car. Nevermind, we'd just have to push the car out. This was again thwarted by the fact that leaving 4,000kms worth of road salt on the wheels and brakes meant that all 4 wheels were now locked solid.

We resigned ourselves to putting the battery on charge overnight but at least in the meantime we could give it an overdue acid bath. Returning the next morning we were delighted when the dashboard lit up only to find that the engine would still not turn over. Instead there was a faint buzzing sound coming from a square box type thing under the bonnet. Not knowing what the square box type thing was, Greg and I decided that a new battery was the answer. £95 quid and a trip to Halfords later we returned with our spanking new battery only to realise we'd bought a battery with round terminals when the old battery had square lugs. Another trip to Halfords and a £95 refund later we then had to trawl around the West Country looking for a garage that sold batteries ancient enough to fit. About 50 miles and £45 later we were in business.

Once again the dashboard lit up like a Xmas tree but spectacularly failed to start, though on the plus side the buzzing noise from the square box type thing was louder than before so we'd made progress. We then concluded the square box type thing was the starter motor and resigned ourselves to phoning Matt for help, knowing full well the level of piss-taking that would ensue. Sometime later after a description of the symptoms over the phone, Matt turned up with a lump of wood and a hammer. With a few instructions and some physical violence the Hearse started first time.
Matt then declared the starter motor was shagged. Feeling pleased that we had diagnosed the problem correctly, Greg and I enquired as to where we could get a replacement for the square box type thing which we now knew to be the starter motor, until Matt in a despairing manner pointed out that the square box type thing was the power steering which was perfectly fine.

Matt then duly supplied the afforementioned replacement starter motor and left me and Greg to it, cheerfully stating that it was "only 2 bolts" and we should have no problem. He should know better...cue the video...

If you are reading this on Facebook you can access the original blog posting here.

Albania - land of the T80

2009-02-23T15:58:00.016Z

What do Norman Wisdom and our continent crosser to be, the Yamaha T80, have in common? If you said they're both dead, you'd be ignoring the glaring great clue in the post title.

Yes, they're both big in Albania (the Yamaha is technically not dead yet).

Some may attempt a joke here and laugh at how highly appropriate it is that Europe's worst country is also home to Europe's worst bike. But that would be to reveal their essential ignorance. To survive in Albania you need to endure a pounding of the sort that the likes of Charles's Peugeot 106 couldn't, as was revealed when we drove through that land of ex-commie mystery last year.

During the Extreme Trifle holiday adventurette we called Car Trek, the Peugeot attempted some off-roading of the like we'll be experiencing on an hourly basis on the way to Siberia and holed his sump approximately 300 metres on the first unsealed road into Albania. Repairs were completed as per the photo, but we didn't again attempt excursions beyond the A-roads.

Now, if we'd had T80s, it would have been a different matter. The locals love them for their ruggedness and their ability to run on fuel blended with liquids more associated for their thirst quenching qualities here in the UK.

Despite going back again in January this year to write a story about the proliferation of petrol stations in Albania (why does no-one believe me on this?), I failed to take a picture of a single one, despite seeing many, but here's another daft moped of the sort that used to infest Italy before they were banned.

And here's a moped pickup being ridden by Xhteptoe's son (that's his dad in the foreground).

And they said it would never happen...

2009-02-22T10:23:00.008Z

Well I finally gave in to the peer pressure and constant piss take about not actually having a motorbike licence for a trip that's going half way round the world on a motorbike. No reasoning would stop the sarcastic remarks.

I can keep up with a bloody T80 on my beer bicycle so I assumed that having passed my cycling proficiency test with.... well rather dubious colours, I thought I was overly qualified. So I picked up the phone to book a direct access course only to find out that I've got to do something called a CBT first. A quick search on the net... Viola “Cognitive behavioural therapy.”

Personality disorder? Check.

Substance abuse disorder? Check.

Alcohol abuse disorder? Check.

Seems like I qualify. But what the hell has this got to do with riding a moped? No that can't be it, maybe its “Crash Before Test” now I've done that loads of times, should be a piece of piss.

Further down the page it was there “Compulsory Basic Training” apparently the idea was conceived by a bike dealer in Yorkshire who grew tired of losing all of its customers under steam rollers and articulated lorries and thought it made good business sense to train their new bikers so that they would be alive enough to come back.

As a precaution I thought I'd go out and buy a new helmet as my other one was from China bought off E bay and was probably made from birds nests. So after a fitting and “No that pink one looks ridiculous on you” I got myself kitted out.

A quick phone call and my CBT was booked. 9am Saturday morning came and I arrived at B.C Motorcycle Training in Northwich feeling like a school boy on his first day of big school with a brand new pencil case and crayons. The instructor told me to go and put them back in the car and get your sodding helmet and why are you wearing shorts and a blazer that's 10 times too small?

Joining me in the classroom was Alex, it was his 16^th birthday and the CBT was a present from his dad. Already in their garage was a shiny new twist and go moped he had saved up to buy.

