2K5 Africa Charity Motorcycle Ride Continued

Saturday 02/04/05 London, England

None of us slept a wink on Friday night, as we were all so keen to get the bikes and were far too excited to see what Ernie had done for all the money that we had paid him. We were up at the crack of dawn and were out the door in Doug’s van to collect his bike and ride the two AT’s back to the Hole in the Wall pub, the venue for our launch party. Ernie had advised that we could only collect them after 10:00 and we were due to be at the launch party for 12:00 so it would be fine as Ernie is based in Sheerness, at least a 90 min ride. Still, we shot down to him as fast as we could and he didn’t disappoint. The bikes were fantastic and it was amazing to see what he had done. We collected the bikes and settled the bill and were back in Chiswick for 13:00 to find that a load of bikers and overland travellers had turned up to see us off. Unfortunately we couldn’t depart as we were still waiting for Doug’s part, and instead a great party was had by all.

Sunday 03/04/05 London, England

Sunday was spent finalizing the packing of the bikes and making sure that the weight was evenly distributed on the bikes. They are all unbelievably heavy and we have totally over packed them, but we would rather have too much and be in a position to ditch equipment, than not have something and want to use it. The bikes are all running smoothly and we have made the decision not to replace the seal on the XL600 until it actually goes, as it seems not to be leaking any oil.

Monday 04/04/05 London, England

Monday was a day to finish off the remaining few things that always seam to pop up at the last minute. None of us could sleep at all and the excitement levels had completely shot off the scale. We ended the day by packing the bikes with absolutely everything we could think off that might be needed and listing all the contents of our panniers on the insides of the pannier lids. This should help us to identify what is in each pannier and ultimately identify what we will throw away from each pannier as we travel on and start to get rid of extra weight.