2wheels2africa

This being my first blog post I feel I must highlight the fact. It’s actually my first blog post ever. Jeremy has been a bit more prolific in that regard he’s also been instrumental in making our online travel diary notions a reality. Very much appreciated Jez!

We’re going to keep this site updated with photos and stories from our trip as we make progress through it. For now we’re in preparation mode and gearing up for what will surely be the journey of a lifetime. The two of us took a trip to New York recently. We stayed with Chris, a friend of ours, in downtown Manhattan and had a really amazing weekend. Drinking Manhattans in Manhattan was pretty sweet if maybe not a little on the cheesy side but hey they’re a tasty number! It was my first time visiting New York. It’s everything everyone says it is and somehow more. For anyone who’s not been I’d highly recommend it.

While in New York we hooked up with Scott and the folks from Charity: Water. These people help communities in Africa build fresh water wells and teach them how to keep them up and running. They’re helping from a very basic level and doing fantastic work. Water is the source of life after all and without it or a quality supply of it a lot of people are dying unnecessarily. During this ensuing adventure we’re going to try and raise awareness for certain projects in Africa and hopefully do some good for ongoing aid work being carried out there. Together we know quite a few people and hopefully our online presence will get the message out to others.

I’ve added some pictures of my bike in the interim before I do a more complete write up about it. You can check out the pics here.

I’ve had my KTM 640 Adventure for a couple months now and despite not having a huge amount of opportunities to shake it down properly I have been able to do a few trips on it.

In a terrible first trip up North soon after I got the bike the rekluse auto clutch I have fitted from the previous owner managed to break down just outside of Leeds on the M62 to Manchester! Not a happy ending and not the first time I’ve had to make my way back down to London on the train leaving my bike behind.

Thankfully my brother Josh was able to sort it out for me in Leeds and then ride it down to London for me and it’s been trouble free since then.

I’ve also done a trip to Paris and back via the Eurotunnel which was great fun, especially riding around Paris with my mate Rohan on the back. We shot a shaky but funny video of us tearing down the Champs Elysee!

The trip was trouble free and in fact the bike was great, the only thing that I really needed was some heated grips as it is now absolutely freezing and after 30 minutes riding your hands turn to ice blocks.

The picture below is of the bike on the Eurotunne somewhere between England and France.

This last weekend I also did a trip up north from London to Sheffield, Manchester and Leeds before heading back down to London on Sunday night.

I had a wicked time in all three places seeing family and friends, though again it was my hands that suffered the most! I really must get some heated grips for both bikes or it is going to be a very painful journey through Europe in January!

The picture below is of a friend Naomi trying the bike out for size. I don’t think many people can really get their feet down on the ground as it is such a big bike!

The only minor failure on the bike on this trip was that one of the bolts on the hard panniers vibrated out and was lost somewhere on a motorway in England! It is the bolt that attaches the rack to the footpeg hanger and the frame just above Naomi’s heel in the picture above.

Lesson learnt – always loctite everything and check the bolts on the KTM regularly as it is such a vibby bike that stuff just vibrates off over time!

Still the bike is going strong though there are just so many things to be done to it to get it finally ready for Africa and the big trip.

Watch this space for further updates as we are now entering the critical last few weeks before departure and the list of things to do doesn’t seem to be getting smaller!

I’ve updated some more pages on the site with a more detailed description of our current proposed route and also some information about us and added a sponsorship page.

Check them out and let us know what you think.