22. maj - Turist og techno Start out getting something on wheels for my luggage - €40 at local market - and pack everything with app. 5 cubic centimeters to spare. Then I head for touristy things to do. Like rummaging through tourist-infested Quartier du panier (with possible the highest concentration of grafitti anywhere on the planet) and going on a prehistoric cave ride 37 meters below the waterline. Reproductions of the caves and their paintings, sadly, but convincingly well made. Come evening I head for Le Molotov, a club where they play live hardcore whatever tomorrow, some hours after I fly home. Tonight is hardcore techno night, which to my immense surprise I actually enjoy. Never saw that coming - guess a piercing or a tattoo will be next.
Opslag
21. maj - Echoes of Archaos After trying in vain to have the kids at the Apple store make the tablet accept pictures on this blog, I get some good paper maps, useful for planning the route up to Geneva. Then head for the SUDSIDE workshop a bit north. One of their guys left his business card on my bike, and wanting to adjust the sagging sidecar, that has been scraping on larger bumps for a few days now, I figure I'd do it out there. But there's no need, as the bike coughs and sputters the last few kilometers out to the place, and the rear brake keeps locking up. This was the final straw; I can deal riding without lights, horn & speedometer, but I'm not riding four days in the alps fighting the other two things. The SUDSIDE guys are sympathetic and tell me I can leave the bike at their place for later pickup. Then I get the tour of the workshop, which looks like a combination of mine, Gonzomoto's and Killer Bobbers', except it's literally 30 times bigger tha...
20. maj - Bobber bits going on separate holidays Today's ride is pretty much a repeat of yesterdays ride, with long stretches of two lane highways, at times completely with out other traffic. The GPS suffers the occasional nervous breakdown in small towns, but riding towards Marseille along endless canals, things look pretty good. 26 degrees C is pleasant, the sun is shining to its hearts' delight - and the ignition light only goes out when the engine is in the upper third og the rev range, indicating dynamo trouble. Yesterday the speedometer called it quits, the day before the horn went on its own separate holiday, but those two I can live without. The dynamo, however, is pretty essential, and not something I'd expect malfunction on what is a supposedly 'new' dkk 30K engine. One battery store sells me a trickle charger, and another one of those quaint batteries with liquid acid, that went out of fashion at lest a decade ago. Hopefully my Swiss fellow Nimbus guy ...
18. maj - Entering France and a new dimension in linguistic disaster, prehistoric caves Just a few clicks out of town I once again clean the carb, check ignition, change spark plugs (like I did friggin' eight times in Japan) and face the choice of calling the gurus in Denmark again, or just set the bike on fire. Been there before, which is why matches and lighter are not part of my travel kit. In the end the simple advice of turning on the choke a bit to compensate for the thin air does the trick. (Thanks Knud). As for language, I do actually speak a tiny bit of French, but the difference between here and Spain is that the Spaniards don't actually expect you to communicate in their language. Still, starting of with a few standard French sentences breaks the ice, and they speak english. Haven't yet had use for "j'ai une permission Danois officielle pour conduire sans casque" (I have an official Danish permission for riding without a helmet), but it'll ha...
16. Maj - Near-death experiences & flamenco There are non-Danes reading this blog too, so from now on it'll be en English. Danes won't be one-tenth as screwed as the foreigners if this was continued in the original language. Prepare tomorrow's route from where DGR ends, presuming it's not all posers on new Harleys and Triumphs that show up. If so I'll just go north on scenic routes, a few hundred clicks. First major attractions are some subterranean old caves in France. Then off to town on a rented bicycle. While the traffic rules for this mode of transport match those of love & war, Barcelone seems safe, with lots of new and new-ish bicycle paths. The few inevitable near-death experiences were entirely my own fault. The travel guide book my local used book store gave me seems slightly out of date, e.g. with prices in the ancient currency called pesetas. Like most travel guides the book shows no publishing date, but it must have been printed before 2002. H...
12.-15. maj - Start med komplikationer Det skulle have været med start i Lissabon, men en række fuckups med speditører ændrer planerne, og det er først da mc'en er afhentet i Hvidovre jeg køber en flybillet. Overvejer at skrive en bog med titlen '101 Uses for A Dead Shipping Agent'. Det bliver nu fire ugers ferie i stedet for seks. Tænker allerede på et par uger i Syd spanien til september, men på chopperen. Det er min anden gang i Barcelona - første gang da jeg tog Pyrenæerne på tværs med en mindre flok, hvor vi skulle til Wheels & Waves. Stadig en smuk by, men ellers lidt forskelligt bybillede fra sidst, for alle Montesa mc'erne, der stod bogstaveligt talt overalt, er væk, fjernet af miljøkrav, sammen med alle de andre gamle mc'er. Godt jeg ikke vidste det før jeg kørte ind i centrum i dag - det kunne sikkert være blevet til en flot bøde. Turister overalt i den gamle bydel, turgrupper med kinesere i hobetal, men også mange asiater der ser f...