turn the page 5 of 16 Edinburgh - Peking...err no..

Petrol head story. "Musselburgh to Uppsala"....
I've made the most insane decision of my life and planned to drive to Uppsala on a race tuned Yamaha 350 lc two stroke.Your not meant to ride more than 40 minutes on these headbangin' machines.
Evening before I notice the crankcase oilseals have busted so the engine is upside down on the garage floor and I've lifting the bottom of the block up to replace them the cheating way.
3 hours sleep as I have a long journey ahead to Harwich.It's the boat leaving and its a sunday morning, 0630 when the Allspeeds bark into life.I don't have much luggage but enough and off we go. To ensure I keep good time I have planned everything so I'll have at least two stops, lunch and basically rest the wrists as its a racing crouch.
After around an hour and I come to a stand still. Middle of nowhere, 0730. No petrol in the tank. *suck*..I seem to remember remaining optimistic, but thats probably Captain Efterklok thinking..I started pushing the bike and it started raining. It wasn't too long before I came to a petrol station , around 2 miles.I was so happy until I read the times;

monday to friday 0700-
saturday 0800-
sunday 0900-

NO!, NO!, NO!,NO! (get my point...)It was only to wait and hope the owner came sooner and bought my rush story.He came at 8.45. No mobile phones , no mp3s, no psp.Nope, just the sound of rain and the occasional car going past with the harsh sound of tyre to road.

Off I went again, making sure I'd mix the oil and fuel correctly (race bike, no oilpump).

It was wet.Really wet. I remember it was one of the only days in the history of the British Golf open that it rained 24 hours.And it wasn't drizzle, I was looking at the rain bounce through my visor and it seemed like 3 cm(Bounce is how far the rain bounces back up after its hit the road..your hoping for 0 bounce).I used a trick from the 40's in these conditions, cut a raw potato in half and rub the sap over the visor.Rain bounces off it like one of the new chemicals..

In this weather and on a 350 cc you tend to get over taken by everything including trucks that appear to spill their guts and try and suck you back in after they go past.It's no fun, but I had a boat to catch and an adventure I swore I wouldn't fail to finish!I drove to the inside line as the potato juice was gone and visibility to zero.Due to the petrol problem I couldn't stop apart for more, it was a 6 hour trip with 3 pitstops and I had covered myself with binbags from the garage.
I must have shut down.
Suddenly I had arrived and as I drove towards the boat to see the car q I suddenly had a policewoman waving at me frantically, I pulled in and took off my helmet only to hear the worst noise ever coming from the exhaust pipes.It had been too much for them and both had cracked.
Then I suddenly realised I had no air in my front tyre.No matter, I parked up on the boat and headed to my 4-berth shared cabin on deck "below humans" where the general talk is of Rum , sodomy and the lash!
I took off my racing leathers which were yellow and brown and very '70ish.Or as they say nowadays, very retro..
The rain had stained the colours onto my skin and I looked like a banana and chocolate chew bar.My fellow berth pirates looked in amazement as I starting thinking of excuses as to why they shouldn't rape me..
After a couple of hours of sleep as I was exhausted I went to find someone who could point me to a local workshop. I was allowed to remove my pipes and take them deep into the bowls of the ship and weld them back together.An interesting exercise when in the middle of the north sea.
By the time I'd welded and refitted them it was late.
Next day we landed in Gothenburg and I headed off with new optimism.It was october and I hadn't really considered the cold.The darkness came a lot sooner and I remembered what my friend had told me, that
"Moose are attracted to high pitch sounds in the dark"
So basically from Orebro to Uppsala I was in a permanent "shitting bricks" crouch as I stared into the pitch blackness with only a small headlight awaiting the sign of two eyes and 200 kilos of curious Moose..This was actually worst than the first part as it was a complete unknown and the darkness over extenuated the fear factor.But I kept going.
By the time I hit the outskirts of Uppsala everything seemed to have whitened up, but on reflection that was probably just the effect of streetlights after so many hours of darkness.

I'd made it. Sounds like a piss in the ocean, but the pride factor was there. For petrol heads to do such a tour of duty on a race tuned powerjetted elsie is a feat, and she made it as well.

áyé