The feeling of starting (again)
09/07/2020 - Reading time: ~1 minute
Some people just put some stuff in a bag and close the door behind them. Yeah, I like that approach, and I do it sometimes. But I like to start a (capital letter) Trip with a list, to have something to look for, to have the topic in the back of my mind.
I start to prepare the trip 2 weeks in advance minimum, if not earlier. Today I change the tires, the next I pass by a DM and buy a new toothbrush, the next I am in a Baumarkt and I find myself checking ties and tools for the trip, and so on.
Today I finished packing. The 2 panniers, the top box and the clothes bag. The bike is ready and so am I.
And there's one more thing. I started last year with the OnRoute project. The stupid inaccurate "follow my trip" to calm down my mum in the Carpathians 2019, becomes my stupid inaccurate motorbike trip log, and this year I have the conviction to try to use it again. And I just reset it to start a new one.
All is set. After all this year, including what the CoronaTimes (tm) has brought, I get lost with the bike (again).
The hype is huge.
Gaz!
Spring 2020 - The big maintenance
19/06/2020 - Reading time: 7 minutes
With the end of the Carpathian's trip in summer 2019, 3 weeks following the Carpathians from Slovakia to Macedonia and coming back through the Balkans and the Alps, Fosca (my GSA) was quietly asking for some love.
If you ride enough you know how things goes below the helmet. "What is this noise", "I feel the front wheel vibrating, has to be that rock in that offroad path, I hope is not the rim", "it's not the rim, it's the break discs", "no, it's the rim"...
I decided that with the starting of the 2020 I will address as much "historical" issues of the bike as possible. I have list, that I am filling during the trips. I just wanted to scratch some bullet points.
But when you don't own a bike shop, or you're not rich, things take time: looking at the second hand market, searching for the right part in the right place with the right price... And then you need to find the moment to actually do the fix. Time is not something that one always have.
What this blog comes from
18/05/2020 - Reading time: ~1 minute
I am not constant enough to maintain a blog.
I built a forum dedicated to my Honda VTR 250, still alive and in Spanish, but lives unmaintained and barely visited.
I built a blog dedicated to my Suzuki GSR 600, that vanished already years ago.
I built a twitter account to my Honda VFR 800, that stays online and forgotten.
I then switched to a blog for me as a biker, and discovered the limitations of Tumblr and my irregular posting.
I had enough. I built a profile single page with a contact form and stop.
... but I missed to share my thoughts, some places I discovered, and some mototravelling improvements I did here and there. So I iterated that profile single page to host just a bit more. Not too much, not too strict, just fun.
And here we are 😊