Jo Ackroyd’s Big Biking Adventure

If I look in wonder at the end of a gun, I’ll put my finger in the barrel and ask them if its real.

If I see a tea pot, I’ll assume there is a doormouse inside.

Another door will open on Sunday, with or without a potion. It’s important to me that I leave on cue. Not only to ensure that an early failure is avoided, but to ensure a real decision has been made.

I’ve never made a decision that means anything in my life. I have been a fortunate bystander. I’ve been a passenger in a car where I’m not the driver and now, in time counted in hours, I have the ability to take mental charge of my life.

It’s a considerable worry, if I get it wrong and I’m not a success, if I’m not up to the task and faulter away into hiding or if I grab it and use it and refuse to look back exploiting it for what it is, and could be.

I should remember that the success is measured by my means and my rule and not by others. I cherish the smiles along the way but I should also bear in mind the smile that matters first is my own. This sounds decidedly selfish and does not sit well with me but I also understand how a moments peace will come from many hours of perseverance.

By this I mean that I can’t expect to give others happiness if I don’t understand it myself.

My mortgage review is tomorrow, that’s a story in itself how the bank has played its own game in a falling market and told me my house is in negative equity. Their own property services have valued it last week at £15 more than I paid for it, their negative equity claims have come to nothing and the surveyors have revalued it and brought equity back into their unnatural virtual world of property values. It seems their only valuation, until I paid for an arbitrary individual surveyor, was based upon a computer model that’s run country wide.

Work continues, unfortunately. I feel they have missed the point, but then I’m sure every employee feels the same. Still they think Im insane, they cant understand why I might give up a job of work that they live and die for. They can’t see why life as it is, is not enough, they believe the only problem in the business lies completely at the door of their clients and the remodel of the business to suit a particular stream is not needed, if not an insult.

The bike needs a weight loss, as do I. The next feew days will be about harsh choices made in an environment where guess work is as close as I will get to knowing how, what and why things may be required. The things I pack are useful in some way I’m sure, but will they be useful to me in the circumstances I face?

I suppose I’ve also made an involuntary choice about malaria tablets, the nurse was incredibly unhelpful, virtually dumb by comparision to my expectations. I have a prescription but no knowledge. I think tomorrow will be a better day to pursue this with the chemist down the road.

I think I’ve been drinking for some time now, maybe a year and believing that the drink brings a solace of a type and style I dont find during daylight hours. I now know different.

The silence and solace is found in the daylight hours, the boredom is felt while the sun shines and the people around me toil and spoil to gather wealth. The entertainment comes with drinking. I change Lupin like into new thoughts, new challenges and interesting concepts. I see life through different eyes, different thoughts and bizarre emotions that begin to make sense in a surreal world where happiness law is obeyed and is policed by random kindness.

I know this isn’t the usual reteric. I know this goes against the grain and the mass thinking is that the reality is the sunshine and the stupour is the fantasy, but currently, I say that the Deja Vu of my world is more real than the society yo live in. My world has more love in it, more compasion, more fantasy and more possibility than the world where tin foil and orange peel create routines that might be currupted by my thoughts.

The door will be open on Sunday, I can walk through it, ride through it and begin to live a choice I’ve hidden from or I can have a huge prolapse!

Keep the faith!

Communication, Random Thoughts

Faith comes in the strangest of packages at the most unexpected times. Today I met with a friend who made me feel far more normal than I deserve and equally as odd as I have felt for a long while.

I’ve looked at the packing I need to do and Im very worried over the amount of stuff I’m taking. Gotta reduce it: weight is more of a problem than size but the stuff I’ve packed doesn’t include any clothes or comfort stuff for me!

Looks like the Eastern block chest wig will be staying at home.

Work is all but over. Although I have had holiday due and its been signed off so I can be paid for the first month while I’m away, there has been a mistake made and they want me to alter the holiday dates. While this means nothing to me and is easy for me to oblidge them, I feel used at the request. They knew the terms and signed up to them and their mistake is being acquisessed to by me and while it means no real harm the expectation that I should entertain their ideas and fall in line without so much as an aknowledgement gaules me.

It makes me remember how human you need to be when in business. Thinking of the shareholders does not excuse unethical behaviour in the market and does not excuse unhuman behaviour to your collegues.

So what started this idea of a trip away?

There are many reasons that have culminated into this, they range from boredom with life, not having lived the life I would have wanted and using the opportunity now, escaping a situation, rebounding from an ex, finding hope where there is none, being lonely, being busy with a fruitless search, finding no happiness in material gain and even wondering the meaning of life in a Monty Python kind of way.

