Post 237: Tigers & Cows

I received some sad news today. Tassaneeya called from Thailand to tell me that her Granddad had died. I liked Granddad, he always made me laugh, he made me smile, but more often than not he enjoyed making me squirm by asking awkward questions about my relationship with his Granddaughter. I knew that he was teasing me, and he knew that I knew .... but it never stopped him.

He was an old man, nobody is sure exactly how old, but in a village where official documents are no more than garnish, such minor details never seemed to matter. He was a rice farmer who should have retired many years ago. Every day during the growing season he'd be out in the paddy fields tending to his crops and every night throughout the year, he'd sleep out in the fields where he could keep a close eye on his favourite cow. I’m not sure if the cow was ever in any danger or whether it was just the traditional thing for an aging Thai rice farmer to do. I’m sure that an illicit bottle of fortification was involved somewhere ..... but Grandma didn’t seem to mind. Granddad knew that I came from a farming family but he never quite understood why I didn’t still own a cow. Perhaps something got lost in translation, we were fluent in two totally different languages and the conversations that we shared were always accompanied by liberal quantities of laughter and Kao Lao, the local rice spirit.

I’ll miss Granddad, I’d promised to one day take him for a ride on my bike ....... but I think he’d have been far more impressed if my Tiger had been a Cow.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Post 236: Future Plans ... Minor Problems

I couldn't quite work it out, every option that I considered just seemed to come up against an impenetrable bamboo wall. The problem was Vietnam .... the rules seemed to suggest that without prior Government approval, it was going to be impossible to temporarily import any bike with an engine larger than 150cc. That restriction I could happily live with, but reading deeper into the current situation it appeared that the size of the bikes engine might be totally irrelevant. No matter what the official rules stated, crossing into Vietnam with any foreign registered motorbike seemed to be a general and insurmountable problem. It reminded me of Russia where they seemed to have one universal set of rules ...... but a hundred different versions of the rule book. Thailand, Laos and Cambodia seemed to be quite straight forward but Vietnam was starting to look like a problem too far.

I considered deleting Vietnam from the itinerary but that would be cheating or at the very least, admitting defeat. Besides, Vietnam was the country that I most want to explore on a motorbike, it's wild, it's beautiful and it's still amazingly cheap. I thought about buying a bike in each country, touring around and then selling it at the next border crossings. That would probably work, but the bike is really a major part of the journey and chopping and changing bikes would be a total pain in the arse. Then it came to me, ...... the problem was always about getting a foreign registered bike across the border into Vietnam, so why not start the journey by buying a Vietnamese bike in Hanoi? .... Simples.

Problem solved. I can probably beg a 'free' return air-ticket to Bangkok and from there travel overland by bus to Hanoi in northern Vietnam. Once there, for around £300, I can buy myself a ''Minsk 125'', put in a new spark plug, have it blessed at the local temple and then ride down the coast to Ho Chi Minh City in the south. Across the border into Cambodia, up to Angkor Wat and then cross into Thailand. From there I can follow the Gulf of Thailand down to Hat Yai and then turn around heading north along the Burmese border. From Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand, I can cut across into Laos and then complete the circle by returning to Hanoi and selling the Minsk.

So far, I've bought maps for the four countries, made a connection with my chosen charity 'SOS Children's Villages' and started the big 'Sell-Off' on ebay. Anyway, that's the plan so far. Three months touring SE Asia spending no more money than I would ordinarily spend on just Rent and Council Tax if I stayed at home in Blighty for the Winter. Of course it wont be as exciting as sharing a student house in Braintree for three months ....... but I'm sure I'll find something of interest to fill my days.

