Post 21: 'Three Weeks to Departure'

'When skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed' ........ Ralph Waldo Emerson

We're starting to make the final preparations to the bikes and tidying up the final paperwork issues. We can't process the Russian Visa's until 45 days prior to entering Russia so that will happen in the second week of April. We've secured the travel insurance through Worldwide Insure at a reasonable price. The only hitch came when I used the same ' Mailing Address' as Alan on my application form. This seemed to throw their systems into suspicious mode and we had to provide them with a full itinerary of our route and timetable, ..... but we hope that everything is now in place.

Finally we managed to build the website at http://www.poor-circulation.net/ but as I speak even less HTML than I do Russian, ..... it will remain a 'work in progress' until we eventually get back the UK at the end of this year. We'll try to bring all of our photographs, stories and video footage together on the site, but until then the blogs will provide the main insight into our reckless activities and general foolishness.

The Triumph-OnLine engine bars have been fitted to both bikes now. They went on without reference to hammers or swearing in about 30 minutes and protect the parts that we were worried about. They also provide a great 'Hanging Point' for the forward tool carriers that we've fashioned from army surplus burgen pouches, .. patent pending. We've added Triump OnLine relays to the lighting systems so that both headlights work together. It does improve night vision but also stops the bike from looking quite so 'Squinty' during the day. Thankfully the expensive to replace twin headlights are protected by Ventura Light Guards kindly provided by MotoHaus. It's been confirmed that the route from Irkutsk to Vladivostok is not fully paved and we fully expect to get stoned (well, ... maybe that too) to within an inch of our lives, .... but at least the lights will be protected. We still need to fit homemade sump guards to both bikes and the Acumen Electronic chain olier's which will hopefully arrive later this week. Alan's bike needs a base plate for his kick stand but that's a 5 minute job. Other than that, .. given the time and budgets that we're working to, the bikes are about as ready as we can possibly make them.

Revolution Signs have provided us with the remaining 'Sponsor Logos' and both bikes are now shameless hoardings for those who have given the support necessary to get Poor Circulation moving. It's all happened quite quickly but we seem to be getting close to 'Ready'. If there are things that we've forgotten, we'll just have to address them as we go.

On Sunday, my Daughter Hannah gave me two pieces of startling news. Firstly, she's going to her first 'Gig' in London and secondly, ........ my bike looks more like 'Nemo' than 'Tigger'. On the first point I'm now a very worried Dad, but on the second point, .... she does as always have a very valid point. Bothered?, ....... not in the least.

http://www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

http://www.poor-circulation.net

Post 20: 'Loose Ends'

'We are ready for any unforeseen events, ... which may or may not happen' ...... George W Bush (again)

The breaking news today is that Alan Kelly has taken custody of a Garmin Zumo Satnav. In the words of our most famous pub landlord; 'shame on you, shame on you, shame on you'. From the start I've been quite proud of the fact that we'll be relying upon our limited skills with Map & Compass to eventually find our way back to London. Apart from the fact that there are now no excuses for getting lost, there is a much more serious consequence to his purchase. Assuming that I'm leading the ride for 50% of the time, .. he's going to know every wrong turn that I make. I'm beginning to think that he only bought it as payback for the times that I've had him following me through London, ...... I can almost see his smirk in my mirrors now.

Whilst recovering from Mr Kelly's devastating news, I decided to tidy up some of the loose ends related to general living. I was pulling my hair out earlier in the month when trying to arrange the Russian Visa's, ....... but that was nothing in comparison to dealing with TV Licencing and British Telecom Plc. For the record, I appreciate that my call is 'of great importance to you', I accept that all of your operators are 'currently busy' and that there may well be a 'high demand for this service', but please, .......... somebody pick up the bloody phone. (Rant Over)

Apart from collecting some Triumph specific parts, fitting our newly acquired 'Acumen Electronic Chain Oilers' and tying up a few administrative loose ends, we're all but ready to go. There are still a million things that we should do, but on such a limited budget certain corners have to be cut. If we had another six months, I'm sure we'd manage to fill them, ..... but we don't.

