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Its been a long time coming, but I didnt want a never ending build thread
I will start from the begining with what I called ‘slug’ and it seems to be ending in ‘freezer’ (all will become clear!)
I thought it was time to show you, the people who are supporting me, what the state of play is, so far!
Please bear in mind, Im just a man in a garage with no fancy machinery, so your not going to be seeing the kind of quality your used to
1988 Jellymould CBR1000F
200,080 kms on the clock
650 euro
immediatly called ‘the slug’
So it was time to start trying to polish a turd, to get some media interest.
After a quick spray over, it turns into this, not perfect, but good enough for the rags. It was now christened ‘The Fridge’
With the local publicity done and dusted it was time to do some proper work.
Now it was time to do some strengthening on the subframe, Im going to be carrying 30 litres of reserve fuel and 20 litres of water on the back seat, so some 5mm angle iron and a crossbrace sorted that out.
The rear end needs jacking up a few centimeters and the front forks need dropping to give me ground clearance.
The original linkage
The Modified linkage, 2cm’s shorter. A damn good modification…….If it had worked that is, well thought out Matt!!
So that was 1 buggered linkage for nothing, I had to source another original one!
With the Renthal in place I turn my attention to some crash protection mountings. These plates will make sence later on (I hope!)
By now I had gained team sponsorship and the bike needed more work for my team sponspors publicity. It was time to fix the panels, they dont look too bad in the pics, but believe me, every panel needed work!
The after result.
Back to overspray hell and white bogeys………
Back home and more stickers were put on, then it was time to get some publicity photo’s for my sponsor Hansen Transmissions.
In the meantime and after much discussion with my team sponsor, it was decided that I would be riding to China for them. They are building a new 200 million euro factory in Tianjin near to Beijing, I have been asked to carry the company flag or the foundation stone of their new factory.
Very few people have ever ridden their own motorcycles into China, this is a great honour and challenge which I readily accept.
So now I am to be Hansen Transmission ambassedor from Belgium to Tainjin, China…….Bloody fantastic!!
But back to the Fridge………..
My billet handprotectors had arrived, but they were not made for the Renthal twinwall, I cant complain, sponsorship is sponsorship, some modifications were needed.
Jobs a good un!
It was then decided by my team sponsor that I would be good eye candy at their trade stand at http://www.ewec2008.info
Here is the bike leaving with strange men for the European Wind Energy Conference!
The tart, she’ll go with any old strange men!
But after this my mates think that she is too cool to be the fridge….she is now the Freezer!
Just to give you some background…….
My sponsor makes transmissions for windturbines, they like to be seen as a green company and I was told in no uncertain terms that I had to ‘green up’ my journey. I am all for this, I have kids too.
So how do you green up 15,000kms of petrol burning on a 20 year old motorcycle without a cat?
It was time to do some homework, Let the googling commence.
After one week or homework and a lot of reading, I think that I have cracked it and I am ready to tackle any tricky questions for journalists at the expo.
My greeness it a tri pronged attacked.
1st. E10 bio fuel, my bike and all cars and bikes can run on this 10%bioethaline/90% petrol mix and this reduces carbon emissions by 10%
2nd. Fuel additives, I will be using fuel addatives to try and increase my fuel range and decrease my CO2 emissions.
3rd. Carbon offsetting. It has been calculated to offset my journey I would need to plant 26 trees. I think 26 sounds too few, so I elected to plant 100 tree at the new factory in Tianjin. Apparently 8 in Chinese is lucky and 88 is double luck. So I will now be carbon offsetting by planting 88 trees in China.So the EWEC expo week arrives (last week).
This is me explaining the the British Ambassedor of Belgium what the hell a bike is doing at a wind expo!!
All in all a tricky week, I got interviewed by Japanese, Korean and italian TV. Had to give a couple of interviews with green energy magazines and generally had to try and justify what my bike was doing there!
Apparently my sponsor was happy with how I conducted myself in interviews and with the EU Ministers, so in that respect it was a good week.
As for raising money for the charities I am riding for, it was bad. My sponsor had me in a stranglehold, it was their week, not mine!
Not one euro raised and a whole week in a sea of suits, it could have been better I can tell you.
So the bike came back on Friday (yesterday) and to get rid of some fustration at not raising 1 penny for charity and me having to commute 5 hours everyday to Brussels and back for basically bugger all, I decide its time to start bending some metal!
After a lot of bending, some swearing and a whole load of puzzling around.
Badda boom badda bing, a 30 litre jerry can rack appears.
I got it all sprayed up today and it will be fitted sometime next week.
And say nothing about the state of my workshop, there hasnt been enough hours in the day to tidy up!
And that is the state of play with the bike up till today!
But news of a different kind. There is one other guy on the rally who is also trying to enter China with his car, an American version of a Suzuki Swift called a Geo. He is a cool guy, a bio chemist and canoeist and together we are going to help each other cross Mongolia and the Gobi to get to China together.
Yeah and……………..?
Check this out, we think that this may be a guiness book of record moment, will this be the first outrigger canoe to cross the Gobi [
]So basically, I am crossing the Gobi on a jellymould CBR with a mad american bio chemist trying to get in the guiness book of records with his outrigger canoe and together we are going to have a beer on the great wall of china!!!!
YEAH BABY!
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