(If you're wondering about my fascination with Minsk's and Vietnam .... see the You Tube link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2y5jVJWs2w

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Post 235: Camping Sale ... fill your boots

It’s festival season, a time when teenagers across the country travel great distances to see their musical heroes perform live in front of thousands. I know that it’s not just teenagers who go to festivals, but it’s the teenagers that interest me the most ...... and I don’t mean in an inappropriate way. Mature festival fans are simply that; ‘Mature’ and ‘Fanatical’. They tend to plan ahead and the festival weekends are like annual pilgrimages, they arrive with everything that they need and they leave with everything that they brought with them. Teenagers on the other had are quite possibly visiting Glastonbury, Reading or Chelmsford simply because it’s something that every teenager should do, a rite of passage, a once in a lifetime event. They enjoy the live music, they revel in the 72 hour party atmosphere but over the course of the weekend, many of those teenagers will discover that camping just really isn't their thing. Come Monday morning their festival experience will be history, Sebastian and Samantha will move on to planning their gap-year experience and behind them in a rubbish strewn field will be a veritable smorgasbord of abandoned camping equipment. Post festival access to the Glastonbury site might be quite difficult, but after many of the smaller festivals you can lightly grease the palm of a contract worker and the Blacks Adventure tent, the Karrimor sleeping bag and the Big Greta air mat can be yours for a song. If you’re planning a journey then ‘Free-Cycling’ can save you hundreds of pounds and those savings will convert directly into extra days on the road. Try it ..... it's not very 'British' but you might be pleasantly surprised by the results.


www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Post 234: Horizons Unlimited

This weekend I've been attending the 'Horizons Unlimited' annual gathering near Denby in Derbyshire. Five hundred current and future adventure motorcyclists all in the same place. I'd been invited to speak but I'd never done anything like that before, I felt like a fraud amongst the worthy. I was on the same menu as Ted Simon, Paul Pratt, Sam Manicom, Simon Gandolfi and the king of public speaking, Austin Vince. I was rubbing shoulders with the real hero's of adventure motorcycling, the people who'd bought the tee-shirts long before Google Earth had been there to help them along the way. I hope that I did alright, my rooms were full, the folks seemed to laugh in most of the right places and nobody seemed to sneak out early. A big 'Thank You' to everybody for their support, the feedback was humbling and it's ignited a new flame ...... it's time to buy another map.

The photograph above is of Peter and Kay Forwood with their trusty Harley. In the thirteen years since they retired, they've ridden this seemingly inappropriate bike in 193 Countries ..... that's every Country in the world. Please don't ask me to name them because I couldn't. I'd whined like a spoilt child crossing one single border in Russia but these people have crossed hundreds and are still smiling. When you talk with folks like Peter and Kay, you begin to understand that you really could do more than you ever thought possible.

I suspect that the introduction to Adventure Motorcycling for many people came through watching the 'Long Way Round' and 'Long Way Down' series with Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. The series was amazingly successful, the books and DVD's were read and watched by millions and after their release, the streets of London were awash with BMW GS's dripping with Touratech bling. On the bikecentric areas of the Internet, people began throwing stones at Ewan and Charley, not for doing what they did, but for the amount of money that had been lavished on their projects. I didn't mind about their budgets, that was just a reflection of their own good fortune and if I'd ever had the choice, I would have gone for 'Rich Circulation' every time. When a problem arises on the road, that problem is often easier to solve if you can beat it to death with a bag full of money. Unfortunately, that's just the way that this world increasingly works. As I see it, the problem with Ewan and Charley's adventures, is simply that they made everything look so bloody difficult and dangerous. I can understand that as a commercial venture, there was a need to sensationalise their adventures, but I worry that in doing so they've dashed the dreams of many by making them worry about problems that simply really don't exist. Travelling on a motorcycle obviously raises problems that will need to be solved, but because you're riding a motorcycle, people will always stop and help you to solve them. (Once you're outside of London that is).

The overriding message from the Horizons Unlimited weekend was to sell your BMW R1200GS with it's Touratech garnish and to spend the money that you've saved on fuel for your next journey ...... my kind of people.

Over the weekend, I seemed to be the only speaker who didn't have a book to sell, but I'm working on that. Anyway, at least my hefty pile of 'Rejection Letters' got Saturday nights bonfire off to a very good start.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Post 233: Testing Times

The day after my 17th birthday aboard a Kawasaki KH250, I rode twice clockwise and twice anticlockwise around a small residential block in Darlington. I executed an emergency stop and then read the numberplate of a nearby car before answering four general questions on the highway code ..... total cost £3.20. After completing that twenty minute exercise, the nice man with the large clipboard handed me a certificate that entitled me to legally ride any motorcycle that I could afford on the roads of Blighty. At the time, I felt that the need to take a motorcycle test and the new legal requirement to wear a crash helmet were infringements on my liberty ........ but then I grew up.

