Horizons Unlimited - The HUBB - 100cc 2-stroke to Mediterranean and back (2000 miles)

Hello all,
Just before I start, I've just joined this forum. I have done much traveling by bike across europe since I was 17yrs old, 22 now! Haven't done much in the last year apart from this trip im about to post up. I've got into offroading on a big scale and want to do some more offroad based tours next, so thought this would be the place to join. Anyway heres the story...

Quite a few of my friends wanted to go abroad on bikes. I've been touring before, done about 10 countries using my monster. We were talking about ideas at the pub, must of been beginning of this year, maybe January (09) sometime (best ideas come from either men in sheds or pubs of course).
Conculsion...
Modern bikes are too easy to tour on.
Not everyone has a massive budget.
Something that would be easy to fix.
The idea...
Each person must buy a 100cc 2-stroke bike and spend £400 on it. Have it ready for end of May. Where we aim to ride to Montpellier and back.
The bikes...
My rxs100...
Bought for £150. Spent a fair bit on piston,rebore,gasket,spare,fork gaiters for mot haha (levers,cables,spark plugs etc).
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Stephs (girlfriend) rxs100. Bought for £220 at Kempton auto jumble. Not alot needed for this bike. Share the same spares which is handy.
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My friends bikes...
Adrian GP100. Had since he was 16/17 still in his shed. Blew the dust of and kicked it (bastard).
Richards GP100 Bought for £60 from Kempton auto jumble. In a right state but Adrian also using a gp100 has loads of spares.
David (DJR off this forum) using an rxs100 from ebay. Think it was about £300-350 tax'd and mot'd.
May 29th we all meet at mine and set off for Portsmouth. Bikes look hilarious with tents,camping gear etc. We give ourselves 4 hours to get there. Any breakdowns hopefully we can fix them before the ferry leaves.
We get to portsmouth with plenty of time left so site see abit.
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Ferry to Caen and it's an over night one, chance to get some decent sleep in a bed. We arrive about 5am in France. We aim to get as far as Le mans using just backroads.

Plenty of coffee breaks of course.
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We stop at interesting things and places. We only use tiny backroads hardly ever touching fast roads. Mainly because our bikes aren't fast.
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WTF? Found these at a castle.
Le Mans. Were people doing a track day. Some interesting cars goign round. It was a very hot day and our first one in France so went on to find a campsite.

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First night of camping. Me and Steph are sharing a tent. Richard and Adrian are sharing. Dave has his own (halfords singe skin special). The campstie owner is amazed at our mission and gives us money off. Takes him about an hour to figure out his own computer system. Turns out he hasn't been running the site long. Askes if want a place to make noise or a quiet spot. We go for noise. Mainly for Richards big mouth.
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Next day we make it to Amboise for lunch/coffee. It's a fantastic place reminds me of Windsor town/castle but nicer. http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto...in_Full.jpg%20
Place is over run with fantastic cakes and coffee shops.
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Adrian actually spends his money on something other than pre 60 motorbikes.
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Planning where to go on the map. No gps here, 6v electrics barely run the lights let alone anything else.
Doh, first casualty of the trip. Stephs footpeg weld gives way. Must of been from green laning back in England for shits n giggles. She gets down to look at the bike and places her hand on the exhaust.
I get a mess tin out fill it with water and place her hand in it. Shit it's a deep burn. The mess tin isn't great as the water is luke warm anyway.
I see a guy cutting his grass. All the other houses look empty. I approach him and guester burning my hand. Turns out hes a paramedic and speaks decent English. He quickly get Stephs hand under running cold water. Shes in alot of pain. Paramedic man says we need to take her to hospital (Gueret). He kindly gives her a lift to his work.
We wait for hours to get seen to. During this i go back on Richards bike to get stephs bike. Riding without a right hand foot peg proves interesting but doable.
We find a campsite near the hospital and leave the guys to setup our tents while i go back to Steph. We finally get out the hospital around 10/11pm. Knackered and in pain Steph trys to get a decent night of sleep.
Next day steph has to ride with a badly burnt hand and without a footpeg.
So next stop for supplies I find a suitable bodge fotpeg. Which comes in a form of a metal broom handle. We wedge between the frame and exhaust and make a cruiser footpeg. We double skin it with left over broom handle. Genuis team effort. And thank feck for Adrians hacksaw in his tool kit.
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On the road again and need to make some miles up. We get some decent miles going. We're on a fantastic road, very twisty great fun.
First puncture, and Stephs bike too. Turns out the tire valve had given up and ripped out the inner tube. Must of been from the huge amount of power these bikes have. :?
Like an F1 team i wipp the wheel off Stephs rxs and adrian changes the inner tube.
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Hardly any time wasted. We have lunch too which is mainly french bread cheese etc through out the whole trip (budget style).
We stop at a garage/petrol station. It has a scrap yard too. Perfect place to get some welding done.
I start taking the exhaust and foot pegs off. Of course i wait for the exhaust system to cool down :roll: .
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The guy welds it perfectly. Nice and deep. Refuses to be paid as makes out in broken English that he rode round Britian on a BSA when he was young so knows what we're going through.

Riding over one the biggest dams in France according to a local.
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Morning after camping we go to get fuel. Richard complains his bike is running poo. After filling up his bike decides not to start. Adrian being the gp100 expert sets about finding out why it isn't working.
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Point gap is reset and cleaned abit and bike lives again.Few.
Roads are amazing fun on these little bikes and amazing scenery to match.
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We find more amazing roads cutting through the hills/mountians. Come across a nice ruined castle which you're free to walk around. Views were great so had lunch there.
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View from inside the castle.
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Theres no laid out pathway. You just make your way down climbing down rocks, quite fun, but very hot.