I was a little disappointed that they didn't offer us a beer or something stronger to settle our nerves. Our instructor was Derek who talked us through clothing and why you shouldn't play football with your helmet and ride around in a mankini. Then it was off to the dreaded course of doom, an area behind the building full of traffic cones where they can assess my riding skills safe in the fact that I wasn't going to mow down any members of the general public.

My steed for the day was a Honda 125cc, a total beast of a machine compared to the T80 that we will be riding in the wrong way round. Like me it was reluctant to start and just as I was about to say “C'est la vie” and bugger off to the pub it burst into life. Whilst it sat there throbbing on the tarmac Derek pointed out which button to press to operate the blinky things and the one that beeps to attract passing totty.

Armed with all this knowledge I gingerly mounted the brute, reigning in its full 12hp and with a gearbox full of neutrals I feathered the clutch and wobbled my way around the cones.

Happy in the knowledge that I wasn't going to go fast enough to actually kill anyone Derek allowed us onto the Queens Highway where I could terrorize the inhabitants of Northwich.

2 hours tearing around the streets whilst mistaking the horn for the indicator and realizing that 125s don't pull away from the lights very well in top gear followed.

Back at base we were issued with our CBT certificates, poor Alex left excitedly with his, knowing he was going to be put through the purgatory of a family birthday meal all evening instead of going out to show his mates his new toy.

Watch out humble road users, here I come!

Next thing, the theory test.... a computerized multiple guess.

"Lads I've got a great idea" #376

2009-02-20T11:37:00.014Z

Otherwise known as the beer-fuelled moment when Charlie decided it would be a great idea to fly to Latvia in mid-winter to rescue the Shaguar and drive it home. In another cider-fuelled moment I agreed to go with him. In a sober moment it dawned on us that the odds of success were not good but by then our one-way RyanAir flights to Riga were booked. We convinced ourselves that it would be good "hostile environment training", in preparation for the "Wrong Way Round".

It's like this dear readers, the Shaguar was last used in anger in February 2008 during the "Piste & Broke Rally". During this time it demonstrated its reliability by conking out everytime we encountered a puddle, proving the theory that big cats don't like water. It was officially the most towed vehicle on the rally (apart from the complete joke that was Nick's car - avid readers may notice a theme developing here).

On arriving in Riga the reality of the situation hit home. It was snowing hard and minus 12 degrees. We dealt with the situation by getting rinsed on Kaspar's stock of black balsam (which for those of you who haven't tried it is like drinking Benilyn cough mixture with a hint of farmer's welly).

But in the end we could put it off no more. So armed with hats, gloves and a can of Easy Start me, Charlie and Kaspars headed for the compound where the Shaguar had been laid up for almost a year. The good news was that it only had about 4 inches of snow of it, the bad news was that the bottom 2 inches was solid perma-frost and our Halfords-spec ice scraper was ill-equipped for the job. Alas we had no access to an industrial jack hammer so we set up a shift system where one of us chipped away and the other two sat in the warm van and listened to Latvian Rock. Obviously we all wanted to do the chipping.

About an hour later we managed to get the bonnet up. The engine was still there so this was good. Charlie got in the driver's seat, Kaspars attached the battery leads and filled the airbox with Easy Start and I stood back with the camcorder and prepared to be overwhelmed by the sound of silence. What happened next was well, a miracle. I can only imagine Jesus had stopped in Cesis as part of his comeback tour. It started first time.

The lights worked, the stereo worked, the windscreen wiper didn't work. On the first wipe the rubber (still frozen) parted company with the bendy metal bit which resulted in us having to fork out £4 at the local garage. It wasn't even money well spent as will become clearer later especially when you consider that in Latvia £4 buys you 8 beers and a complimentary supermodel.

Anyway with the maintenance complete all we had to do now was drive 4,000kms home via Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France. Shame it took us until Poland to realise the strange smell in the car was coming from a year-old half eaten Burger King in the glove box...

Anyway, suffice to say the Shaguar is safely back in the UK and now Charlie and me can sit back and regale in those cherished memories such as the anticipation of a Friday night out in Lithuania, only to find it was shut. Though we made up for this in Prague - we know it was good cos we can't remember anything about it.

Then there was the feeling of "we're really gonna make it home" once we escaped the blizzard that followed us all the way from Latvia to the Czech Republic and we finally hit the German autobahns. The feeling of relief sent me in to a deep sleep which lasted for over two hours. You can imagine my surprise on waking to find we were in a sleepy village, in the Czech Republic, after Charlie Wonder decided to overule the Sat-Nav and rely on tracking skills he learned on his one and only week in the Scouts.

The balance was redressed though when I spectacularly managed to navigate us on to a railway line in Holland though to be fair the tracks were hidden by snow. We then spent a full buttock clenching 10 minutes trying to get up enough speed in the deep snow to bounce the Shaguar back off the railway lines thereby averting the embarassing headline in the morning press "Two fuckwits die in train mishap".