April 27th 2009 was an important day for new bikers in Britain as it saw the introduction of the Driving Standards Agency's new Motorcycle Test. Since that day, the motorcycle newspapers and Internet bulletin boards have been rife with criticism of the DSA's new two-part test process. Apparently, in the safety of a non-road environment, new riders are being asked to make two quick changes in direction before executing an emergency stop from around 30 mph. Reports of 'dramatic accidents' and 'multiple injuries' seem to be everywhere and the 'Press' are blaming these incidents on the sharp decline in test applications from potential new riders .... what an absolute load of horse bollocks.

Ok, so the new test may be more expensive than it's predecessor and it may be more testing for the new rider, but it's supposed to be testing and the clue is in the title ..... it's a bloody 'Test'. Apparently 16 riders have crashed their bikes attempting to maneuver around static plastic road cones and a few have even been taken to hospital ..... wow! I work on a bike in London, I ride for 12 hours a day, I see hundreds of people riding bikes and scooters on the road and my assessment of their riding abilities are to be kind .... variable. If you take a tumble whilst riding around stationary cones in an empty car park then that's got to be a better learning process than trying it for the first time when avoiding a Black Cab in the rush-hour. If a new rider is scared of taking the tumble in the first place, then perhaps they should reconsider their entire relationship with powered two wheeled vehicles. In my eyes, tumbles come with the territory of riding and the opportunity to take your first tumbles in the supervised safety of a car park is an opportunity far too good to miss. With the able assistance of a calculator, I worked out that 1 in 250 applicants have taken a fall since April 27th ..... lower odds than winning the lottery but still an awful lot better than dying out on the road.

The only thing about the new DSA test that will deter new riders from taking it is the sensationalist reporting from people who should bloody well know better. The new DSA Motorcycle Test will probably help to save the lives of those who really want to learn ........ and will hopefully deter those who already know it all.

The photograph above is of my daughter Hannah when 12 years old. She's riding my Honda CBF600 dispatch bike on four inches of gravel in Great Saling. She didn't fall off the bike until she'd studied Newton's Laws of gravity in physics lessons at school ..... I wonder if there's a connection?

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Post 232: Seriously folk's, .. It's your votes that count

The 'Clapometer' might just be for fun, but do our votes really count? On Friday June 5th 2009, after Caroline Flint had fallen on her hair straighteners and resigned from the Cabinet, Gordon Brown announced his emergency reshuffle. Flint had blamed the Prime Minister for treating his female colleagues as little more than 'Window Dressing', but I seem to remember recently seeing Caroline Flint draped across some DFS sofas in rather provocative poses in the Observer Magazine. The first reshuffle surprise was that Alastair Darling remained as Chancellor of the Exchequer when everybody had expected Gordon's best buddy Ed Balls to get the job. It later came to light that Alastair Darling had simply refused to move aside. It looked like the limp tail wagging the hapless dog. Looking through the list of Gordon Brown's new inner circle, five names caught my eye. The twice sacked and twice disgraced Peter Mandelson effectively becomes the second most powerful person in Government. He's promoted to Gordon Brown's defacto deputy and Alan Sugar is being brought in to support Mandelson's portfolio of industry and business. The next name that caught me eye was that of Glynis Kinnock, the wife of former leader Neil Kinnock, who will take over Caroline Flints responsibilities for Europe. Paul Drayson keeps his position as Minister for Science and the fifth name that struck me, Andrew Adonis, remains as Minister for Transport. Despite what you might think of these individuals, written in that way it all seems to be quite normal, nothing amiss and all above board. However, write those names in another way and it all seems to fly in the face of democracy and makes our individual votes seem quite pointless. Lord Mandelson, Lord Sugar, Lady Kinnock, Lord Drayson and Lord Adonis. These five Ministers are are not MP's, they are in fact all unelected members of the House of Lord's but are now making major decisions concerning the running of our democratic Country. Come to think of it, none of us ever voted for Gordon to be our Prime Minister either.

