Shit (Tim)

Wrong turn onto A120 and I'm going for miles in the wrong direction - and at this speed it's pain in the arse to plod on to the next opportunity to turn round. Grrrr.

Stopped for some petrol. What's that smoke? Why is there smoke coming out from under my bike?
Wait for a while and it seems to have stopped - oil or waxoil on the exhaust?

I have no idea how far I am from Harwich now

Good Vibrations (Tim)

I've just stopped for a leg stretch on a garage forecourt about 35 miles west of Harwich ferry. The scooter is fully loaded and looking like it's on a mission.
A van pulled up alongside me and the driver wound the window down as he admired the bike. I reached into my pocket ready to give him a badge to direct him to the blog. He produced a road map and asked;
"excuse me mate, are you local?"
FFS

The bike is vibrating a lot - the sort of vibrate that makes your fingers and toes tingle. I hadn't really thought about it much before Patrick at Scooter Surgery mentioned that it might be an out of balance crankshaft. In the solitude of my helment for the past couple of hours I've taken this comment and turned it into a disaster movie in the making. The trouble is, having never ridden a Vespa before, I don't know if this vibration is normal or not.
Well I have no option now but to press on. Looking forward to meeting up with Scott at the ferry port

A little diversion (Tim)

Our ferry crossing doesn't go until about 11:00 tonight so there was no rush for me to get on the road today.
As luck would have it, today is the day that dad was planning on picking up his own scooter engine from Scooter Surgery in London - so this seemed like a perfect way to spend some father and son time.
Scooter Surgery tends to specialise in Lambrettas - and I know very little about Lambrettas. But I was soon to learn that I am probably never going to be able to afford one - which is a shame because they are rather beautiful.
We had a lovely time with Patrick and Maude chatting in the sunshine about the relative merits of Lambrettas and Vespas. Maude left me with a warning about riding in Italy "Be careful, they come right up on you and leave you no space". It hasn't dampened my spirits :-)

Home from home (Tim)

The great thing about staying at mum and dads for the first night of this trip is that I can use dads garage and boiler suit to adjust that clutch cable properly. I don't like riding with the cables on the limit of thier screw adjustment, so I took a moment this morning to wind the screw back to it's start and take the cable slack up in the nipple. I feel comfortable again

And of course it's always nice to be with your mum who likes to fuss and worry over you - though I did tell her she'd have to stop when she went as far as offering me some "wet wipes" to take "for when you get hot"

Tim :-)
Tim Morley

Great start (Tim :-)

Hoorah! A successful first leg.
I set off today because I live a little further away from Harwich than Scotty does who will make his first leg tomorrow when we both head for the ferry. And so my first stop is at my mum and dads.
The weather today was absolutely glorious. All that thermal gear that I bought from Aldi a few weeks ago got stuffed in bag and with only a t-shirt on under my jacket I was still sweating.
The journey went smoothly through towns and villages. I love the B roads and I had a couple of moments that my motorcycle freinds said I would experience eventually where the curves are just right and the bike flows through the bends like liquid - fantastic!
There were times when i had to use some busy A roads where the lorrys thunder past. I felt as if I was in a jousting contest with the on-coming lorrys as they slammed me with thier walls of air.

Door to door, the journey was 114 miles and it took me 5 hours. 5 hours!!
My top speed on the A roads was about 45mph but going through the villages does require a lot of stops and starts and this seems to really eat into your average speed.
As well as getting lost on a couple of occasions and having to check my iPhone for directions, I made 2 stops for fuel (8.5 lts in total) and had to stop once to adjust my clutch cable - it seemed to have stretched to a point where I couldn't change gear - should I be worried? - glad I had my tool kit with me

So if this is par for the course - we are going to be averaging 23mph. That Holland trip is going to be a looooong day!

Trial Pack (Scott)

After some love and attention from the Dremel, the Vietnamese rear rack is on, and I only had to use two cable ties in the installation, which is almost a proper job for me. The bags arrived yesterday and Halfords only had silly coloured bungies, which is irritating, but I did a trial pack with the Middleton family coat collection from the hallway, and all looks fairly secure, if comically overloaded. The rear bag (a great Musto 52l Dry Carryall) hangs over by a good 15cm each side. Oh well. I wonder what my final pack will come to? And I know those bushes really need a trim. And moss in between the cobbles needs to go.

View from the bridge (Tim)

So this is how I read my map. It seems to work so far