The final hurdle was to get through UK Customs. Not as easy as it sounds bearing in mind Kaspars had lost all the paperwork for the car, it wasn't MOT'd and we couldn't open up the boot for inspection because Kaspars had also lost the door keys. Thankfully the border patrol settled for a photo of us and an Extreme Trifle beermat.

Now all we have to do is rescue the Rocket powered Peugeot from Budapest....

If you are reading this on Facebook you can access the original blog posting here.

Nick’s Bike MOT Shock

2009-02-18T18:57:00.007Z

Well I have to admit I’m not a happy bunny, I took the last of our bikes for an MOT (well you have to show willing don’t you) and the bloody thing failed!!! I can’t remember the last time that I had anything fail an MOT. Well if I was being totally honest my Robin for Reliants to Russia Click Here (or to be exact A Reliant with the factory fitted Thunderbird 4 full body kit with optional solid rocket boosters) failed it’s MOT when the tester was checking the brakes and the whole hand brake lever ripped out of the floor in his hand but I don’t really count that as it was comedy!

Red, Not A Colour I Am Used To!!

If I was being honest we weren’t even going to bother testing Nick’s bike in any case, he owns the UK’s largest collection of Puch Maxi’s (really!) and doesn’t deserve a legal bike, loser! When I told him it had failed he declared his trust and faith in the British MOT system, fickle tosser, only the other day he was moaning that he had to test his Puch’s at all, he thought it would be fine for the local bicycle dealer to give them a once over, he has a point though!

I had given the bike a full pre MOT check (which involved putting the kettle on) prior to throwing it in the back of the van and taking it down to the local while U wait testing station, while I was waiting (oh that’s why they call them that) I made a fatal mistake and started to fall into a deep coma brought on by reading a 10 year old copy of Readers Digest only to be snapped out of my trance by the receptionist looking for a 73 year old grandad with gout and a variety of interesting war stories, the natural owner of a T80.

Once she had got over the fact that such a bike could be owned by a nubile young man such as myself she gave me the news that it had failed the MOT on 3 points, firstly the nearside front indicator was insecure (I have to admit I did notice it was a bit loose but as they will be gone completely the first time Nick demonstrates his riding skills and bins it I didn’t think it was important) which is no big deal but the other 2 items were the “nearside (& offside) rear suspension has severe distortion of a load bearing member or it’s supporting structure”! What the hell does the mean? I got the tester to come out and show me what was wrong and he said that it was the rust in the rear mudguard as the seat was mounted on it. I tried to explain that it was only Nick and humanity wouldn’t miss him but he said that it had to be sorted “and no filler”!

Looks Fine To Me!!

I got it home and took the grinder to the bike opening up a miniscule hole you can see in the photo below (Nick, the fact you can see right through the other side is an optical illusion and there is not another gaping hole in the other side as well, you know I put your safety First), I don’t know what all the fuss was about. A bit of welding (using the well known fire proof properties of a Stella box to protect the tires) later with a couple of brackets that are used to bolt roof trusses together and it was good as new ;-)

It's Just A Rust Spot!!

It’s The Quality Of the Bodge That Counts!!

I took it back for a re-test and it sailed through although the tester did say he was amazed that I had bothered and I should have just scrapped it, I wearily drew breath and once again explained that it was only Nicks bike and it would be funny when he didn’t even make it to Dover but as the tester has had the good fortune not to meet Nick he didn’t really know what I was on about, I asked him for a bit of video for our diary but he refused to be interviewed and walked off muttering something about a prat to himself.

Never mind, I’m just sitting at home waiting for the £100K cheque from Readers Digest to drop on the mat!

Expo 2009: Sponsors, nutters and the Michelin Man

2009-01-19T15:46:00.015Z

So we are just back from the Motorcycle Expo at the NEC. This was a trade only event so we had to use some special tactics to get tickets. It's called telling lies. Anyway it was only a small white lie, not a big naughty one.

First stop was the Cambrian Tyre stand which gave us a chance to meet our tyre sponsors, Continental. They obviously have a pedigree in sponsoring less than sane events since there on the stand was Nick Sanders, the motorcycling legend who currently holds the world speed record for solo circumnavigation of the globe, in a mind boggling 19 days on a Yamaha R1. By contrast, if we have reached Kent in the same time period we'll be on track.

True to form we then decided to retire to the bar which gave us an opportunity to come up with a precision plan to attract more sponsors. Unfortunately the proceedings were interrupted, when the Michelin Man who had obviously taken exception to us doing a deal with Continental, stormed the bar and performed a "big daddy splash" on Matt.

Unlike The Stig from Top Gear, the Michelin Man's real name is not a closely guarded secret and is in fact "Bibendum". Though we have a sneaking suspicion he sent a stunt double to the NEC who was in fact a fat brummie called Ron.

Oh ok then, for those of you who STILL haven't heard who The Stig is, his name is Ben Collins. It's amazing really that our tabloid hacks can expose secret government plots but took bloody ages to work out who the bloke turning up on set in a Simpson Bandit helmet was.

