The pre-trip.... trip....

[kingsknight]

Well I have been talking about doing a trip around the UK for some time now and I am about ready to go. I’m not going to be able to do a full 2/3 week tour around the UK until March/ April time next year due to getting the time off work and funds, also my friend who is coming on the trip with me needs more time to save for the cash needed for the trip.

I have brought all the gear I need for the trip which soon mounted up in price Anyway I thought I would share my story with you guys!

First things first, The bikes. I’m going on my ’03 Honda XR125-L3 with about (at this moment in time) 14,500 miles on the clock. March time next year I am guessing it will have about 20kish on the clock.


And my friend Rob is going on a ’02 Hyosung Cruise II with around 20k on the clock (now) and iv got no idea how many miles will be on his clock in 6 months!
So we got the bikes what about the gear? Well this is what I have brought for the trip so far

• Ultra light weight 2 man tent (2.05kg)
• Ultra light weight sleeping bag
• Single airbed
• Airbed pump
• TomTom Satnav + mount for my bike
• Tank bag
• 48 AAA batteries
• Camera
• 2 x LED lights for the tents
• Extra mobile phone battery
• A mobile phone/satnav charger which takes AAA batteries
• Light weight EEEpc netbook (the one with a 10 hour battery life. Well we all need down time right?
• Hi-viz water proof gear
• Credit card (with a nice high limit on it)

Before I go I am going to give my bike a major service about a week before i set off!
• Oil change
• New spark plug
• New air filter
• Take off the carb and give it a good clean
• Give the chain a good oil

I have put together a first aid pack for my bike which includes:

• Full set of blubs
• Spare spark plug
• Tyre weld (just in case of a flat in the middle of nowhere)
• Small set of tools
• A big hammer :-p
• A can of “start-ya-bastard”

So I’m ready and so is my bike! Well i can’t wait till next year for a bike adventure can i? Your right I can’t! I’ve got the bike and gear so it’s only fitting I take it all out for a test over a cold October weekend!

I have planned a weekend touring on the Isle of Wight! We are setting off from Basingstoke at 7am to get a ferry over to the Isle of Wight at 10am from Southampton on 24th October.
We should pull into the Isle of Wight around 11ish which will give us a full days riding pretty much around the Isle! We are coming back at 5.30pm on Sunday so it’s not really a long trip but I think we will cover around 150/200 miles in 2 days!

Its 40miles from Basingstoke to Southampton and our camp site is 15miles away from the port so there’s 110miles just travelling to the places we have to go!
The Isle of Wight isn’t that big but i am sure that we will clock up at least 50/80 miles riding around it!
The ferry and camp site have both been booked and paid for so all I have to do is wait now!

I think this “test trip” will give us a little idea of how it would be like living on the road for a few weeks. I have tried to keep everything as light as I can for the sake of my poor little 125cc engines but I am more than sure that it can handle it.

I am going to take lots of photos while i am over there and i am sure that I will be sharing some of the nicer photos with you guys. I will also give a nice little write up once I get home.

Cant wait to go for this little pre-trip trip!! only got a few days till I am off
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TS50 (sold) NS125F (sold) NSR125R-K (write off after 2 crashes) CG125 (nicked) XR125L-3 (Sold )-: ) DR125SM '11 (sold yay) XL125V '12 (In love with this bike) XT600E '04 (fun on the dirt)

[Phoenix]

Couple of things in your bike repair kit, the hammer is probably unnecessary, plenty of things you can improvise with and likely that you can borrow one from just about anywhere. I'm not sure on the XR125 but it has tubed tyres I think, so tyre weld is probably going to be fairly useless in the event of a puncture. The can of engine start is also probably a bit pointless, a sniff of petrol down the intakes does exactly the same job.

Just some weight saving considerations.

[The Shaggy D.A.]

Not sure I'd carry 48 batteries; I'd plump for rechargeables and get them wired into the bike.
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Chances are quite high you are not in my Monkeysphere, and I don't care about you. Don't take it personally.
Currently : Royal Enfield 350 Meteor
Previously : CB100N > CB250RS > XJ900F > GT550 > GPZ750R/1000RX > AJS M16 > R100RT > Bullet 500 > CB500 > LS650P > Bullet Electra X & YBR125 > Bullet 350 "Superstar" & YBR125 Custom > Royal Enfield Classic 500 Despatch Limited Edition (28 of 200) & CB Two-Fifty Nighthawk > ER5

[kingsknight]

[ms51ves3]

A netbook and an airbed. A bit too luxury?

[kitty kat]

[Pernig]

With the amount of batteries you're taking I'm guessing this isn't so, but if your torches are wind-up jobs, they'll do exactly what they say on the tin; wind you up. I would much rather opt for regular battery power. We had the same problem with our wind-up radio. Lasts about one song then you have to get winding!

I would definitely recommend a Petzl head torch. It makes life a lot easier when you can do things in the dark with both hands free.
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H100 Breaking for spares

[Phoenix]

I've had a couple of wind up torches and inevitably at some point they've been left switched on and drained, the problem is with both of them as soon as this happened it was impossible to put any charge back into the battery so they're now both scrap. Go with a battery torch as mentioned, but taking 48 batteries to recharge your satnav and phone is total madness, just get a 12v charge or a wallcharger and find places to plug it in for a couple of hours.

[Name_goes_here]

[kingsknight]

Well its come around. Im off at 7am the morning! I will give you nice little write up when i get back and I am sure i will add a few photos


https://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs223.snc1/7031_161800323621_500588621_2680619_3602407_n.jpg

all loaded up and ready to run!
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TS50 (sold) NS125F (sold) NSR125R-K (write off after 2 crashes) CG125 (nicked) XR125L-3 (Sold )-: ) DR125SM '11 (sold yay) XL125V '12 (In love with this bike) XT600E '04 (fun on the dirt)

[ms51ves3]

What have you decided to take?