A casualty of having only three months of planning has been the time we've dedicated to raising money and awareness for our respective charities. Poor Circulation was never intended as a 'Charity Event', .... if it had been we would have simply handed our budgets and free goods directly to the hospice and saved everyone a whole lot of effort. I guess that the fundraising side makes us feel a little less guilty about doing a trip that we would have done anyway. Over the coming year I've set myself a target of raising £5,000 which will cover the hospice's overheads for approximately 1 day. With a little luck I'll get somewhere close to that amount and hope that at least another 364 people are thinking along similar lines. As promised on my 'Just Giving' page, I've added the names of those who have sponsored me to the bike, ....... but there is still plenty of room for more :-)

www.justigivng.com/geoffgthomas

www.poor-circulation.net

Post 19: 'Happy Easter'

'Viking, Forties, Tyne, Dogger Bank, Fisher, German Bight: veering south west 4 or 5, occasionally 6. Thundery showers. Moderate or good, occasionally poor. Beep Beep Beep Beep Beeeeeeep' ...... The Shipping Forecast from the BBC

It's Easter, .. therefore it snows. This weekend should have been the ideal opportunity to head off on the bikes for a spot of camping; testing the equipment, loading luggage, tent erection exercises, all necessary tasks that we need to 'shake-down' before we set off some thirty days from now. Unfortunately snow stopped play. For a pair of would-be travellers, about to head off to Siberia and Alaska, ..... snow should be a minor irritation and certainly not a show stopper. But hey, ....... we might be a little slow but we're certainly not stupid.

You've got to understand that here in England, were really not too good at 'doing snow'. We spend billions of tax pounds (supposedly) on our transport infrastructure but everything grinds to a frozen halt at the years first dusting of snow. Schools close, trains stop running and the road system falls into even greater chaos, yet other countries just seem to get on with it. I'm beginning to think that 'Snow' is not so much a weather phenomenon but more of a convenient excuse for a couple of duvet days. Personally speaking, .... that's a band wagon I'm more than happy to board.

Thankfully my village of Great Saling has an amazing pub, The White Hart. When it snows, the passing trade stops and we have the place all to ourselves and thus lots of room for opening maps and spilling beer without the fear of violent retribution. And so it was that we ditched the idea of camping and decided to do bugger-all instead, ........ a good choice.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

http://www.poor-circulation.net/

Post 18: 'Oooops, ... the Wrong Direction''

'The distance between sanity and genius is measured only by success' ....... Bruce Feirstein

At last the V5 ownership document arrived for my Tiger, ...... I really don't know what all the fuss was about. Things were really starting to move along nicely at Poor Circulation HQ with deliveries of spare parts, tools and camping equipment arriving every day courtesy of generous supporters. When things are going this smoothly, especially if I've organised them, ..... you just know it's all about to go horribly wrong. And so it was, ...... Poor Circulation was once again about to head off in the wrong direction.

We'd decided to use Carole Nash for our travel insurance; £77.40 for annual worldwide cover. I telephoned them for the precise quote today and spoke to an amazingly 'Happy to Help' guy called Steve, ..... '£1,765.45, ...... Sir, Cash or Cheque?'. Wow, .... in the pub with my mates, my Suzuki AP50 did 62mph flat on the tank and my wheelies were almost vertical, ..... but stretching £77.40 to £1,756.45 in the blink of a mouse is really taking the p**s. Apparently, 'Annual Worldwide Cover' means that we're covered for 365 days, anywhere in the world, but we have to return home every 30 days and start all over again. So subtract 24 needless flights from the equation and the premium rises by an amazing £1,700. 'What you need Sir is an Annual Single Trip Worldwide Cover Policy'. Eer, ... No Thanks Bonny Lad. We're now using 'Worldwide Insure' ..... so fingers crossed.

