His inane smile in response had me shaking with anger. Apart from the absurdity of the claim, I was concerned at the prospect of drugs being stowed in the crate. Until the plane touched down in Brisbane, and Customs had carried out a thorough search, I knew I wouldn’t rest easy.
3
The Paper Trail
I needn’t have worried, the FN arrived back in Australia without further incident. I followed, and Lynne joined me shortly after. Preparations for my journey could begin in earnest. For the first time in years, I basked in the joy of sealed roads, smooth-flowing traffic, no rabid dogs, and no obvious graft.
The next 12 months were spent house-sitting, while Lynne planned my journey and I joined in local club runs to get to know my machine better. Its performance seemed to change day by day, much like my riding ability. Getting to grips with its idiosyncrasies — such as tackling hills without gears and stopping without efficient brakes at intersections — proved perplexing. On one ride, in full view of a policeman pointing a radar camera, I slid to a halt at a compulsory stop, both feet scraping on the ground.
Well at least I wasn’t speeding, I thought with relief. When the officer sauntered over, I assumed he wanted to check out my old bike. I was gobsmacked when he proceeded to write an infringement notice! ‘But, the bike’s 100 years old, and it’s impossible to stop it on a dime,’ I protested. The front wheel was barely inches across the line. ‘That’s your problem,’ he replied, not batting an eyelid. A fine of several hundred dollars woke me to the fact I’d been out of Australia way too long.
I tested the FN in winter on the icy roads of Tasmania, riding 12 kilometres to the summit of Mt. Wellington. The bike handled the conditions well, but after pushing it for one kilometre, I could see I needed to get myself in shape if I was going to survive the ride across a third of the world’s circumference.
With a bit of practice, I found I could push-start the bike in less than a metre. This meant no more pedaling, or spinning the back wheel to start, which was hard work, especially under a heavy load.
Another thing to learn was to change the back tyre more efficiently. Because the beaded-edge back tyre had blown a couple of times and jumped off the rim and jammed up inside the mudguard, I played around with air pressures. It may have been that the tyre hadn’t been correctly fitted, or that the tube was under-inflated. Some brands notoriously have weak sidewalls. I could only guess at what was the safest air pressure.
I’d been following the adventures of Britain’s Tim Scott. Riding a 1920s FN in the 2010 Peking-to-Paris, he was plagued with broken spokes and differential problems. Would I get the same problems, especially as my machine was more than 10 years older?
With so little carrying capacity, it was tough deciding on my final list of essentials. Extra spokes were imperative, and a couple of spare carburettor jets were necessary to correct fuel problems. I made an all-purpose, multi-fit spanner to limit the size of the tool kit. At 200 grams, it was the weight required to test the inlet-valve springs. These need to open one millimetre when this weight is applied to the end of the valve stem. Just to be on the safe side, I had the magneto rewound after it flooded during a heavy downpour.
The new valve springs I had made proved to be too darned strong to open, thus preventing the engine from starting. At the eleventh hour, I got the manufacturer to make another 50. Thankfully, this time they worked perfectly. So far, I’d clocked up 2,000 kilometres. If such a thing were possible, the engine was, by now, fine-tuned. I felt I had done all I could to make my little bike roadworthy.
I had decided I’d start from Nepal as it was known to be easier to clear a vehicle through customs than India. Lynne pored over maps, measured distances, made notes, and read up on other travel odysseys. These were mostly accounts by young men on KTMs, Teneres and Africa Twins, all bikes far better suited to rough terrain than my FN. Their big advantages were huge petrol tanks, GPS, laptops, enormous saddlebags and wide tyres.
Lynne and I had always travelled with the kitchen sink, but this time I wanted to rely solely on my wits and carry as little as possible. And space was at a premium. The dilemma was not so much what to take but where to stow it.
Mindful of keeping everything to a minimum for my 100-kilogram machine, and for ease of removal, we carefully sourced clothing, camping gear and panniers. Somehow, the list kept growing. All I could bring myself to throw out were cable ties and a roll of gasket paper. I really was playing with myself thinking the 20 grams these items weighed was going to make a difference.
The bags I would carry needed to be waterproof and lightweight, yet strong enough to withstand constant use. The soft panniers I had made in Bali soon fell apart under pressure, so I replaced them with a more robust, yet soft, Dry Rider set. Although I’d have been happy wearing Crocs, I had to admit they wouldn’t offer much protection and settled instead, on a sturdy pair of waterproof boots.
Enormous advances have been made in electronics since the 1980s, when Lynne and I travelled from the top of the world to the bottom. We’d spent three years riding from Alaska to Brazil, covering every state of America, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America. For this trip, I decided I had to limit myself to a camera, a mobile phone and a solar-charger, a gift from Mark. Only 100 millimetres long, it could fully charge my iPhone in an hour in a power socket, and in less than four hours in the sun. Other gadgets were tempting, but I just didn’t have room.
When our daughter, Nikki, created a blog — www.oldblokeonabike.com — we were posting entries and attracting interest from across the globe even before I left. I chose not to seek major sponsorship, realising that my focus would have to be on the job at hand, not spruiking the qualities of various products. I did, however, appreciate a smart polo shirt and a discounted fare from Thai Airways to ship the bike and me to Nepal, in return for endorsing their product.
The Carnet de Passage (temporary import document), for the bike was secured through the Royal Automobile Association. When Lynne and I travelled abroad in 1986 on our GoldWing, we had to mortgage our home as a guarantee that we would return the bike to Australia. This time, I only needed to pay a $1000 bond, part of which would be refunded when it returned home. Not all countries require a carnet, but India and Iran demand bonds of 400-500 percent of a bike’s value. This fee removes any incentive for travellers to sell their machines along the way should they find themselves short of cash or decide to bring their travels to a halt.
I delivered the FN, and the lightweight steel crate I had made to ship it in, to the Thai Airways’ cargo agent a week before departure. Airfreight was calculated either on volume or weight, whichever cost was greater.
The motorcycle needed degassing before it could be shipped because it was classified as dangerous goods. To save a few dollars, I ran a hose from my car’s exhaust pipe into the fuel tank of the bike and left the car idling for 20 minutes, thus rendering the tank non-flammable.
Australian Customs stamped the carnet and gave the green light. I put the bike, all my gear and three spare tyres in the crate, quietly confident they would be there on my arrival in Kathmandu. This time, there was no stuffing about, everything going as smooth as clockwork.
Vehicle insurance was something I’d never considered previously, but it was now mandatory in most of the countries I would visit. Insurance wouldn’t have meant much if I had an accident. The truth is, compulsory insurance is just another form of revenue collecting.
Medical insurance, though, is a different kettle of fish. I consider this to be essential — and it doesn’t come cheap. But chances of being in a collision were very real. I thought about