[kingsknight]

its only an over night trip so iv just taken extra batteries for my phone! Im going to wire a 12v charging system into my bike before I leave in may.

Iv booked the time off work, so all i have to do is plan where im going and where im going to stay
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TS50 (sold) NS125F (sold) NSR125R-K (write off after 2 crashes) CG125 (nicked) XR125L-3 (Sold )-: ) DR125SM '11 (sold yay) XL125V '12 (In love with this bike) XT600E '04 (fun on the dirt)

[kingsknight]

Well Im back! Was such a good trip with its up's and down's. So I thought i would get you guys a little write up with some photos.

Day one

set off from my house in basingstoke around 7pm to the McDonald's get my some grub before setting off. I noticed it was lightly raining but i water proofed most of my stuff so i was not that worried.

Met my best friend Rob there before we set off to Southampton to get the ferry over to the isle of wight . We got about 6 miles into the trip when the heavens opened up and I truly believe I have never been so wet in my life!

It did not stop raining until about 1.30pm that day. Pulled into Southampton around 8.30 and when straight onto the furry even though our tickets was for a later ferry they let us on anyway.

the ferry ride was nice, took about an hour to pull into Cowes! The furry had a nice little cafe on it which was not to highly priced so I got a drink.

Got off the ferry around 10ish and set off to our camp site which was 13.5 miles away from the ferry port.

The rain just didnt want let up at all, we both was very wet and was not too happy about the non stop rain.

pulled into the camp site at about 10.30 and set up camp. took me a freaking hour to put up my bloody tent in the cold rain and the wind was picking up.

after we set up our tents we thought "fuck this lets get some sleep untill the rain passed!"

long story short we waited in our tents until the rain past. 2pm the rain stopped and we thought we would go see what was about. We rode around in our wet gear for hours until it started to dry. It's well crap riding around in very wet boots and socks!!!

Oh and I found out that the airbed i brought from Argos was broken so i had to find a Argos on the isle of wight which was 15 miles away from my camp site for a replacement.

We got some food in Ryde then went back to our tents around 9pm feeling a little depressed about the whole thing. We did get some nice pics once the rain had cleared but the weather put a downer on the trip a bit.

As for sleeping in the tents, not the best place i could have picked. The camp site i picked was right next to a main road which had a bloody lot of traffic at 1am-6am on a saturday night!!!!

kept me and my friend up most of the night so we didnt get much sleep at all and it was freaking cold. my sleeping bag is designed for snow and shit.

well thats pretty much what happend on the end of day one




Day two

Much nicer start to the day, after a not so good nights sleep i woke up at about 8am to a lovely clear sunny day. packed up our gear and was gone off site by 9am.

We rode 190miles around the isle of wight today and I have to say that the isle of wight has some of the nicest roads a biker could wish for. The southern part of the isle is breath taking! I have added some of the photos which i took at some of the view points.

The wind was mental on some of the coastal roads by part from that the roads was lovely to ride on!

Got the 3pm furry home and got home around 5pm feeling very tried and hurting all over. Well worth it though! Day two was much better then Day One. Just being in wet gear sucks so much when its cold.

Really enjoyed the trip in a whole. The bikes was perfect! dealt with the very steep hills fine, but my honda seemed to pull me up them a lot faster then my mate's bike pulled him up lol

https://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs020.snc3/12736_163345363621_500588621_2694561_7175604_n.jpg

https://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs040.snc3/12736_163345408621_500588621_2694567_2987338_n.jpg

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https://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs040.snc3/12736_163345478621_500588621_2694578_2977875_n.jpg

https://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs040.snc3/12736_163345523621_500588621_2694584_6724372_n.jpg

https://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs040.snc3/12736_163345533621_500588621_2694585_4414144_n.jpg
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https://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs020.snc3/12736_163345978621_500588621_2694658_1669367_n.jpg

hope you all enjoyed that little read :-p
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TS50 (sold) NS125F (sold) NSR125R-K (write off after 2 crashes) CG125 (nicked) XR125L-3 (Sold )-: ) DR125SM '11 (sold yay) XL125V '12 (In love with this bike) XT600E '04 (fun on the dirt)

[ms51ves3]

[Phoenix]

I wanted to read it but I kept reading 'furry' and couldn't take it seriously so gave up.

[kingsknight]

[kingsknight]

https://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs038.snc3/12531_190483946220_500591220_4483842_5458925_n.jpg



you can see how wet we got!
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TS50 (sold) NS125F (sold) NSR125R-K (write off after 2 crashes) CG125 (nicked) XR125L-3 (Sold )-: ) DR125SM '11 (sold yay) XL125V '12 (In love with this bike) XT600E '04 (fun on the dirt)

[Clanger]

I must say, you were really terribly unlucky with the weather.

Thurs 22 to Sat 24 (lunchtime) was the wettest its been down south for weeks!!!

Did you go down into Ventnor...? The hills are incredible.
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Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter won't mind - Dr. Seuss

[kingsknight]

yeah i did, Ryde was mental as well in the town centre! There was crazy hills all over the iow!!!
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TS50 (sold) NS125F (sold) NSR125R-K (write off after 2 crashes) CG125 (nicked) XR125L-3 (Sold )-: ) DR125SM '11 (sold yay) XL125V '12 (In love with this bike) XT600E '04 (fun on the dirt)