Born in Munich, Germany, my life as a BMW motorcycle really started as a demo bike at Slocombes, the largest BMW shop in the U.K. situated in the north west of London. Having been run in by numerous inexperienced day dreamers my first real owner was a city slicking architect whose only mission was a couple of holidays to France with his young wife, perhaps he saw me as a toy to impress the gullible and impressionable. Who can tell ?
Alas, my ability to impress diminished with age and my faded paint and perished rubber was left outside to deteriate on the roadside outside my bosses residence between my two trips to France and the occasional commute through the worst of Londons chronic congestion.
It was a dismal, grey day when my present boss first turned up on the scene. He seemed to be helping out a plumber mate who was on call on a Sunday and was too hungover to drive after another riotous all night Kiwi/Aussie party in north London. While the plumber was six foot down a hole in the backyard, pumping raw sewage by hand and pole, this guy called Rick-dick-u-lous was sticking a wee note on my cracked dirty windshield. He offered a1000 pounds cash so I guess my last ten years or so outside had made me look a little rough round the edges. He was obviously impressed by my meagre milage of 14000 miles. "Just run in" I heared him mutter as he helped his rather green looking friend into his PowerRod van.
Next week Rick turned up with his 1000 pound wad of notes and an additional 500 he'd scraped together from a couple of his motorcycle courier mates. I should have realised then that life would never be the same. He forked out 1450 pounds and left overloaded with goodies my ex felt were redundant to a has been, born again biker. Thing like panniers, leathers, gloves, boots, bungys, manual and even a helmit and goggles.
Once parked outside my new masters home in the east end of London, Stratford E15, the first thing he did was take off my tiring high bars and removed the cracked windshield. A lingering memory to me of that terrible storm when I blew over in the street and bled into the gutter all night till I was seen in the light of day. Rick loved me, I could just tell, he was always giving me life giving oil transplants to my four seperate reservoirs and changing clutch and brake fluids and although he sometimes rode me hard, I enjoyed long rides, and always rewarded him with tasty grey pipes (leaded petrol was legal then). All this fuss over new petrol and yet nothing really satisfied me like a cool dose of lead. Humans do the strangest things.
First chance we got we were off. With his sister on the back, he joined 26 Kiwi riders on the 4th annual Kiwis Ride all Wight tour to the Isle of Wight on the south coast of the United Kingdom. At the time it was thought that 80% of despatch riders in London were of antipodean descent and no one would have argued that weekend. We descended to a pub on the southern side of the Isle and camped in a paddock out the back. The second night Rick rode me through deciduous forest to what he called a 'free camping' spot, far from prying eyes. Little did I know that this was a trend he intended to continue.
It was three months later that I was burdoned with vast amounts of camping gear and two weeks food for a lightning tour of Scandinavia. For reasons unknown, Rick saw fit to slap a heavy looking bloke with alcoholic tendencies, 2Bob, on the back and the Beerfest via Hammerfest tour took shape. The plan was to complete the mission in 14 days so while the scenery and asphalt footpaths up and over numerous fiords and mountain passes was a bikers delight, the only time we met any Scandinavians was taking small ferries and petrol station attendants. At one stage ropes were slung under my steering head and back seat and I was hoisted high above a pier and lowered onto the deck and slung to the rails of an old coastal steamer. Rumour has it that rather than cross the last two frozen passes the boys prefered to lash me to the deck rails and take up residence at the bar.
Having been partially frozen, and blasted with icy sea spray I was delicately lowered to terra firma once more to be charged at, and terrorised by the local reindeer herds that wandered freely on the streets of Hammerfest. I wondered at the intelligence of my friends having slung a set of souvenir deer antlers from the back rack.
When we arrived seven days later in Munich for the Beerfest, a space had been prepared for us by friends and we managed to squeeze into the Thalkirken campground past the heaving Friday night crowd of those queing up to get in. While I rested, drunken tom foolery took place. The boss eventually composed himself well enough to get me home but not before he got thoroughly disorientated and did little 'loopies' through the Swiss Alps for a couple of weeks.
After months of scrimping and saving, and personal upheaval, I found myself heading in a southern direction towards Spain and Morocco with some new woman on my back. With jokes about Saskia being a great shock absorber aside, she must have found it comfy on the backseat, cause she's been there ever since. In six months on the road, free camping on the edge of roads, and in huge sand dunes bordering the Sahara with three passes over the Atlas and Rif mountains, the miles got huge and the photo album bulging with vanishing point roads and mountain vistas. I spent alot of nights stored safely in vast Moroccan carpet emporiums, occasionally carried up flights of stairs and I even spent a night in a restaurant kitchen. On that occasion a side cover attack took place, but they couldn't get to my ever expanding tool bag. But mostly I was left only with the stars and the sound of goats bleating in the hills with Rick and Sas soundly asleep in that tiny blue tent, beside me.
It was while staying in Rabat Camp Ground, that an interesting meeting took place. I was left chatting with two rough looking bikes, two Tenere's with Australian number plates. Little did I realise the effect this meeting would have on my future travels. It really was the beginning of a great adventure.
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