Ride your world ~ part 1

I'm back at last and so I had better enlighten you as to what all the bru-ha-ha and need for time off work was about....and it definitely wasn't Glastonbury, oh no, this was a far more (um) select bunch of muddy and wet souls that I spent the weekend with.....to be more specific something in the region of 500 hard core bikers who's dream is to travel the world (or at least large parts of it) on a motorbike.

The venue, a field/pub in Ripley, Derbyshire, the occasion, the Horizons Unlimited 2007 rally. Horizons Unlimited is an organisation set up by a Canadian couple, Grant and Sue Johnson, to share information on their round the world travels and has grown into the most respected source for all things related to long distance motorcycle journeys.

So we, that's myself, Fletch and Eloise (get your mind out of the gutter guys, this was not a menage a trois, Eloise is the bike) remarkably, given the prevailing weather forecast for the weekend, managed to arrive in the dry and even got to pitch our tent before the heavens opened....and they did!


We spent better part of the next 48 hours assailed by torrential rain.....and it was wonderful, what's more it was a good initiation and test for the new tent, if this thing is ever going to see us any distance it's going to need to withstand some pretty testing conditions and it passed with flying colours. It should do, it's a damn good Hilleberg 'residence'but all the same it was good to have evidence that it was up to the job.

We had looked forward to this event for months but I have to say hadn't anticipated such a well organised, informative or enjoyable time, we had a blast. The information available was amazing, there were three conference rooms running lectures, shows, forums etc. etc. etc. almost back to back for the whole three days covering every aspect of 'large scale' traveling by bike, from safety and security to obtaining a carnet or changing a tyre on the side of a dirt track, hey, I even attended and hours 'yoga for bikers' session, normal yoga but concentrating on the parts that hurt most after hours in the saddle.....all the people involved were amazing, dedicated, knowledgeable and inspiring and the yoga was so relaxing I could happily have fallen fast asleep in the middle of the floor!


None of this was obligatory, we chose what we wanted to attend, including photography (Grant Johnson was previously a professional photographer), a talk by Austin Vince, he of 'Mondo Enduro' fame, the 'how to change a tyre in five minutes malarky', hell he made it seem so simple!,.......


......and of course the only obligatory event, the evenings hours spent in the bar!

*Part 2 to follow