Everybody is speculating about just how long Gordon Brown can remain as party leader and the smart money seems to suggest that he'll be gone within the month. I'll stick my neck out and suggest that unless Labour suffer a major defeat in the European elections, come the next general election Gordon Brown will still be the leader of the Labour Party. If Labour MP's voted to replace him now then that would mean that we've had two consecutive Prime Ministers who were not appointed via a general election. Surely that's something that this Country just wouldn't accept. Despite anything we might think about the viability of the opposition parties, under Gordon Brown or even Alan Johnson, Labour haven't got a snowballs chance in hell of winning a general election any time soon. Thus, Labour MP's voting for a change of leader now would be akin to turkey's voting for an early Christmas. They've just lost their lucrative 'Expenses' and I'm sure that they wont vote too quickly to lose their jobs as well. Anyway, who in their right mind would want the job now?

It hasn't been the best of weeks for Gordon Brown or Labour, but then the Conservatives have very little to swagger about either. If Gordon Brown exists to make Tony Blair look competent, then he's probably doing the same thing for the Tory Party. The European election results will be announced on Sunday night and I suspect that the whiff of 'Expensegate' will do very few favours for any of the three main parties. We'll probably see a new selection of ambitious chancer's and the odd well meaning Green moving to join the European gravy train but I can hardly complain about that because I didn't actually vote. It's not that I didn't want to vote, it's just that for some strange reason we still hold our elections on Thursdays, a day when even in this current economic climate most people still go out to work. All parties complain about 'Poor Turnout', but When will they finally see the light and move our elections to a Sunday?

On a slightly funnier note, next time you hear a Labour or Conservative MP being interviewed on television or radio, see if they actually mention the term ''Expenses''. In the same way that MP's express 'Regrets' instead of 'Apologies', I've noticed that the new term for 'Expenses' seems to be ''Allowances'' ..... a different word but the same lingering stench.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Post 231: A Fox Perspective

Killing time in swanky reception areas s an occupational hazard that never seems to disappear. Normally the time is passed by watching the comings and goings of various people and according to their levels of politeness, trying to guess who is there to 'Sell' and who is there to 'Buy'. However, on the cinema sized plasma screen they were showing Fox News, a programme that I haven't seen since leaving America last November. I couldn't avoid watching it, I was hooked.

It's nice to see that in an attempt to provide a balanced view of both domestic and world events, Fox News carried an equally large chip on both of it's shoulders. It was an educational hour and the first revelation was that due to light snowfall overnight in one of the Northern States, Fox News could now prove conclusively that Climate Change was nothing more than a myth. Secondly, it was good news for George W Bush because the current world economic crisis was caused entirely by President Obama. GWB and the Republican Party are apparently innocent of all charges.

I then learned from Bill O'Reilly that President Obama was now actively appointing known racists to the position of Supreme Court Justice, which I suspect is the equivalent of a UK Law Lord. A judge by the name of Sonia Sotomayor apparently suggested that being an 'Hispanic Woman', she could understand the challenges faced by other 'Hispanic Women' more easily than your average 'White Man'. Apparently, instead of being a logical statement of fact, that comment simply makes her a 'Racist'.

Thankfully towards the end of the Fox News Hour, they moved on to more serious matters and briefly discussed the threats posed by Iran's Mahmud Ahmerdineajad and North Korea's Kim Jong Il. Although the former wants to wipe Israel from the face of the earth and the latter is exploding nuclear devices for the sheer fun of it, the biggest topic for discussion was their respective hairstyles.

As the programme ended, Fox News had clearly saved the very best for last. They praised George W Bush for his refusal to criticise President Obama for his poor handling of the economy and stopped just short of suggesting that GWB would be a good role model for Obama to follow. In the credits I found that Bill O'Reilly was sponsored by a bespoke tailor and a producer of tooth whitening products ....... and who said that comedy was dead?

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Post 230: BMW Madness

Oh to have been a fly on the wall at the design meeting when the normally same BMW boffin's came up with these new 'K' series bikes. It probably started off on safe ground with the K1300 GT and S models which are both fast, practical and in BMW terms, totally conventional. I can only imagine that BMW were offering work experiences to a student who was then invited to contribute to the proceedings. The result of that contribution was the K1300 R. The 'R' I suspect stands for 'Roadster' put probably owes more to the 'Reefers' that the student clearly passed around during the lunch break ...... The K1300 R is totally insane.