After a few pints the proceedings livened up even further when Matt decided to exact his revenge on Bibendum. From a distance of 50 yards he took a run up and took out the chubster from behind with a perfect sliding tackle. Unfortunately it turned out to be a fat lass in a white puffa jacket. Apologies, we hope the carpet burns heal soon.

Next stop was another of our sponsors, the guys from BSH Solutions. They were delighted to hear that we had already put their "Linkstrap" product in to good use. Only last weekend we
were able to immobilise Nick with just one strap after he started to waffle during a planning meeting and the ensuing bundle was performed without the risk of injury from his flailing arms and legs, which were securely fastened in a move that Boy George would have been proud of.

And what day out would be complete without taking a generous number of pictures of lycra clad ladies in Extreme Trifle gear. This time we even spent money on a new t-shirt, though we did have some trouble convincing the girls that "I love it the Wrong Way Round" does not have sexual connatations (ahem).

See you all at the London Motorcycle Show on January 30th where we'll be in the Bar or bothering exhibitors, or girls in lycra.

2008-12-30T14:08:00.004Z

It’s like this see, I had a few Stella’s and I was on ebay right and there was this van and I sort of hit a few buttons and well………

Well guys here it is, rather like getting hammered and waking up the next morning thinking you’ve pulled the girl of your dreams only to wake up to the faint aroma of tuna and find a 60 year old reject from Fat Friends snuggling up to you! Seriously though and using the same analogy, it’s a short term thing, we only have to slip inside her a couple of times a day for 6 weeks or so, as long as none of your mates find out it’s all good!

Hugs, the bald one xx

The Wrong Way Round Launches at the NEC

2008-12-09T10:39:00.018Z

The trip was officially launched at the Preview Day of this year's NEC Motorcycle Show. Our aim was to generate some publicity, get some useful contacts and perhaps pick up some sponsorship.

Knowing that first impressions count we decided some branded t-shirts would be in order.

Unfortunately we left this down to Charlie who thought it would be a good idea to iron on the cereal box quality transfers the night before, after the pub.

Despite the smell of singed cotton and burnt patches we tried to maintain an air of cool sophistication. When this didn't work we went to the bar. A few pints gave us a bit more courage and then things really started to pick up. On some occasions we were able to chat for minutes before the standowners called security.

More importantly however, it allowed us to film some decent footage for the video diary. Sadly this was somewhat compromised by our inability to work an external microphone. As with so many other occasions in life, we stuck it in the wrong hole. So, despite our best endeavours we might as well have been talking in to a chicken drumstick.

In the face of adversity we resorted to the back up plan. So armed with an Extreme Trifle t-shirt we set about photographing as many Miss Custards as possible. With the distraction of tight fitting lycra we ended up forgetting why we went, and in order to save face and ensure we didn't leave totally empty handed, we paid £2 for a goodie bag and £3 for some posters.

And then would you believe it, on our way out past the last few stands, we picked up a couple of sponsors. And actually something else quite big did happen on the day but we won't be revealing that just yet in case it falls flat on its arse. See below for the video highlights.

For full details of the trip go to the The Wrong Way Round website.

The Wrong Way Round

2008-11-20T15:21:00.005Z

From the desk of Extreme Trifle HQ

The established method of pioneering is that once something has been achieved you have to go one better. So once Edmund Hillary went up Everest the only way to better it was to go a harder route or do it without oxygen. And now that somebody has walked in space, no one will take any notice until someone breakdances in space.

The Extreme Trifle philosophy has always been to go one step crappier. That's not to say easier, just low on budget, low on glamour, and low on expectations. Now you may have seen something on the telly called the "Long Way Round". This was an epic bike trip involving a quite good actor and his unknown actor mate, who is now a very well known mate, though still not a good actor.

They went round the world on state of the art BMW motorcycles. We can't beat that, but we can certainly out-crap it. Which is where a 6hp, £150 moped comes in, a.k.a "the steppy".

A short history of "steppy" powered escapades

In 2003 we attempted to deliver pizzas from England to Sicily. After 9 days in the saddle we had only got as far as Rome, and the pizzas were starting to grow mushrooms that we hadn't added. "Pizzas to Palermo" was abandoned before our pizza boxes became a bio-hazard.

In 2005 we chopped some steppy's in half and with the aid of some scaffolding and glue made them 8 feet long. The result was probably the worst handling motorcycle of all time. "Cheesy Rider" was born, resulting in a 2,500km trip to the Faro rally in Portugal where we entered what was left of our bikes in the Custom Show. We came an easy last place on every count and thankfully didn't get beaten up by the beardy leather waistcoat brigade.

In 2006, "Ring Sting" saw us attempt to break the lap record at the Nurburgring. We did indeed set a new record...for the slowest ever lap at 22 mins 49 seconds. Though to be fair that was in the wet and included a crash.

With a proven track record of failure now it's time for the biggest cock up in our history. 18,000kms from England to Siberia to navigate the infamous "Road of Bones".

The Rules

In keeping with tradition there will be slack preparation and an over reliance on cables ties and duct tape to see us through. As every pizza delivery boy knows, a steppy doesn't handle properly when it leaves the factory so exceeding it's load limit by a factor of ten will be hilarious.

Expected difficulty rating

This rare 5-Tyre Michelin award is in recognition of the ridiculousness of the whole idea. Clearly we haven't thought this one through. which is a good thing, cos' if we did we'd scare ourselves and we're all out of clean pants.

www.extremetrifle.com/2/wrongwayround.php

C90 V T80 Road Test, The Real Deal

2008-10-28T21:37:00.004Z

After weeks of frantic searching I finally got my hands on that most elusive of beasts, the Yamaha T80. By the time I collected it and got back home it was too late to take it out for a test so it would have to wait.

I went to work the next day and the hours dragged by. I managed to skive off early and raced home with my heart pounding knowing what was waiting for me in the garage.

I should say that although I have extensive knowledge of the mighty Honda C90 I have not ridden one in anger for over a year and my previous bike (a Hayabusa) and my present Z1300 can only give me a basic understanding of the power I am about to have at my disposal.

Having got home I wheeled her from the garage, put her on the centre stand and just stood back to savour the moment. There followed a quick pre ride safety check during which I discovered that the front tire was 1.5 psi below the recommended 22 psi, this may not sound much but given the loads that I was about to subject this baby to there could be no short cuts. At this point I (bizarrely) felt a certain affinity with Andy Green (the Thrust SSC pilot) before he stepped into his cockpit to break the speed of sound.

During my moment of reflection I noted a number of advantages over the C90 notably the shaft drive (which is replaceable as a complete unit) and the sight glass to check the oil, how many C90 engines have we lost over the years to the mistress that is the C90 dipstick?

So the moment had arrived, I swung my leg over the saddle and found it pleasantly firm compared to my C90 memories. I turned the key, slid the choke out and kicked her over, she barked into life 1st kick and I listened in awe at the sound of the 79cc 4 stroke purring away, after 30 seconds or so I closed the choke checked my lights and indicators and slipped her into gear, the moment had arrived!

Gingerly opening the throttled I moved off my drive and down the road. Cutting through the traffic the T80 responded well easily keeping up with the 25 mph demands of rush hour in Farnborough. I soon got the hang of the 4 speed box which appeared to give a much better spread of power than the 3 speed C90 and easily poped spontaneous wheelies in 1st and 2nd gear when I wasn’t concentrating on my throttle control, although the T80 gives away a massive 6cc to the 85cc of the C90 Cub I could not detect a lack of power in this refined engine.

I then headed out of town to find an open stretch of road where I could really put her through her paces….

Finally I found a stretch of duel carriageway with the nearest car over 10 meters in front of me, at last, space to open her up! I cracked open the throttle and my head was forced back at least 2-3 millimetres by the sheer acceleration, I wasn’t ready for that! Rapidly moving through the gears I changed up into 4th and risked a glance at the Speedo, 45mph!! I knew there was more though so I checked the road ahead to make sure that there were no unsuspecting Merc SLK’s or Porsche’s poodling along that I would rear end and cranked the throttle all the way after what seemed like only a few minutes I had cracked the 50mph barrier, time to back off, I didn’t want to push my luck, I slowed to 40 and my internal organs returned to their original positions, I counted my blessings, how many people can claimed to have taken a T80 to the edge and returned intact. Lads, I think we have a new champion, C90 RIP.

Chapter 2: Off Road Training

Time to mass debate - C90 or T80?

2008-10-20T17:53:00.002+01:00

The recent Wrong Way Round meeting of minds descended into chaos and controversy when it was suggested that we move away from the tried and tested Honda C90 in favour of the Yamaha T80. The C90 has been a loyal servant in previous missions such as Cheesy Rider, Ring Sting and Pizzas to Palermo so this is not a decision to be taken lightly. In the world of motorcycling, this is on a par with the recent switch of the Moto GP paddock from Michelin to Bridgestone, only much more important obviously.

Having never ridden a T80 I decided to trawl various internet forums for the thoughts of those in the know. I was quite taken aback by the cut throat rivalry with T80 owners swearing superiority by virtue of an extra gear, shaft drive, and a longer fuel range.

The C90 owners were hitting back citing 12v electrics (and therefore the ability to fit handle grip warmers) plus the hilarious claim that the C90 posesses "loads more torque", as if it could almost pull the skin off a rice pudding.

Personally I will reserve judgement until I see how the T80 performs wheelies, stoppies, and how far you can crank it over before the centrestand digs in to the road and hurls you in to the path of a bendy bus...

We are cyberspace criminals

2008-10-17T13:42:00.002+01:00

Whilst clearing out the Extreme Trifle spam folder this morning something caught our eye. In between the many promises from strangers to "boost your erection powers" and "make her scream with your massive rod", was a mail titled "Copyright Infringement". Turns out this wasn't spam but an email from the worlds largest record label claiming that we had infringed copyright on the soundtrack to one of our videos. This is of course completly true, and not only regards the afforementioned video but in fact every single one of our videos.

But your honour, in our defence. This isn't an attempt to steal music without paying for it (we use piratebay for that). It is for the simple reason that it covers up the appalling dialogue/sound quality in the original video. I mean there is only so many times you can listen to someone saying "the car is broken", or "I think I left my passport at the border" with the background whistle of a desert storm. Having said that this is our only video that doesn't contain cars. Nevertheless, this concludes the case for the defence.

However, upon further reading of the email, whilst waiting to get to the paragraph beginning with "Court proceedings..." something unexpected happened. It appears the world's largest record label has decided to take no action and we can keep the video online providing we are willing to carry advertising on the page. We are sure this decision was in no way influenced by the fact the video has been viewed 80,716 times and counting.

Now if you will all join in the chorus "I fought the law...and the law didn't quite win".

Click here to see the offending item.

Autumn Escapades

2008-10-15T23:13:00.017+01:00

Mid-October already and there is so much to celebrate like...er, driving home from work in the dark, the credit crunch, and mince pies appearing in the shops already. You could be forgiven for wanting to escape. So let's all do it, we don't even need to dig a tunnel and crawl through a minefield. Join us on the Great Extreme Trifle Escapeaway with lots of marvellous distractions to cheer you up. As usual we've tried to keep things cheap as oven chips so even Madonna or an Icelandic banker can afford to come. So here is the line up for the next couple of months:

Moped Mayhem

Originally set for September 20th, the sun was shining, the teams were throttle happy chappies until the insurers proved just why they will never get a job at Del Monte by saying "NO". Having passed on our feedback that they had most definitely not quoted us happy we've set about trying to rearrange for November so keep those peds at the ready. Rev it.

Drac Attack!

Truly a "monster" New Year's Eve party where your host is...DRACULA!
You've seen him on the telly, you've seen him in your nightmares, now you can go mash it up in his crib. Think mania, think Transylvania. So long as Buffy doesn't turn up it's going to be a stonker. Sort of a Murder Mystery only without the mystery. It was him with the bloody great fangs what done it! Bite me

Rickshaw Rampage

Last call for mayhem of the third wheel (for this year at least). If you think Dracula is scary try driving a rickshaw in downtown Chennai. It's bum-clenching stuff, even more so once you've had a few curries. The original rickshaw challenge takes place again over New Year so grab a team mate and get in quick. Tuk it

Piste & Broke

All hail the return of World class rallying in bottom of the class MOT failures. More mud, ice and snow with a sprinkling of ex-Soviet military installations and the worst cuisine this side of a microwave hamburger. And yes, it could be minus 20c, but if beer gives you a blanket then Estonian black balsam gives you a double duvet with leg warmers. In England, if it snows things stop. In the Baltics they go faster, and sideways... Serve it on ice

and then there was the one we prepared earlier...

Car Trek: The Search for Uranus

Trek: Status update - mission aborted due to extreme drunkeness on The Bridge. The good news is we found Uranus on day one. The bad news, it's in Belgium. Our disappointment soon turned to joy however on arrival in Albania, as far out-of-this-world as you can get in Europe and the No. 1 destination for x-rated comedy place names. Beam me up

Still tons to come in 2009 of course involving 4 continents including Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. Some of it will happen, some of it won't. I mean it's not like we know what we are doing...

For the full line up of events go to www.extremetrifle.com

Rally Types, part deux

2008-10-05T16:07:00.003+01:00

Hands Off Mechanic (HoMo)

The Hands Off Mechanic is the bloke (always a bloke) who packs a 9mm spanner and nothing else. Irresistibly attracted to the centre of the action, he waves it about during any mechanical emergency. Four rallies later and he still hasn’t figured out that a 10mm might be more useful.

Deep down (well, deep down to him. To everyone else it’s as blindingly obvious as an Albanian policeman’s hat) the HoMo doesn’t really want to get oil on his Carhartt jeans. So despite being second under the bonnet at every breakdown, he’s never the one that plunges his hands in.

Instead, he offers sage advice. “Maybe a clogged air filter,” he says, poking hesitantly at the battery cover. He stays just long enough to be told what the problem really is, then strides over to the group. “Yeah, we’re having to totally rebuild the top of the engine. Nightmare. Thanks, I’d love a beer.”

The HoMo’s car is a shed. The brakes are failing, various lights don’t work and it’s been attracting police attention since Calais. This pleases him greatly. Every roadside disaster is another chance to wave his 9mm spanner about until the Spotlight Superhero actually fixes the problem. In the real world the HoMo drives a two-year-old diesel Toyota Corolla because someone told him they don’t break down. Last week he filled it with petrol by mistake and had to call the AA to rescue him off the M40.

The HoMo is closely related to the Showbiz Slacker. A camera in hand is the perfect excuse to hang around the action without actually getting oil in his fingernails. Truly professional HoMos have now dispensed with the 9mm spanner and simply follow in close convoy with the Spotlight Superhero.

Cap’n Faffer

Cap’n Faffer gets terribly distracted about the time everyone else wants to get going. As a rule, anyone wearing the Hat of Faff is addicted to the buzz you get when the group prepares to leave in the morning; telling jokes, taking pictures and recounting last night’s bruising encounter with a beer long banned from the EU. Trouble is, it’s completely slipped their mind to check out/take the tent down/drag their car out of the sand dune.

Only once the Health & Safetys start revving their engine with pointed aggression do the Cap’n Faffer types stir into action. Or they would if they could find their room key. Usually it takes the group to dwindle to just their teammate before Cap’n Faffer realises something’s amiss.

The same goes for petrol stops. Cap’n Faffer leaps out the car, takes a few pictures, animatedly discusses that near miss of the goat/policeman/border post, and only remembers to take a piss once everyone else is back in their car with engines on.

Concentration is not a Faffer strong point. Driving is a lottery and one with way better odds than the EuroMillions. Less “It Could be You” and more “It bloody well will be you if the Cap’n doesn’t stopping yakking into the CB while changing gear and scrabbling for the Coke bottle.”

Cap’n Faffers usually redeem themselves through sheer entertainment, but there’s always one team who snap after one Faff Attack too many.

Spotlight Superhero

Every rally needs one of these. Spotlight Superheroes are the legendary rally spannermen who revel in fixing any mechanical problem, no matter how desperate. In fact, the worse the better. As long as there’s a good-sized group on hand to applaud the result, the Spotlight Superhero positively relishes tackling disasters that would cause even award-winning AA men to go queasy.

Spotlight Superheroes remember the details of each and every bodge they’ve completed, usually involving plenty of gaffer tape and cable ties. Unless you want to hear all the gory minutiae of suspension struts rebuilt with 2x4 planks, live battery feeds, and gaskets made of Cornflake packets, they’re generally best avoided after beer number five.

Spotlight Superheroes have a long history of pissing about in crap cars and their knowledge of what causes an Austin Maxi’s brakes to fail is terrific if you’ve actually got an Austin Maxi with failed brakes, but less so if you haven’t. In fact, you don’t want to admit to having owned an Austin Maxi, or indeed bring the car’s name up in conversation at all, for fear of hearing the reason why British Leyland didn’t properly develop it… zzzz.

In general the Spotlight Superhero’s borderline autism is tolerated because without them, plenty of rallies would have ended in Dover.

However the Spotlight Superhero’s wife is less impressed. Despite all the tales of mechanical derring do, he STILL hasn’t fixed the sticking door lock on her Corsa.

The "Who's Who" of banger rallying

2008-10-03T17:49:00.005+01:00

Once the preserve of a few adventurous eccentrics, banger rallies are now so mainstream that you wouldn’t bet against your granny pitching up on her mobility scooter. Whether you’re a student or a city slicker, in the world of banger rallying it counts for nothing when you’re stranded in a monsoon half way up a mountain. Then it’s all about who you are.

So here is the Extreme Trifle “Who’s Who” of banger rallyists. You all know one of these, and if you’re honest there is a bit of you in each of them:

“The Luvvie”

This is the sort of person you clock straight away and make a mental note to avoid like bird flu. The first clue is a voice that is irritatingly louder than everyone else’s. Even though it’s the first day “The Luvvie” has already been to the local market and decked themselves out in ethnic clothing and beads. This has nothing to do with their appreciation of local custom and everything to do with trying to persuade you they are a seasoned traveller and intellectually superior.

Somehow everything reminds them of “the time I was caring for lepers in Jaipur” or when they “reached nirvana on a mountain top in Nepal”. The Luvvie has no mechanical aptitude to offer, never buys a round of drinks and is constantly on the scrounge for a roll up. By the time you reach the end of the rally they will probably have converted to Hinduism/Buddhism/Islam etc…

At the closing party avoid at all costs since this is where they stalk the room looking for anyone willing to become a Facebook friend to make up for their lack of real ones.

“The Health & Safetys”

Usually found in DIY stores on bank holidays The Health and Safetys are reaching way beyond their comfort zone and doing this “for the experience”. Their neighbours in the suburbs back home think they are completely wacky and its been all the talk at the golf club. There’s even been an article in the local paper.

The wheels normally start to come off during the opening party when they complain at the lack of canapés and bucks fizz. Their idea of roughing it means no en-suite so the realisation that there are no showering facilities in the Sahara comes as something of a shock.

They are always up at first light to make a point of tut-tutting at those individuals who are still lying in their own vomit having got rinsed on the local home brew. Later in the day they will comment on the “irresponsible” behaviour of the afforementioned vomit dwellers who are now handbrake turning their vehicles at every opportunity.

The “experience” means that next year they’ll be sticking with the self-catering villa in Tuscany.

“The Showbiz Slacker”

This one comes in two forms. The photographer and the documentary maker. In either case they assume that holding some expensive camera equipment absolves them from any form of mucking in. They rarely have their own vehicle, preferring instead to freeload by riding aboard with various teams (at least those they think will make for a good feature)

The SS is always there to capture your grief when you are digging your way out of a snowdrift/sand dune or trapped under the wheels of your own vehicle, but they couldn’t possibly help or they might not “get the money shot”. The one time you want them to be filming like when you roll your vehicle 15 times and cheat death, they either had the lens cap on, ran out of tape/battery or were filming themselves doing a dramatic voiceover.

