winger wrote:Not very often you get to read about a decent trip and then ask question!!
What were the various bikes Jason,i saw GS,Tiger,XT660,Trans Alp,any thing else.
What bike was Rover rideing?,what happened to him.
When did the others get back.
Somthing i've always noticed with anthing NS does, ends up either fragmented or a semi mutiny,is that the norm,or is it a traight of large groups.
Morning Chris
Bikes - 3 1150GSAs, a 1200GSA, couple of std 1200GSs, quite a few 660XTs, the Tiger (who took his 12 year old as pillion), Transalp, 650GS, Dave Tinker (Lloyds mate!) on an 1100GS, a Valadero, 2 KTM adventures, a KTM 650 and a 450 I think (Don't know much about those bikes but they all did well and none broke). There may have been others that I can't remember but that's the bulk of it.
Rover - nice bloke and a good rider IMHO. I got on well with him off the bikes, and on the bikes till the ride home. I'm a really selfish git and when I'm in 'hurry up endurance mode' then I'll just get up at the crack of dawn or before and ride and ride and ride and not piss about but some people can't or don't want to ride like that. I think endurance riding is just a different skill and he just wasn't into it
I just got very very very frustrated, obviously! He wore an open face helmet too and little glasses so driving at night and/or in the rain etc had him stopping every 5 minutes to clean them. His night vision was very bad too which made matters even worse. You know what it's like trying to ride with others in the day, let alone at night in heavy traffic and bad weather - flippin near impossible unless the other rider stays tight behind. He went and dropped his bike back at Lisbon and flew home from there.
I think the others got back to Lisbon 3/4 days after I got back to the UK but I don't know exactly. They all flew back and their bikes came back on an arctic.
As for the group thing. No doubt you're familiar with the difference between what poeple THINK they can do, and what they actually CAN do when push comes to shove. Couple that with the difference between their 'fantasy' of what a trip like this is like, and the actual reality when they're on it and it's usually a recipe for tension/dissapointment/arguements. People get tired quickly (one bloke gave up on the first day riding from Lisbon to Morocco cos he thought the milage was too high!) and fractious and that's why they tend to break up a bit I think. They obviously fall into smaller groups usually when they identify riders who ride close to their own riding style although in this trip that wasn't so much the case. Usually people are quickly happy to let go of your hand and get themselves from A to B with you just following along behind later or just riding amongst the groups but this time there are a lot of people that needed 'shepherding' the whole time. Lots of time was just spent trying to get/keep people moving.
People always complain, I think it's a natural response most people have to cover their own inadequacies, and it's this that seems to cause the 'mini mutinies' as you put it. People complain about riding at night - fact is they should have left earlier and not stopped so often. People complain about the miles to be done - fact is, it's a flippin long way to where they want to go. All part of there fantasy/reality conflict I reckon.
You're right though. The bigger the group, the bigger the problems. You get a complete random mix of skills (one bloke one the trip was so so scary to watch I used to close my eyes when traffic came towards him cos I was convined he was going to die, and another had onle been riding 2 years and was still very 'green' to put it mildly) and people. Nice, nasty, selfish, kind, loud, shy.. and it depend on the mix as to how it pans out.
I get pissed off with Nick myself sometimes, just like some of the other riders do, but in the end he'll give you something that you'll never forget for a very cheap price. You can't say fairer than that
That was almost a whole years holiday. Money.... never enoough of that 