Roadsters such as the Suzuki Bandit 1200, the Yamaha XJR 1300 and the Honda CB1300 have been around for some time and a similar example from BMW shouldn't really come as anything of a surprise. The conventional wisdom has always been to take a proven sports bike engine, slide it into a street bike frame and adjust the power to compensate for a lack of wind protection. It generally works quite well and you end up with a bike that's both practical and fun. However, BMW seem to have forgotten one major element in the design of the K1300 R ...... At 176 bhp, they didn't reduce the power.

The 'R's' handlebars are quite low and BMW have added a tiny bikini screen to deflect the worst of the windblast, but when you open the throttle in any gear, this bike just vanishes towards the horizon and if your arm and neck muscles are strong, you might just be lucky enough to keep up with it. For the first thirty minutes it's fun, but any longer than that and it's difficult to think of anything far beyond your own mortality. With a flick of the wrist in any of the first three gears the front wheel lifts into the air but thankfully usually lands in a straight line. The top speed is really quite academic because your arms and neck will never be strong enough to reach it. Unless you're laid flat along the tank like a teenager on his FS1E, anything above 85 mph becomes quite painful but I suspect that the 180 mph limit of the speedometer is not overly optimistic. The only subtle thing about this bike is the light grey paintwork, but it also comes in bright orange. The K1300 R is not the fastest bike that I've ever ridden ........ but it certainly feels like it.

We had a great time messing around on these three bikes and although I really wanted to love the K1300 R, my heart was lost to the bigger and more expensive Grand Tourer. The K1300 GT is definitely the fastest, safest and best handling touring bike that I've ever had the pleasure to ride. It has every gizmo imaginable, it hides it's weight well and any bike that allows the pillion passenger the ability to determine the warmth of their own arse at the flick of a personal button ........ has got to be given respect.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Post 229: Grumpy Old Man

This week I've finally submitted my 2007/2008 tax return to the Inland Revenue and TRD have asked for my expense receipts for the month of April. I'm self-employed and as such, I'm legally bound to make sure that any expenses I submit are directly related to the income that I produce. If I make an 'Accounting Error', accidental or otherwise, then I face prosecution and if found guilty could receive a sentence of up to ten years in prison. I'm not an MP, I don't own a first or second home that I can 'flip', my rented room isn't big enough for a plasma TV and while my room is definitely my castle, it certainly doesn't have a moat. I fully expect the Inland Revenue to question my claims .... they always do. In a few months time, they'll insist that I owe them more money .... they always do. Of course I'll pay them .... I always do. They understand that for individuals like me, it's cheaper to pay them than it is to fight them. They grind you down until you finally reach for the cheque book and willingly bend over to accept your punishment with a smile.

Our MP's don't seem to see anything wrong with having their collective snouts in the Westminster trough, they just seem to be miffed about the fact that they eventually got caught doing it. They expect me to purchase and carry an ID card, they want to store all of my personal data with unknown third-parties, they want to read my personal eMails yet these same MP's tried to defeat the freedom of information request that finally brought their expenses into the public eye. In a few weeks time we'll have the European Elections and the three main political parties are worried that we'll all go out and vote for the loony fringe. But who the hell should we vote for?

Our elected leaders seem to think that because of 'Expensegate', we've lost all confidence in them ...... which suggests that they are totally dim or have very short memories, perhaps both. War on Iraq? 45 minutes from Destruction? 48 Hours to save the NHS? The Hutton Report? Cash for Questions? Cash for Honours? Referendum on the European Constitution? Light Touch Banking Regulation? Britain best placed to endure the Global Recession? Economic Growth of 3.5% in 2010? The only politician that seems to have brought any glimmer of light to the dark hole that is Westminster, is Vince Cable of the Liberal Democrats. Unfortunately St. Vince isn't standing as an MEP in my constituency and therefore I couldn't vote for him even I wanted to. Maybe I'll vote, maybe I wont ....... but at the moment I'm in favour of 'None of the above'.

On a much happier note, BMW seem to be trusting TRD to ride their latest range of superbikes; the K1300RR, K1300GT and K1300S. It's bound to be raining in South London on Monday morning ....... but somebody has to do it. I've no idea what we're going to do with the bikes or where we'll be riding, but I'll certainly make sure that my fuel receipts are in order.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Post 228: Busman's Holiday

I had a choice, I could either complete my 2007-2008 tax return for HM Revenue & Customs ....... or I could do something else. As the sun was shining, 'Something Else' won by a landslide.