Foolishly, my next administrative quest was in the direction of Russia. As it will take us the best part of three months to cross this vast land, we need a Business Visa. It's not that difficult to acquire: A friendly business in Russia to 'Invite' you, your Passport, a Photograph, a completed Application Form and a few of our British Pounds. We expect to cross into Russia on 1st June and logically, our visa's should begin on that date. However, we can't apply for the Visa's until 45 days prior to their start date. This means we apply for them on or around 18th April and the visa will take approximately 3 weeks to prepare, .......... by which time Poor Circulation will be sunning themselves in Northern Turkey. (Hopefully). So, we can't apply prior to 18th April and we leave for France on 1st of May, ..... and I guess we'll need our Passports with us. Apparently a letter from Alan's Mom excusing us from normal immigration formalities will no longer cut the Dijon with our European cousins, .... bugger. The only solution is to pay more for an 'Express Service' and receive the Passports 3 days before departure. Even for me, ...... that is a little close to the wire not to mention bloody expensive.

Dejected, I opened an email from my brother in Booneville California only to discover that the towns best pub, 'The Highpockerty Ox' has closed down. We'd planned to spend a little time in Booneville unwinding and rediscovering the joy of Beds and Home Cooking. With The Ox' now closed for business and the alternate bar being nicknamed 'The Bucket of Blood', ....... we might just stick to Route 1 and keep heading south.

We'll let you know how we get on, but this week seems to have been one step forward and two steps backwards, .... so no real change then.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Post 17: 'Countdown to Departure'

'Poor Circulation, ...... probably the best 'no budget' motorcycle adventure in the world'.

Departure date is coming quickly now. We're joining The Riders Digest Magazine at the Ace Cafe on the evening of Monday 21st April for our first 'Departure'. After the Ace Cafe we travel north via Squires Milk Bar to Darlington. The moment we ride our bikes out of St Teresa's Hospice in Darlington at 10am on 23rd April 2008, ... Poor Circulation will officially be on it's way. From there, we head up to Scotland, across to Gretna (NO,.. we're not the 'Marrying Kind') and then down to Boot in Eskdale for what is quite possibly the best Steak & Ale pie in Britain, (The Boot Inn, Eskdale) and a complimentary nights camping at the Hollins Farm Campsite. From there, we'll head down to Snowdonia to join the annual 'Boxertrix.com' gathering in Betws-y-coed for a couple of nights of Boozy Banter and a day of trying to keep pace with a group of enthusiastic BMW R1100S riders.

P&O are kindly offering to ship us from Blighty to Calais on Thursday May 1st. We think our official departure from Farleigh Hospice in Chelmsford will be on Tuesday 29th April before heading down to Folkstone and camping at the Warren Site prior to leaving the UK. We hope that for the last couple of days in England, 'Team Haphazard' will be reunited for the first time since Moto Challenge 2004, ....... so listen out for the laughter.

Today, ...... a host of large parcels arrived free of charge from Triumph-OnLine.co.uk and MotoHaus.com. Crash Bars, Spark Plugs, Oil Filters, Tools, Tee Shirts, Bulb Sets, DiD Chain & Sprocket Kits, AirHawk Seat, Ventura Luggage, Light Guards, .... the list is endless. We felt like shrunken versions of Ewan & Charlie as our garden shed HQ filled to its admittedly low rafters with essential goodies. Without the support of these companies, and many others.... Poor Circulation simply could not happen.

Early next week I'm meeting with CitySprint: 'The Worlds Favourite Courier Company', to discuss their continued support and hopefully to fit the final piece to the complex Poor Circulation puzzle. At this time, We're still two pairs of tyres short of a set, ....... so if Mick from Essential Rubber in N1, .. or FWR in SE1 are reading this, ... then be assured that sometime soon Poor Circulation will be coming knocking.

