Istanbul and back. Simon and Mark get to go home...

This may be a slightly odd way of starting a blog. A series of links to a friends blog.

Four of us set out to ride from the UK to Istanbul. Steve split off in Croatia; returning briefly for the Stella only to carry on for another week. Patrick had to go home a day earlier than than me and Simon so he left us in Slovenia to go home; missing the Stella. Pat  wrote an excellent record of events up to Slovenia so I include them here:


http://eldaifo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/istanbul-or-bust-getting-ready.html

http://eldaifo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/istanbul-or-bust-easy-bit.html

ehttp://eldaifo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/istanbul-or-bust-vampire-country.html

http://eldaifo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/istanbul-or-bust-bandit-country.html

http://eldaifo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/istanbul-or-bust-crossing-continents.html

http://eldaifo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/istanbul-or-bust-bandit-country_29.html

http://eldaifo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/istanbul-or-bust-expectations-demolished.html

http://eldaifo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/istanbul-or-bust-long-way-home.html


And this is where I take up the tale.

We waved good bye to Patrick just south of Ljubljana. He'd been very organised and we'd been happy to let him lead us. He had a new sat nav and he knew where all the camp sites and KTM dealers were located. Suddenly; Simon and I had to fend for ourselves. Neither of us had a sat nav that worked properly and we had to be in Bardonecchia to meet Steve and Andy before closing time. Only 500 miles away.

'Hurry up and finish the water I've got to get to Calais!'

We crossed from Slovenia in Italy and hit heavy traffic near Trieste. Everyone was off to the seaside for the weekend. While we were carefully filtering through the grid locked traffic an Italian weaved gracefully through the traffic whilst giving us a carefree wave. So we followed his example.

Eventually the traffic flowed more freely and we settled into the familiar pattern of riding until my fuel light came on (120 miles) then fueling up and grabbing a swig of water or coffee. It was a little boring not having an impatient Pat sat on his bike sweltering and waiting so we got a move on instead.

Italian fuel and tolls came as a bit of a shock. It wasn't quite enough to keep me from going catatonic so I resorted to odd mind games while riding to the next fuel stop. One of the more expensive ones was going faster to try and make up time. I was going faster and faster to try and ge the arrival time to be right on the hour. This failed of course as suddenly the fuel light lit up 10 miles sooner than normal resulting in a fuel stop and a telling off from Simon whose Triumph really did drink fuel at higher speeds.
The journey was mostly uneventful apart from the Italian driver who refused to move over to the empty fast lane causing me to brake hard to avoid ending up in the back seat of a car in the slow lane. Simon took off after him and I followed suit. He insisted on continuing to stick to the middle lane which resulted in him getting boxed in behind a slower car while two angry mororcyclists gesticulated from both sides and his wife gave him a hard time from the passenger seat :)

We arrived around 7.30 at Pension Bianca, which we'd booked weeks ago. The owners are British so we were sorted quickly albeit on the top floor. By the time I'd got the keys and walked back to the bikes to unload Steve was just arriving. Steve had split off before Croatia to try and bag a few more countries before the Stella. Quickly moving the luggage to the room and simultaneously draining a litre of Jagermeister by way of celebration we headed off to meet Andy and Adie for beer and pizza. We had to be up early so we stayed up late and got drunk so we'd be properly rested for the ascent in the morning.   

We really should get to sleep...

The Stella Alpina rally has been running since the 60's. Organised by Mario Artusio; it's a meet for road bikes at some point up an old military gravel track leading up into the mountains between Italy and France. A van full of badges, t shirts etc gets driven to a point judged to be suitable for road bikes and it waits there for everyone to arrive. I'd heard about it when I was a kid and 2012 was my first visit. This year was different as I'd be trying to get to the snowline on the XT shod with Tourances rather than the knobblies I had last year.

Steve and Andy also visited last year but on enduro bikes. This year, Steve was also on an XT with tourances but Andy had brought his nearly new Ducati Multistrada on road biased tyres. Simon of course was on the Mighty Tiger 900 with a K60 on the back that he'd used to go to the Elefant with in February. It was so square it looked like it was off small dumper truck. It wouldn't have looked out of place on a side car. 


We made our way up in dry dusty conditions. We got up to the van and queued up for the badges etc. Then we were off to see how far we could get before the snow stopped us.
I came to some awkward wet steep sections and decided to go for it before the others caught up. There is a long flat section after this and I pulled over to wait. After a long wait and short run back I decided that maybe they had decided against trying the awkward bits. So I carried on to the top. I took a few photos while feeling pleased with myself and headed back down.

 I saw Steve coming up and when we met he explained that Simon had dropped his bike after missing his footing when stopped at a hairpin. Unfortunately it had done a few somersaults on the way down and Simon himself had rolled down in spectacular fashion also. All caught on video apparently:D

I ride down to where the van was parked where I discovered that Simon was fine. The Mighty Triumph had survived with broken mirrors and a broken clutch lever pivot. The lever had been fixed with some wire and cable ties. Someone had donated an old plastic MZ mirror which was fixed with more cable ties and duct tape. 

Big Bopper to March Hare. We're still in the game, okay

We waited for Steve and returned to the Pension Bianca. It's nearly 3pm on Sunday afternoon. We're on the Italian border and we have to be at the channel tunnel in less than 20 hours. We load the bikes up and wave good bye to Steve and Andy. Steve has another week in which he manages to visit another bunch of European countries before meeting Andy and Adie at the Belgian Classic TT in Chimay. Me and Simon hightail it for a camp site North of Troyes. We get there at 9.30pm. The camp host seems to take an age to get us registered and we get the tents up in the dark while the mosquitoes have their fill. We find a place to buy beer and cook up some of our remaining emergency rations. I'm too tired to speak almost. I go to my tent and I'm asleep instantly. We're up early. We'd agreed to have wheels rolling by 7am. It all goes to plan until we get the camp site exit. The gate is locked and there's no sign of the host. After establishing we cant get out of the pedestrian gate we stealthily altered some parts of the gate so it would open. We then put it all back again :) We make the tunnel in time and we sit on the floor of the train; knackered. 

When we get to the other side we say goodbye. Simon sets off for the south coast and I've got another 300 miles to go to North Wales and it passes in a blur. I have time to reflect on the trip. To be honest; it's too much, my mind can't quite get it sorted out. All I do know is that I've ruined myself. There's going to have to be more of these trips. 

Cheers to Steve, Simon and Patrick. I'm completely hooked now.