I've worked in London for longer than I'd care to remember and while I've developed a certain fluency in the language of 'Post Code', I've never actually done the more usual tourist things. I convinced my daughter that 8am also existed at weekends and dragged her into London for a day of low cost capital exploration. We'd avoid the likes of Madame Tussaudes and instead concentrate on the cheaper side of London.

Starting in the City, Hannah already knew that 'Monument' had been built by Sir Christopher Wren and at 202 feet tall, she understood the significance of it's height. She was aware of the historical importance of 'London Stone' but found it difficult to understand why it was hidden away in a wall where everyday thousands of people walk past and have no idea that it's there. As groups of tourists stood gazing at the Royal Exchange Building at Bank Circus, Hannah correctly identified that they were looking in the wrong direction and pointed out the real Bank of England on the opposite side ot Threadneedle Street. Working east, I showed her an old photograph of St Paul's Cathedral and invited her to spot the significant difference to it's facade. She got it, but I suspect that many people wouldn't. Next it was 'Temple Church' which she'd heard of through the Da Vinci Code but had no idea where it was or even that a few acres of blissful tranquility could exist in the centre of one of the world's busiest cities. Before Dan Brown went and ruined it, this had been one of my favourite places to escape the CitySprint controller's and relax with a flask of coffee. Into China Town and a second site from the Da Vinci Code, the Jean Cocteau mural in the Notre Dame de France which impressed her not ..... and if the truth be told, me neither.

Across the river, we looked at London's finest fresco's of amateur 'Tagging' and watched a couple of young artists applying their art. The street artists along the Southbank were out in force and especially impressive were the dance groups who entertained the audiences with a fine display of double jointed gymnastics. We finished the day with a 'flight' on the London Eye, the only event that cost any real money in our short 'Poor Circulation' of London ..... but it was very impressive, worth every penny a good end to a great day out in London.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Post 227: Future Plans

In the Spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love ....... really? I'm not here to knock Alfred Lord Tennyson, but surely even back in the 19th Century it didn't take the arrival of 'Spring' to move a young man's thoughts in that particular direction. Perhaps I'm a lot older than I realised and thoughts of love are certainly infrequent visitors to any of my seasons, but Spring is definitely a good time for making new plans.

Over the Winter months I tried making plans for the next instalment of Poor Circulation but every move forward seemed to be accompanied by an equally long journey in reverse. There were tentative promises of financial support that eventually sank without trace as the world's economic crisis deepened, an unforgettable encounter with the NHS and countless other both real and imaginary excuses that diverted me from the task in hand. When there are eight hours of daylight and sixteen of darkness each day, it's hard to get motivated when things are seemingly slipping away from you. But then Spring arrives, the days get longer, everything becomes a little easier and plans that had once seemed almost impossible to achieve start falling into place and your motivation returns.

My love for SE Asia is no real secret and starting in November 2009, that region will/should/could be the destination for Poor Circulation II. A solo journey around Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia on a bike, but on exactly 'what' bike is still uncertain. Because of restrictions on entering Vietnam with a motorbike, it looks like I'll need to use a bike with an engine capacity of less than 150cc. There is a way of getting around this restriction that involves the cooperation of several different government and private organisations but it's a very complicated process. I'm working on that solution at the moment but if it turns into an administrative nightmare then I'll just lose some weight and do it all on a scooter. The budget will be slim, an awful lot slimmer than it was for the first journey, but thankfully the GB£ still stretches an awful lot further in SE Asia than it does in Europe and North America. Ideally, and perhaps stupidly, I'd like to work on the basis of £10 per day with an additional £1,800 for the bike, flights and insurances etc., making a total budget of around £3,000.00 for a four month journey. The benefits of working with such a low budget is that every little bit of help that you receive has a disproportionate impact on the overall costs. (The blagging letters will be sent out in early summer). I'll be working with, and raising money for SOS Children's Villages, a UK based charity that provides safe accommodation, education and health care for orphans across all four of these countries.

