Meeting Report
by Lance Street, for his local AIM newsletter.
An event report from the Horizons Unlimited motorcycle overlanders meeting at Lumb Farm, Ripley, Derbyshire June 2007.
I've been meaning to go to this for years now as I've been a keen viewer of the Horizons Unlimited web site long before the Ewan and Charlie factor put motorcycle journeys into vogue. I booked this early in Feb 2007 to guarantee my entry as the limited places fill up quickly, its popularity and numbers have been growing significantly each year. The meeting starts on a Thursday afternoon and carries on through till the following Sunday afternoon to give people more time to travel and set up camp.
This year the event happened to coincide with the dampest couple of weeks we've had all year so far (read monsoon season, the bad flooding we then experienced started the Monday after the meeting), it also fell on the same weekend as the Moto GP at Donnington and Glastonbury - so no surprise at a wet weekend then.
Main camping area
After a very damp ride over to Ripley I arrived and found a reasonable spot left on the higher camp area and managed to get pitched up in a dry spell before the rain returned from its tea break. I must admit I'm not the world's keenest camper and I've not done this for a few years so with the bad weather forecast all weekend it was in at the deep end again for me. The first thing I had to do was ride up the steep wet grassy field to my spot, and we all know how good rubber tyres are on wet grass don't we! All I thought was “please don't fall over now” not with all these serious overlander types watching, I really didn't want to start off by looking a right charley. Mind you I made it ok - but Kevin Sanders didn't, he dropped his GS near the entrance, we were all sympathetic laughing and clapping as you would expect from your fellow riders.
I had a stroll round the camping areas and found a varied range of bikes about but the mainstay of the overlanding brigade appears to be the dual purpose style of machine and no they weren't all BMW GS's though they did have a healthy showing as you'd expect.
Pitched and ready.
The first presentation and film show I attended was by Globebusters Kevin and Julie Sanders at 2pm. It's the pre-release showing of a forthcoming Discovery Channel TV show about their 2005 Transamerica trip, and featured the 15 people who had paid to travel with them from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to the tip of Tierra del Fuego in South America. They covered 29,000km on the Pan American highway visiting 12 countries over 2 continents having some amazing riding adventures on the way. The quality of the filming and production is excellent and is full of great scenery, really making you feel you want to get out there with them. It certainly captures the highs and lows of adventure travelling with some great characters involved, in terms of a good story it certainly gives Long Way Round a run for its money as the drama unfolds in this pacey film. See it soon on Discovery or buy the DVD later in the year - you won't be disappointed.
The next presentation was from Colin and Dee Masters about their round the world trip and looked at the pitfalls and pleasures of long-distance riding. They had some great tips backed up with their hard won knowledge; you could certainly fill a few pages just by trying to absorb even a little from the mine of information they have. From them the main points were preparation, not just the bike but for yourself as well and don't get too hung up or stressed out sometimes you just need to go with the flow. Another good point was about clothing and gear on the bike, it rains and can be cold nearly everywhere in the world so do some practise runs to test the kit you have before setting off for real. By far the biggest problem can come from the sun in hot climates; not keeping cool and dehydration can cause serious health problems as Colin can testify to by getting heatstroke in India. They also covered aspects of shipping, carnets, health and bike insurance even down to which bank cards they found worked best (Visa was recommended as Maestro & Cirrus don't seem to work to well outside the EU). The main thing they got across was that whenever or wherever you go remember to enjoy it and not get obsessed with big mileages everyday or what will you actually see of the places you pass through.
More camping, anywhere there's a space.
From here it was into one of the other conference rooms to see Land of the long white cloud an evening presentation by a German couple Ingo Cordes and Claudia Sulek. They had changed jobs and re located to London managing to engineer a 4 month career break at the same time (nice if you can get it). From London they shipped the bikes out to Auckland in the North Island of New Zealand for the start of their adventure. After covering much of the North they took the crossing over to the south island spending time here before returning north again for the flight home. This was the couples 1st presentation and I have to say it was enthralling and easy to view. They're obviously very good photographers as the quality of the pictures shown were outstanding. Many parts of the South Island looked remarkably like Scotland and guess what it rains in New Zealand too!
The presentation lasted 70 minutes but the time flew past, they went from a November to March period as its mid summer then that far south of the equator-you can view more on www.reisenmotten.de. One last small fact, there's 40 million sheep in NZ-that's about 11 per person. If you didn't want to go to NZ before, after this presentation you most certainly will.
This last show of the day took me up to the Friday night so after a late supper I bedded down for the first evening my head swimming with all the images and information from the far away places I'd heard about throughout the day.
Out side the main conference buildings.
Saturday morning came round quickly so after breakfast I had a wander through the site to look at the bikes around and talk to some of the people attending, there were some seriously loaded and well used overlanding bikes here.
A few of the overland equipment vendors in attendance
During the day there were various ride outs organized, some all tarmac and others for the more adventurous being a bit more gnarly. There were also breakout sessions with various topics; one was how to change tyres (not everybody's done it) including advice on ingenious ways to break beads if you're on your own in the middle of nowhere. Another was a road kill cook out, hairy bikers eat your hearts out-but roast hedgehog didn't really appeal to me that much, sorry.