As different circumstances and different days pull my thoughts around they react like a ballon being stretched before it’s blown. Each thought carries a different focus and today, I’m thinking about being told by a Director at work that I have reached as far as I’m going to get. This happened last April 08, about the same time as other things were going on, either gathering pace or coming to an end. Now I think that it was quite important to consider that if this is as far as I’m going to get, I’ll stop putting in the effort, concentrate on refining what I do into a shorter time span and then use the rest of the time to relax!

So what was a full time job is now measured in hours, I was going to set up another business on the side and see where it goes.

People need aspirations. without hopes and dreams we just stop, fall into a meaningless routine and look for the next sign that’s telling us where the exit is.

Communication, Expedition Preparation

I had high hopes that Shirley was going to be a Porridge Machine. Medium hopes at least. That was going to be the bright side smile to a dark and financially painful mend it, fix it episode.

With the gear box feeling as it does I assumed there was a good supply of porridge in there, enough to keep me going in the mountain cold!

BMW guys have taken it for a ride and apparently, it is what it is. There’s nothing wrong with it, the gears are exactly as they should be. I have to say this has more to say about Honda’s than it does BMW’s, but don’t tell Shirley that!

I think Shirley’s other name is Thumper, Shirley Thumper. Seems fitting given the nature of her beast.

I’ve fitted a new clutch cable and hope that’s going to help things, also fitted a new screen its a BMW original part and so I’m hoping its going to do away with the super speed vibrating nodding dog effect I mimick at 65mph.

I can relax and pack the emergency dental pack deeper in the panniers and not worry about the self adminstration temporary filling kit going off before I get a chance to use it.

The screen unfortunately is black but it is also noticably different to the other, considerably smaller and so the wind will hit more squarely. I think therefore I can refit the peak to the Tour X3.  I brought it home from the shop tucked into my jacket with the new MOT certificate. That idea didn’t last long, dropped it all at the first roundabout. That’s why bikes have panniers, but they would be much better if they weren’t in my living room.

The Uzbekistan Letter of Invite has been lost in the Embassy.  While this is unfortunate, maybe it will give reason for adventure later.

Getting any Visa in Moscow is, apparently, a very poor idea. It’s far too late now so I’ll have to think on my feet… wheels!

I’m going to rethink the packing lark and I have a sewing machine out at the moment making little straps to hold stuff on.

I hope this doesnt mean I’m turning to the pink side…

Two friends came round tonight, I gave them dishwater to drink that had been filtered through my sweetwater purifier and it tasted TERRIBLE. They were quite kind though and pretended it was ‘lemon squashy’ while i thought it was just ‘fairy liquidy’. They came baring gifts, one with music for the Nokia the other with a great gift, a St Nicholas engraved on the back with, ‘Every sunrise and every sunset’.

I hinted that these days though I’m not much of an early morning person! I woke the other day and realised that mornings are getting earlier and earlier. Sunrises in the winter are easy. Sunrises in summer - a whole new challenge!

One of them burped as they left, a bubble came out.

Communication, Expedition Preparation, Random Thoughts

A lovely friends dad’s ’special’ friends brother-in-laws cats funeral directors uncles brothers goldfish has told me that Russia might be more than I can chew!

(Identity protected to preserve the innocent)

I’ve bitten a chunk…

Maybe there is another view too.

You hear all the negative stories, but not the happy endings. You hear about misery but not triumph. You hear that the new neighbours are buggers, the next village eat their own children and that you dont trust anyone over the border.

Then the neighbours become friends, the next village makes fantastic stew and we find profit in trade over the border. It all becomes relative to our perspective.

We do the same in this country don’t we?

Nottingham don’t like people from Mansfield.

Londoners are not to be trusted.

People from the Isle of Wight have webbed feet and Burton upon Trent is an inbred town.

You see!

According to stories from our own inhabitants we innately trust no one.

Why should a view of Russia be any different?

Yet when you visit the Isle of Wight you do find nice people there, but they can also swim very quickly!

Maybe the stories and warnings are valid, perhaps they are told to keep us safe, to make us aware of a new and different environment. They could be told as methods to make us realise that our normal malaise is just not right when we are out of our comfort zone.

For all of my rememborable life I have been afraid and worried by such stories and because of this I have not lived the life of outrageous behaviour I wish I had.

So, I take the meaning and the intent. I will be especially careful the closer I get to Russia and I will seek out trustworthy advice as I go. I’ll maybe look for like minded travelers to meet up with at opportune times. I don’t want to be naive.

But equally, I don’t want to be scared of humans living human lives any longer.

After all, that’s faith isn’t it?

Communication, Expedition Preparation, Random Thoughts

I have lost Faith, I cant deny it, but there is also something else going on.