To those who have helped by way of 'Products' & 'Charity Donations', Alan and myself will be forever grateful.

http://www.triumph-online.co.uk/ ........ http://www.motohaus.com/ ...... http://www.wemoto.com/ ...... http://www.poferries.com/ ....... http://www.bykebitz.co.uk/ ..... http://www.theridersdigest.com/ ...... http://www.citysprint.co.uk/ ...... http://www.boxertrix.com/ ...... http://www.revolutionsignslimited.com/ ..... http://www.ridersrest.eu/ ..... http://www.hollinsfarmcampsite.co.uk/

Post 16: 'More Money (and other) Issues'

'It's clearly a budget. It's got lots of numbers in it'. ....... George W Bush

People said that we couldn't do it; Around the World on £20 per day, ..... and they may still be proved right. We really started in January 2008 without a pot but with a very big plan, a lot of enthusiasm and very little idea of how to go about making it work. However, 9 weeks into the actual planning process and fingers crossed, it appears that Poor Circulation may have reached the financial tipping point where money is no longer a reason for failure. We've sold everything that we could, and much that we shouldn't, we've begged, we've blagged, we've borrowed and today the final piece of a complicated puzzle has fallen neatly into place. Imagine trying to complete a 1000 piece jigsaw without knowing what picture you are trying to create, ... then turn out the lights and you'll be somewhere close to the difficulty of the task that we unknowingly set ourselves back in January 2008. If we'd understood the accepted rules for travelling around the world when we first discussed it, .... then we probably would never have considered trying. Thankfully, we're not exceptionally bright and we just sort of ran along on blind faith, it was only after we'd achieved certain tasks that we researched how difficult they really should have been. If anybody is considering trying to do anything along the lines of a 'Poor Circulation', ..... our only tip would be to close your eyes, grit your teeth and 'Ask' for the things that you want. Yes, Alan and I have been incredibly fortunate in the way that things have fallen into place, ..... but trust me, outside of eating pies and wrecking bikes, neither of us have any special skills experiences or talents that have prepared us for this. We're happy to admit that all such talents lay with the various people that we approached for help and thankfully, ..... we accidentally approached the right people. Maybe sometimes our 'Ignorance' has been a genuine asset, ..... but then maybe the same can be said for George Dubya too. (Ooops,.. there goes 46% of our American audience, ... give or take a few hanging chads.)

According to the accepted rules of long distance two wheeled travel; the Adventure Motorcycling Handbook by Chris Scott, .... Poor Circulation is about to prove the equivalent of practical time travel. The accepted 'Planning Time' for an around the world journey is apparently 2 Years, yet Poor Circulation has been alive for less than 3 Months. That much of a difference worries me a lot. OK, we've cut a lot of major corners, some of which will surely come back to haunt us, but most of the essential bases seem to have been covered. Only two substantial things remain outstanding: Visa's and the V5 Ownership Document for my bike, but these should both be completed prior to April, ... but the rest of our minor tasks can be sorted prior to departure or as a last resort, somewhere en-route.

On first sight, the numbers in our budget are similar to those recommended in Adventure Motorcycling Handbook, though Poor Circulation's decimal point is one place further to the left. It's not that we couldn't have allocated more money for certain things, .. it's simply that we didn't have any money so we ran with what we had and blagged the remainder. As of today,.. that policy seems to have worked out quite sweetly.

While the major outstanding pre-departure purchases are mostly insurance related, there is still the little matter of getting from Eastern Asia to North America, .... though that is probably an ocean we'll have to cross when we get to it. North America to UK is not even an option at the moment, .. but then maybe the Tigers will have learned how to swim by then.

For both bikes, we have regular Bennetts TPF&T insurance cover for UK and western Europe which given our ages, was relatively cheap. (Bike, Cheap and Insurance in the same sentence, ... yes folks,. you read it hear first). Where it's required, Third party insurance can generally be purchased at border crossings along the way: Turkey, Russia, Canada etc. We understand that this insurance is also relatively cheap, and it needs to be, ........ it's going to be coming out of our £20 per day traveling budget. For Travel/Medical insurance, we're going to use Carole Nash and this should cover us for most eventualities for a lot less than £100 each. Consider where we are going, and that we're riding bikes that are excluded on most travel insurance policies, .... and this is a real bargain. Just how much of a 'Bargain' we'll only discover if disaster strikes. This is one area where we sincerely hope 'Not' to be keeping you posted.