The first talk I attended on the Saturday was at 12pm delivered by Peter Henshaw, freelance journalist and ex editor of Motorcycle Sport and Leisure and Motorcycle Voyager. This was about how to write articles and approach the media with a view to getting work published. I found this useful and thought it could help us with methods for pushing the group's activities through the events committee in the local press.
Michelin were one of the vendors
The next presentation was by Grant and Susan Johnson, the organisers of the whole Horizons Unlimited community entitled "The Achievable Dream." They travelled two up over 39 countries and 5 continents during an 11 year period. The presentation was quite long though after 11 years of travelling as you can imagine they have plenty to talk about so it was split into two sessions with a break in between. They have such a wealth of accumulated travelling knowledge there didn't seem to be anything they'd never come across, their web site is a great place to start if you're looking for information about big motorcycle trips.
The Johnson's heavily modded bike. 86 R80G/S
Straight after the Grants, Chris Scott author of the Adventure Motorcycling Handbook gave a talk and photo show followed by a Q&A session on his 25years of exploring and running trips into the Sahara. A great talk with plenty of light hearted heckling from the crowd; many were fellow travellers and presenters themselves.
With barely time to catch your breath the next presentation was started by Lois Pryce author of 'Lois On the loose'. She rode from London to Cape Town on a Yamaha TTR 250 and has completed many more extreme rides on a Serow 225 proving you don't need to be a man or have a big BMW to have an adventure. The room was packed and most of the women here had come to this one, I'm sure she's provided a lot of inspiration to many of the ladies and rightly so as she's an incredibly determined and resourceful lady. Incidentally her partner is Austin Vince from Terra Circa and Mondo Enduro fame himself a great character and funny as a feather thong.
Finally to round off the day the granddaddy of them all-the elder statesman of overland motorcycling in the UK, Ted Simon gave a talk. He originally completed his round the world trip in the 1970's on a Triumph at the age of 43. He then went on to write the book Jupiter's travels, this book has inspired so many people including Ewan McGregor for his Long Way Round Trip. Well it seems the wanderlust never deserts some people and at 69 years of age he set of again from 2001-2003 on a BMW to re trace the original route to see how things have changed, it would seem not always for the better from his findings. He's just published his account of the trip called Dreaming of Jupiter, he again caught up with many of the people he met the first time around and some of these accounts were quite moving. The room was packed out and the atmosphere amazing-everybody seemed to have taken the time to attend this talk.
One thing that Ted spoke of and something that seems to be a common theme to all the travellers talking is it's the people and the situations you meet them in that really make any trip. Also as you pass through their lives you will usually leave an impression on them that as he found is seldom forgotten-so try hard to ensure it's a good one.
ready to roll
After Ted Simon, and into the early hours many of us stood around the huge bonfire to chew the fat, the mellow laid back atmosphere and re counts of many peoples amazing trips-a great way to finish a long day. By now I could barely keep my eyes open and gratefully crawled into my sleeping bag lulled to sleep by the strange almost frog chorus like sound of tent doors being zipped tight all over the quietening camp site.
Sunday was the last day and I was woken by the light patter of rain on the tent plus the shrill song of the local blackbirds who I firmly believe had been issued with loud hailers for the Horizons meeting, dam they were noisy. The sun eventually shone through and soon dried the tents but with dark clouds peeping menacingly over the nearby hills I struck camp getting the bike loaded before retiring to the main conference buildings on the site. There were a few more talks and shows scheduled up till lunch time, some were repeats for those who had missed them or where they'd clashed with other presentations during the weekend. After attending the last one I left at 1pm, skillfully managing to dodge all the dry areas and keep in the heavy rain showers most of the way home.
A variety of bikes in attendance, including this very nicely upgraded Vincent. Note the twin discs.
What a great weekend I'd had, the weather had failed to dampen the atmosphere there and perversely I'd even enjoyed camping in the rain, how odd. The exhibitors and presenters included Ted Simon, author of Jupiter's travels, Dan Walsh from Bike magazine, Kevin and Julie Sanders of Guinness record and Globebusters fame, Sam Manicom author of Into Africa, Chris Scott author of Desert Riders and The Adventure Motorcyclists hand book, Nick Sanders, and Austin Vince of Terra Circa fame plus many more. If you're a keen tourer or interested in adventure motorcycling I would certainly recommend this event, I'll definitely be attending next year. Horizons Unlimited is now a world wide community hosted by Grant and Susan Johnson, they've organized these overlander get together's in many countries including Australia, Canada, UK, USA, Mexico, Portugal, Asia, NZ, and Argentina to date. Check out their great web site on www.horizonsunlimited.com - a warning though, you may find you're on it for hours, as there's so much information and travellers tales, plus some excellent other site links-have fun.
Remember, make love not war… or get married with kids and have the best of both worlds! Ride safe and as often as you can.
Lance Street.
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