It’s as though Christmas or your Birthday is here, unwrap a present, and find another layer, strip back the postman stare and the black and white cat, pull away the newspaper tear and there at the back of my mind I’m thinking Faith is still there, I believe everything will work.

And if only 50 % works, Its 50% more than anyone else around me.

What is interesting is the more I think about things the closer I get to a realisation that…oh my god Im turning soft!

It’s all about love also.

I’m feeling unloved I feel as though I’m not sharing my love.

People need people dont they? As much as they pretend they dont, they do.

We need to talk, to discuss to look into each others eyes and feel that we mean something more than then WE believe, but only as much as they trust us to be.

I don’t have that.

It’s a release, realise that your not bound by the ties of others. Breathe a sigh and gain strength, take heart, look forward, look to what you have and could obtain, not material gain but just smiles.

Count the smiles you have and take a guess on how many more are to come.

If it’s not thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands…..then you need to join me to find your future, to find something you can be proud of and that might lead to an adventure thats unspoken by others around because they are too scared to get involved.

There is a lack of discussion. People become afraid when you mention a task like this, afraid in a way that cant be explained but only felt in silencepeople metion appropriate words of encouragement but precious few throw themselves into the world that divorces you from material wealth and career progression. Are these real things, can we feel a tangible asset from them or do we percieve them to be what they are through a value we place upon them?

It’s people that push us forward. Think the thoughts others do not favour. Be unpopular by being positive because through these thoughts we carry with us the rest of humanity that have decided that yesterday was good enough for tomorrow.

For me, every now and then, tomorrow is just not good enough.

Some people have a hard time pulling away from the safety of their current lives.

See you soon - feel the faith and embrace it.

In any way you can.

xxx

Communication, Random Thoughts

I’ve had a dream that cooking needn’t be a chore, my pots and pans need a stroke of ingenuity to make them truly work at a level of efficiency Reverend Stirling would be proud of.

Have you seen the Wikipedia page for Stirling engines? They are fascinating and the Rhombic Drive Beta version Stirling Engine is quite sensational…

Take a look. It’s a very ‘Male’ engine

Any who, off topic, I’ve been thinking how to cook with one pan. Apparently the boredom of food from a one pan cooking stove can drive you to excessive chumba eating elsewhere. So, I’m thinking how to make this thing work.

More to the point, I’m looking at the different to lessen the focus on the normal.  I’m pulling away from the ordinary and diverting to something else so I can imagine everything else is OK.

But to be more positive, I’m looking and spending time thinking of other things while my subconscious works out the detail problems of the now.

Both views are equally plausible, I like the latter but there is a disadvantage to this, that time passes while details are worked out in a less conscious state - as an old manager used to say; many times too often, “It’s a worry”!

Now and again I loose faith, or should that be FAITH!

I’m disappointed that the forks are not working yet, wrong springs, I’m upset my brake lines aren’t complete, I dont have the new K&N air box for desert travelling to help protect the fuel system, the electric modifications are not coming together.

To explain further, I don’t have the skills but I’m trying. I’m learning. My concentration has gone to pot - can I remember what it is I might of already learnt!!! Who knows.

I suppose if we were to consider the Buddhist view, when I need the information I don’t need to ‘work it out’  I only have to remember what it is I have already learnt.

Crikey - might take a while!!!!

The visas are not happening and I can’t find insurance, I have to keep working at work, I have to give a lecture on Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I need help but don’t know where to look, I’m feeling both helped and lonely in the same moment.  Ive had a great weekend with fantastic friends. It was quite memorable for many reasons, the bar dancing, the pole dancing, the local dignitary…or the food.

I need to recover FAITH!

Any ideas?

Living alone is hard, but preparing this kind of venture alone is more lonely.

But that’s the whole point isn’t it? If you were to help, you would undermine some of the purpose while reinforcing the rest. Your help would be appreciated and would restore FAITH that people have a good nature. But, would detract from one of the purposes - to restore self confidence through delivery of new skills.

Oh Dilemma!

Communication, Expedition Preparation, Random Thoughts

Indian Visa

I became excited about the Royal Mail ‘missed post’ slip as it must mean a Visa has been returned to me.

I got up early and went to the Post office collection point and picked up my passport, only to find the Indian visa returned because -oh I feel so shy to say - it’s foolish… I hadn’t signed it.

Attention to detail huh! Im having trouble staying focused.

In my defense, the bit of the form where you sign was tiny, miniscule, it was not large enough for my quill and too large for my needle.

It was hidden under the contractual text, a sliver of white against the dark misery of contract law.
But on a good note - guess what this means!

I may have made a mistake measuring the ‘Stan countries but this is my opportunity to repair the timescale I had roughed out. Since only two of the ‘Stans are fixed, Kazkhstan and Kygrystan by the visa process, I can change dates form there on and now India isn’t fixed I can change that too! So all’s well again with the trip times, I’ve lost 2-3 weeks from the end of the trip but to be frank, the lower Countries approaching the Congo in Africa were begining to worry me.

Globalstar Sat phone

Apparently two satelittes have fallen into disrepair, buggered from space. They have been that way for 18 months so the Sat 550 phone isnt going to be a worth while option. Should I be a stranger in a strange land, go somewhere and try to stay out of touch, how does the rest go…I cant remember.

I guy in a phone shop suggested a phone to me thats open to networks and I could buy several sim cards and work out a tariff spreadsheet for each country. I would but I can’t help but wonder if he got it right. Not because I doubt him, but of course I do, but because he looked like he was 12!

I’m going to mull this over and see where I’m led, but time is against me so I’m going to have to think quicker than usual.

I’ll only take 5 days to mull this one over!!!!

Communication, Equipment, Expedition Preparation, Visa's

I sent of for the Russian Visa today. I can’t help but feel there is more to this and I’ve missed a huge bit.
I must get Iran sorted; I just shouldn’t wait any longer. Now there is a job for tomorrow.
The bike is going together slowly so I’m becoming more cheerful, I only wish I knew more about mechanics. My Dad is a mechanic but I know little about his trade.

I’m thinking that every step forward helps though and when you rebuild a bit of the engine, a tiny bit, it may be small and very easy to some, it’s important to me to understand it and the part it plays in the whole engine. As such I think Im begining to learn two things. Patience, coming back the next day to start afresh smile and make it work and engines and how ‘feeling’ a bolt is just as important and tactile a trade as holding a pencil and designing a solution.
There is no compensation for understanding and since I have half an understanding of both, perhaps I’m best placed to bring the two together. I do have faith, faith in true tradesmen, those people that ‘feel’ their trade.

On another note. I’ve realised my age. I’ve realised Im no longer young but don’t want to realise just how much I’ve missed. I think often about fate, karma and being reincarnated with a knowledge from a past. I do wish I had someone with wise advice, but I don’t and to be fair, neither do you.

I have what I have as life experience, its been placed as my line by a fate I had no control of until sensibility struck. Some have it strike early, others late. Now my choices are my own and I have no one to blame but myself. Ironically I also realise that this has been the case for many years but only now has the clarity made me think, see and feel.

That’s why some the of the day has past. It’s a quarter to twelve and the choice of midday dinner is upon me.
I’m dissappointed by my conquests and as a man perhaps I’m less than others. My friend said something lovely tonight though.

She measures relationships in quality and content and not by quantity. How unusual to measure by depth and not by count.

If this is the measure of a man and in my case, what a beautiful analogy, then I agree.

I have the most incredible, fantastic, lucky and foolishly, happy, smiling, giggling history to pull upon. In which case my few conquests, I am very,very happy with. I love their face as they smile, their teeth as they grin and their giggle within their giggle. I’ll remember these as my last kiss rather than those days we left each other.

These are some of the things I will remember as I travel and be thankful for.

xxx

I’m alone and feel alone, but I have a faith that this is a short stop in my life. Pass encouragement to those that need it.

Communication

Communication. It’s key really. Anna has asked how many languages I speak, it’s a crucial question really when you consider the French nations in Africa, the Islamic nationals in Iran and how many Russian speaking countries I intend to visit.

Unfortunately the answer is one and a half. Even that is a thinking positive answer!

So how will I communicate?

It’s very crass to consider the English man abroad. Speak clearly, speak louder, as understanding doesnt dawn in the eyes of the listener, shout and point.

If I were to ask for a pint of Watneys Red Barrell then the Monty Python sketch would be complete!

So how shall I communicate?

With Faith.

Smiles and kind words, listening and self deprocating humility and by remembering the idea that these people are not foreigners, they are locals they are the incumberants inhabitants and I am the stranger in a normal and peaceful land.

I’m absolutely sure that the sound of a voice will at times scare me and suprise me after hours of silence. Any voice of any language wil make me jump and be gladly recieved. But I’ll be talking to myself, it’s inbuilt into me. I can’t help but have a substantial chat, I often hold a debate in my head and feel as though someone else is winning as it bursts out!

So while I’m riding along, I’ll be chatting in English. Just to keep in practice.

Smiles and faith.

Look on the bright side. If it all goes wrong…I won’t understand anyway!

Communication, Random Thoughts