From here onwards, we really just want to pack the bikes and head off into the mist but at least with the bureaucratic headaches mostly behind us, (we hope) ...... the next few weeks should be a hell of a lot more interesting.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

www.poor-circulation.net

Post 15: 'Humble Pie & Sticky Back Plastic'

'Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; though I'm not sure about the universe'. ...... Albert Einstein

I've been 'Away' for a week on non-Poor Circulation business, .... a week of general laziness and motorcycle mayhem. But I'm back now and raring to snooze. It's also confession time, ... of a kind. In previous posts I have variously maligned my esteemed colleague Mr Alan Kelly for not having a Passport, not having a Modern Driving Licence and for some seemingly analesque attention to details. I've since discovered that Alan did actually own a valid passport and had recently become the proud owner of a 'Two Part UK Driving License'. For those two errors, I most humbly apologise. As for his anal attention to detail, I stand by my previous comments, ... whilst replacing the word 'Anal' and inserting the word 'Thankful'. In my glorious ignorance of the facts, I found it hard to understand Alan's distinct lack of clearly important documents alongside his constant referrals to what I always consider to be 'small print' and 'minutiae', often referred to as 'Garnish'. Now, I understand that it was simply a result of his well ordered mind. For Alan, in order for our grand plan to ride around the world to have any chance of success, everything must have a precise place within an extensive list of essential processes to be followed. Thankfully for Poor Circulation, ..... in respect to planning, Alan is my identical opposite.

Back in January I bought my Poor Circulation bike from a gentleman in Yorkshire. I could have serviced it, I could have cleaned it, I could have filed the documents, I could have fitted protection bars, .... but alas I did none of these sensible things. The Triumph felt right, everything worked, it was street legal and cleaner than any bike that I had previously owned and so I did the natural 'Courier Thing', ... I just got on with riding it. Alan telephoned this morning and asked me to check that my ownership document was the latest version 'V5C/2'. Apparently this latest V5 is acceptable in all of the countries that we intend to visit and that having different versions of ownership documents for similar bikes might confuse some border authorities. (Now that is amazing 'Attention to Detail'). I agreed to check my V5 and promised to get back to him. A quick rummage through my now scant possessions, followed by a swift telephone call to the previous owner and I am now in panic mode, .... 'Code Red'. Ordinarily with my 'Despatch Bikes', if a previous owner fails to transfer 'Ownership' of the bike, I am quite happy for him/her to continue receiving my parking and traffic violations until such at time as the correct documents are in place. However, with just 6 weeks until our departure date, the DVLA inform me that as the previous owner failed to send the transfer documents back to them in January, ..... it will be a further 6 weeks before any V5 is issued. Until that time, I can prove 'Ownership' in order to pay road tax on the bike, ........ but getting the bike into Europe and across Russia could prove to be slightly more challenging. I haven't told him yet, .. but as Alan is one of the three readers of this Blog, I suspect that he will soon be in possession of all relevant facts.

To soften what I expect to be a highly painful blow from Mr Kelly, I have spent this afternoon recreating Touratech Luggage using tried and tested Blue Peter techniques. I figure that if I can demonstrate a way of making our Tigers look a little more 'Long Way Round' and a lot less 'Lost and Found', for no money, ...... then I can deflect some of his punches with amazing gifts of faux-Touratech bling. (Alan is from Essex). So far, using various cheap versions of Tupperware and two large roasting trays from Pound Stretcher, some 'Acquired' aluminium sheet and a handy rivet gun of unknown origins, I've created two water carriers, two sump guards, two desert stand plates and a pair of forward mounted tool carriers; Patents Pending. It's safe to say that they still require a little refinement, ..... but hey, .. Scunthorpe wasn't built in a day.

I've just this second taken a telephone call from the vendor of my Tiger. He has mailed the V5 transfer document to Swansea this evening, ...... fingers crossed.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

www.poor-circulation.net