That's about all I can really say at the moment ...... but it's a great way to avoid another Winter in Britain.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Post 226: One Year On

Time flies when your having fun and 23rd April 2009 came as something of a surprise, ..... it marked 365 days since Poor Circulation, with the help of a new battery from White Bros. Honda in Darlington, had departed from St Teresa's Hospice. Unfortunately I didn't have the opportunity to celebrate the 1st Anniversary with the Tiger but shared the day instead with the slightly less charismatic 1050 Sprint ST courtesy of Triumph UK. It's funny how things have changed because a year ago I didn't really like the Tiger at all, I regretted choosing it for the journey and even as we headed into Europe on the 1st of May, I doubted it's ability to complete a full circuit of the world.

Time and tenacity have proved me and a good many other doubters,.... to be wrong. Aside from a snapped clutch cable changed at the side of the road in Siberia, a loose battery terminal in Irkutsk and a blown headlight bulb replaced in Boonville Ca., the Tiger took the entire journey in it's ample stride while many other seemingly more appropriate bikes were disintegrating all around me in Russia. 28,000 miles on a variety of roads and aside from fuel and oil, the Tiger consumed just two tyres, one clutch cable, one headlight bulb, one set of brake pads and a drive chain, ..... which is really not too bad when your working on a very tight budget. It ran perfectly well on 86 Ron fuel in Russia and averaged just over 50 mpg for the whole journey. The £20 tent and £10 sleeping bag lasted the course and £20 spent on the army surplus Gortex jacket and trousers was quite possibly the best investment that I've ever made. The £2 mud-foot stopped the bike from falling over and the £5 auxiliary fuel and water tanks kept the journey moving when populations became scarce. The modifications were more 'Heath Robinson' than 'Touratech', but they seemed to work well and probably saved me a small fortune. The major safety addition to the bike were the engine protection bars donated by Frank at 'Triumph-OnLine.co.uk' and although I tried to avoid crashing too often, they saved me from physical and financial disaster on many occasions. The maps that I took with me could have been more accurate but the £5 compass that was super-glued to the Tiger's screen was always true. It took us East, it kept us away from wars and it brought us back to the Ace Cafe in London, .... £5 well spent.

The original budget that I set was £20 per day with an additional £5,000 for the bike, the kit, the insurances and all flights and sea journeys. People laughed and people looked concerned, they said that it couldn't be done but I had confidence in the generosity of strangers and set off in blind faith. In the final analysis, the budget came out at just under £28 per day, but assuming that the Tiger still has a resale value of around £3,000 -ever the optimist- then the whole journey was completed at a total cost of £7,000, .... which is probably a little less than the more famous ''Long Way'' adventures. If I then account for the financial support that I received, the actual total budget came out at a little less than £20 per day, ..... and so using Alastair Darling's system of accountancy, I guess that I was actually under budget. I'm not sure if I set out to 'Prove' anything, but what I hope I've shown is that with generous help from others, you don't need to have a huge amount of money, experience or skill in order to live your dream, ........ you just have to decide to do it.

I was lucky in that the help from CitySprint and writing for The Riders Digest paid for my fuel and allowed me to stay in motels, and in some cases brothels, for at least 19 of the 197 nights spent on the road. Not taking a credit card was perhaps not the wisest of decisions, but it actually worked in my favour. It meant that I relied upon cash and before departure I changed my budget from GB£ into US$ at a rate of 1 to 2, ... which was accidentally perfect timing.

In the four months since arriving back in the UK I've found it difficult to settle and spending time trying to create a book that is readable has simply reminded me that life on the road is far better than life in a student bedsit. It's been difficult fitting 28 weeks of adventure into the limited space available between two covers of a book but I hope that in the end it all makes entertaining sense. I'm now 75% of the way to raising my target of £5,000 for St Teresa's Hospice and once that target has been reached, I'll be setting out on a second adventure. I'd like to once again say thank you to all of those who donated via my justgiving site and assure you all that every penny is greatly appreciated.

Next week I'll hopefully explain a little more about the future plans for 'Poor Circulation' but in the meantime, ........ I've got a Triumph Tiger that needs a little love.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Riding Tip of The Day: If you love your motorcycle but loath the sight of fresh blood, then always remember to remove the security chain before you ride away. Don't worry, ..... just a minor flesh wound to the knee and a slightly more serious bruise to my credibility.