Another huge dam to cross. I waited the other side and took a picture to get the idea of scale.
Some huge bridge.
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Just so you know. We're here
Google Maps
Richards bike is starting to suffer. It's already eaten a piston back in the UK. Which was unseized and reused. The idea to get as much life out of it before the new one was put in :up: . We decide to find a campsite and get his top end apart.
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So with Richards bike treated to a new piston we rest for the night. Hopefully the plan is to try to make the coast for the next day.
We ride all day. With signs getting closer and closer, we push harder and harder to make the coast. It's hotter than we've ever had before. Everywhere looks more Mediterranean houses, tree's,bushes etc. We stop for lunch in some farmers land as was only place with shade for all the bikes.
Sooner or later we get to the out skirts of Montpelier. We ride along the coast to Sete.
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It's quite late in the day so we ride along the coast to find a campsite. We find one at near Adge.
- Google Maps
We setup at a campsite. The ground is mostly sand and proves to be difficuilt to pitch on. A german man is on the pitch next to us and admittedly takes intrest in our bikes and our journey. Gives us fresh veg n fruit and offers us wine which was nice!
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We stay here for two days. First time we get some time off other than riding or fixing the bikes. We go exploring, do some go karting, site see etc.
We get abit fed up camping in sand and start to plan our way back. We start heading up to Rodez.
The weather turns abit and starts raining here and there. We stop at a cafe when it starts to piss it down. Turns out to be a bike cafe. Has a strange bike outside with a citroen engine? Turns out the bike is the owner of the cafe says something like 400 were made. Gave us good prices on drinks think he said we were mad etc.
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We head off and back into the lush mountian area. The weather is bad raining heavily on and off. Waterproofs pretty much remain on all day.
The roads are very slippy and Dave has the first off. Luckily he's not hurt. About 10mins later I come off but at a much slower speed. I snap the clutch lever but have a spare. So we carry on at a much slower pace through the twisty mountian roads. Intill the sun dries the roads out again.
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I can't really remember where or when. But Richards bike is still being a pain the arse to ride. We start testing the bike at the campsite. The airfilter has fallen apart. So we use different things. A sock is used and makes things better but not great.
We get into town and start looking for a motocross shop to get any type of foam filter that we can cut up and use for a filter.
So we sit in the rain waiting for Adrian to come back from exploring the town.
Mean while a man pulls over and explains he has a garage down the road we can use. He goes off and comes back on a tricked out fireblade. He lets in the garage and makes coffee for us all. Adrian comes back with a filter off an suzuki rm250/125 perfect!
The bike works much better. Thank you random man!
Camping was more of a race to put up tent cook and get in it because of rain.
Arguments had been had a few times. But for some reason Adrian and Richard lost it over food sharing/cooking. Adrian then went on about going his own way. So the next morning he did.
Now a four man team we carried on...
Stupidly I was pulling wheelies in an empty carpark waiting for the others to refuel. I did some great ones but when i landed my footpeg weld gave way. Luckily we still had the cruiser bar left over from Stephs bike.
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More wet camping. Some English people in caravans come over and talk about the bikes and our adventure. Very impressed they come back with some rather nice wine and give the bottle to us. :up:

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We don't take many pictures for a while now as it just rains alot on the way back.
However in pissing rain at a roundabout i was leading (i have map) i go across and so does richard. Steph goes to stop as car is coming from her left as you do. Unfortunaly David doesn't spot this and slams into the back/left hand side of her. Me and Richard hear the bang from the other side and turn around. We come back to Steph in tears holding her leg. Both rxs's are on the ground and bits of rxs everywhere. I get Steph to the side and pull her trouser up looking for a break.
Mean while car drivers call for an ambulance. The ambulance arrives quickly followed by fire service. Paramedics get steph into the back. It starts to piss it down heavier than before, great! They pop their heads out the van. They want to take her to hospital to check for a break.
So I follow the ambulance with Richard leaving Dave with a bruised arm and broken rxs's. Arriving at the hospital I ride on the back of Richs bike to get Steph's rxs and sort Dave out.
We get back to find Dave has gone and he has the keys, we wait around and he doesn't show... So we hot wire the rxs. Then the police turn up, which doesn't look good.
Luckily they have Dave and Steph in the back. Stephs leg isn't broken, but has enough muscle damage that it might aswel be, doctor says it will take same amount of time to heal as a break.
We bodge the bikes to a rideable state, again! I try and straighten Daves forks/twisted yokes as much as possible.
His bike is missing a footpeg but cruiser bar is in use, sorry dave! His gear lever is so bent I dont dare risk bending it back (snap!).
I think Steph wants to kill dave as the pain she is in looks alot, but he's clearly shaken up too. Our problems lie else where. Find a campsite, get steph drugged up and sleep!
The next few days consists of rain. So we decide to find a cheap room. We find the worlds most dated hotel but it's dirt cheap.
We treat our selves to pizza made fresh to order and beer. The hotel has a pharmacy nextdoor so perfect to get drugs for Stephs leg.
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We get to Caen with plenty of days to spare. We find a campsite near the ferry and pitch up there for the rest of trip. We do lots of site seeing. We did loads of Normandy sites and of course more go karting as the weather finally got better. Always wanted to see peagus bridge too...
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On the way home from Portsmouth Richards bike decides not to want to run again. We let it cool down, fiddle and get it running again. It sounds rough as hell. Somehow it made it back. We all did someway or another. :up: