Who can remember their first big trip?

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PHILinFRANCE
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Re: Who can remember their first big trip?

Post by PHILinFRANCE »

daveuprite wrote: Sat Feb 10, 2018 8:23 am
Tramp wrote: Sat Feb 10, 2018 6:50 am Mine was at 16.5 years old no idea but had the adventure spirit, rode from preston to paris and back on a restricted mt50 honda ate bread and jam :o ...slept by bike off raod side, fell in love with france then....just woke up one morning and said going fof a ride dad and yes had belstaff and just one change of clothes and all wrapped in a double dutbin linner with bungee straps :D

Owe how i wish i hadnt grown up :lol:
Love that story. I made the grand old age of 18 before my first bike adventure and I had graduated to an RD400, which felt like a rocket ship compared to bikes I'd had before. I also bungeed sod all to the back and shivered my way from the Thames Valley to Anglesea, to see a mate who had moved there. Bloody miserable trip using the most basic map of the UK sellotaped to the tank, but I got there and back.

First proper adventure trip didn't involve a motorbike. 1989. Hitched in cars, vans, on top of trucks, walked, took trains, boats, ferries and matatu buses etc across Africa - from Morocco/Algeria south across the Sahara via Tamanrasset, up the Niger river to Timbuktu, down to Nigeria, Cameroon, Zaire and across the central African rainforest, 1000 miles upstream on the Congo river to Kisengani, over the Ruwenzori mountains and down the E African rift valley / Uganda /Kenya/ Mozambique, then up the Indian Ocean coast on Dhows to Lamu Island. Flew home to London from Nairobi via Moscow on a cheap Aeroflot flight. Much of the route I took is now impossible due to various wars and restrictions. You can't really take the central Saharan southerly route any more and the Congo has been allowed to silt up making the DRC riverboat trip almost impossible nowadays too. Big adventure. Lots of danger and hard times, but SO rewarding, and I don't go a week today without thinking back to that 9 month trip in some way or other.
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Re: Who can remember their first big trip?

Post by Spike941 »

Ferry to Cherbourg then rode to Andorra in 1984 on a Z1000 Kwaka. Army kit bag from a jumble sale and a set of canvas bicycle panniers strapped to the back. All 4 cylinders were working ok on the way down, but 2 packed in for some reason on the way back. So you could say I came back on a Z500 twin. Great trip, and thankfully the cylinders sorted themselves out by the time I got back to the ferry.
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Re: Who can remember their first big trip?

Post by vRSG60 »

Mine wasn’t that long ago.




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Re: Who can remember their first big trip?

Post by ggp59 »

92' to France on an XBR 500 with a £9.99 Argos tent (leaky Wendy house :) )
Didn't have clue what we were doing, and it pissed down most of the week but still the most memorable trip ever
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Re: Who can remember their first big trip?

Post by OB1 »

In 1989 my sister was living and studying in Duisburg, Germany. I was 21 and had just bought my first brand new bike: a Harley-Davidson XL 883 Sportster. So, along with a mate riding pillion and another on a GPz500, we headed over, from Lincoln, to see her. All we had was a small map and her address so, when we finally arrived in Duisburg, we spent at least an hour riding round looking for the street and asking for directions. Of course, being young and riding a new bike, I didn't take a tool kit: during the final run from Dover back to Lincoln, the chain was so loose that I was having difficulty engaging gears!
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gbags
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Re: Who can remember their first big trip?

Post by gbags »

I fell in love with my brother’s BMW 75/6 but I couldn’t ride it so I bought it and he taught me how to ride.
A month or so later, I booked a test, rode the Beemer to Southampton and picked up a rental scooter, took the test and afterwards handed the scooter back and rode the Beemer home.

Then my girlfriend and I shipped the bike to New York and rode around America and the Baja for seven months. We were early twenties and had a great time crossing the Midwest to the Rockies, then the national parks like Mesa Verde, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryceand Yosemite, Death Valley, heading West. California was great, the Baja a little bit wild for us at the time.
Eventually we sold the bike and flew home. Great trip.
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Re: Who can remember their first big trip?

Post by gbags »

“First proper adventure trip didn't involve a motorbike. 1989. Hitched in cars, vans, on top of trucks, walked, took trains, boats, ferries and matatu buses etc across Africa - from Morocco/Algeria south across the Sahara via Tamanrasset, up the Niger river to Timbuktu, down to Nigeria, Cameroon, Zaire and across the central African rainforest, 1000 miles upstream on the Congo river to Kisengani, over the Ruwenzori mountains and down the E African rift valley / Uganda /Kenya/ Mozambique, then up the Indian Ocean coast on Dhows to Lamu Island. Flew home to London from Nairobi via Moscow on a cheap Aeroflot flight. Much of the route I took is now impossible due to various wars and restrictions. You can't really take the central Saharan southerly route any more and the Congo has been allowed to silt up making the DRC riverboat trip almost impossible nowadays too. Big adventure. Lots of danger and hard times, but SO rewarding, and I don't go a week today without thinking back to that 9 month trip in some way or other.
[/quote]


Bloody marvellous! That’s a proper Boy’s Own trip!
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mark vb
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Re: Who can remember their first big trip?

Post by mark vb »

First big bike trip was from East Kent to the Forest of Dean and back via the West Country, with a friend on our sports mopeds, in the summer of 1976. He'd unwisely fitted 'ace' bars to his bike and, as a result, ended up with an almighty back ache.
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Re: Who can remember their first big trip?

Post by Brenhden »

My first trip was 2013, on a bike I got from this forum across Belgium and Holland. I got lots of good advice form here too. Thanks all :D
And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.

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Re: Who can remember their first big trip?

Post by daveuprite »

gbags wrote: Tue Feb 13, 2018 3:12 pm “First proper adventure trip didn't involve a motorbike. 1989. Hitched in cars, vans, on top of trucks, walked, took trains, boats, ferries and matatu buses etc across Africa - from Morocco/Algeria south across the Sahara via Tamanrasset, up the Niger river to Timbuktu, down to Nigeria, Cameroon, Zaire and across the central African rainforest, 1000 miles upstream on the Congo river to Kisengani, over the Ruwenzori mountains and down the E African rift valley / Uganda /Kenya/ Mozambique, then up the Indian Ocean coast on Dhows to Lamu Island. Flew home to London from Nairobi via Moscow on a cheap Aeroflot flight. Much of the route I took is now impossible due to various wars and restrictions. You can't really take the central Saharan southerly route any more and the Congo has been allowed to silt up making the DRC riverboat trip almost impossible nowadays too. Big adventure. Lots of danger and hard times, but SO rewarding, and I don't go a week today without thinking back to that 9 month trip in some way or other.

Bloody marvellous! That’s a proper Boy’s Own trip!
[/quote]

Thanks gbags. Yes it was exactly that. I've got loads of pics, but they're all 35mm prints. I must learn how to scan them in and digitise them some time. When I returned, I started my History BA at Bristol Uni and I did my dissertation on Henry Morton Stanley's exploration of central Africa in the 1880s. Having followed much of his route up the Congo was really helpful for getting some understanding of what he went through.
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