And don’t be fooled by the wild claims about “The Documentary”. In Showbiz Slacker speak, Channel 4 = I hope I can flog this to Bravo…

“The Dump Valve”

So called because they are a total waste. Mercifully this type is more commonly found doing donuts in supermarket car parks after dark and if they do venture abroad it’s usually to pick up some sexual disease in Ibiza. Their rally car is only a slightly crappier version of the Nova/Saxo/Punto they drive to work. You know, it’s the one fitted with clear rear lenses and neon under-lighting just so we know they are a complete tool. Once on the rally they fly the flag for the Brits by wearing a Union Jack around their shoulders and variously refer to the locals as “rag-heads” or “darkies”. Justice is usually served when they break every motoring law to find that the local Police don’t do ASBO’s and prefer dishing out a good kicking instead.

“The Missed-the-point-ers”

They’ve turned up in a Landrover Defender, roofrack piled high with spare wheels and jerry cans, winch, sand ladders, snow tyres, army rations, and that’s just for the trip to Dover… Every seasoned banger rallyer knows that cable ties and gaffer tape will suffice for every eventuality except open heart surgery. You’re in the wrong place lads. Chop in the Landy for a Lada and we might be able to share a beer except then you would drive us to suicide with yet another interesting fact about the development of the Rover P1. Always instantly detectable over the CB radio as they insist on using proper CB speak like "we have the backdoor" instead of normal speak like "we are bell end last".

“The Couple”

If you are having relationship problems but can’t quite pluck up the courage to finish it then do a banger rally. Job done. Where else can you bicker constantly about whether the campsite is left up the dusty track or right down the bumpy track. Mates somehow just get on with things whether its two blokes, two girls or a mix. But as soon as you stick a “relationship” inside a car for 5,000 miles it’s a recipe for death by wheel brace. Let’s face it, the only couples who ever have as much fun on banger rallies as everyone else are the swingers…

"The Media Slag"

The Showbiz Slacker's dream. Happy to do anything to get to in a magazine or on the telly even if it means attaching jump leads to testicles. Every trip needs a few of these and they are never hard to find. You can usually spot them at the opening party as they are the ones snorting Sambucca and demonstrating how many straws they can get up their own nose, much to the disgust of the Health & Safety's. The Media Slag almost always brings fireworks on the trip which leads to great amusement when they attempt to launch a rocket from their own arse. They also make good trailblazers. If you are not sure whether the road ahead is mined or how deep the river is, the Media Slag can always be relied upon to go in first all exhausts blazing.

"The Mis-match"

The ones that email in saying, "I really want to do this but none of my mates will come". At Extreme Trifle we pride ourselves on bringing lonely singles together. We would never for a moment contemplate paring up the death-metal loving teenage goth with the retired postmaster. Mwwwhaahahaahaha. Bless, they usually spend the first few days biting their lips and attempting a conversation but by week two it's clear that the only thing they have in common is a desire to kill the other by wheelspinning on their head. Hell, despite our best attempts sometimes they actually like each other. Although we are still waiting for the first Extreme Trifle wedding...

“The Gap Year Students”

Ok let’s be clear. For the sake of this argument we shall divide these in to two camps. The real students and the trustafarians. Real students don’t buy a wreck off Ebay for a two week trip, they bring their actual car, usually a knackered Fiat Uno once owned by their mum. Trustafarians by contrast thought they would squeeze the trip in as they were “heading that way” anyway as part of their round-the-world-spending-daddy’s-money-fest. Real students can make a single pot noodle last for over 3 days whilst the trustafarian has made short shrift of the Fortnum & Mason hamper that was a good luck present from Uncle Torquil. But they do all have one thing in common and that is their ability to excel in extreme drunkenness, generally get naked at any opportunity and probably get some sex on the trip, even if it is with each other.

“The Travel Buddy”

Buys a beer, likes a joke, don’t take themselves too seriously, and always stops to help out even if they know nob all about fixing stuff. Basically the sort of person you’d put on your list to do another rally with. There’s not many ways you can go from total stranger to good mate in a couple of weeks, but chuck in some old vehicles and some comedy breakdowns and you’ve got yourself some new travel buddies.

“The Horny Swedish lesbians”

If only...

The Fridge door is open...

2008-10-02T18:51:00.008+01:00

Well it's just like your fridge at home really, except that the interior light is broken and there is probably more mould. So have a poke around and help yourself. First, there's the top shelf (which like all good top shelves) will have all the best bits, and your mum will not be pleased if she catches you looking. Then there is the middle shelf - full of the useful bits, and finally the bottom shelf which contains stuff that you no longer recognise or can't understand how it ever got in here.

Ok enough fridge metaphors, bearing in mind this blog has nothing to do with food, except maybe some trifle, which is extreme...