Heading North again.

Leave for Olympia. Now we have the full winter kit. Oh its sooo good to be warm! It was soooo cold. Stayed with Greg and Mare. Really nice to see them again. Went out for Italian.

And so here we are back in Fife and more than a little nervous of the evening ahead. We’d been speaking with Brendan, whom I’d liked immediately; a no nonsense bloke who new his stuff and spoke his mind. What you see is what you get. It had been made clear, in a positive way that South Sound had high expectations from tonight. South Sound had been using travel/adventure presentations for many years as a key marketing tool and had hosted some key presenters; Ted Simon (Jupitors Travels writer), Glen Hegstead (Striking Viking) and of course the legendary Helge Pederson (10 years on 2 wheels author). That idea was rattling around my head again…”oh shit what if we suck”? All in all they’d hosted over 100 presentations with the largest attendance having reached 174 at Helge’s last stella show. Of course we’d love that kind of turnout but hey, that was wishful thinking. We don’t have a string of publications behind our name. It was a cold blustery winters night, if we had 80 plus turn up we’d be delighted. More than anything we just didn’t want to let down Brendan and South Sound.

With Greg, we’d ridden up to South Sound by early afternoon and done the meet and greet stuff with everyone and again had been somewhat taken aback with the shear size of the place. With the centre area cleared of bikes in readiness for the seating, the showroom floor was looking bigger than ever. It was all I could do not to yell out something inane just to see if I could get an echo.

Food galore had been bought from Costco and was already being laid out and the 200 chairs were going up in quick time. They’d done this before for sure. The huge screen dropped from the ceiling and the powerful reverse projector and sound system looked more like something I’d expected to see at a ‘big name’ concert.

With the laptop plugged in and a test run complete we could relax a little. Our laptop and hard drives were talking happily with Brendan's’s kit and all looked good. A jolt of excitement had grabbed us both when we’d seen our images on screen for the first time. It’s just the biggest screen we’ve used so far and the slides and photos just looked great. It’s just that strange realization when you remember the exact moment and plethora of emotions of excitement, exhaustion, concern and awe of when you clicked the camera lens and took a particular image and the surreal environment that appears to be jucstaexposed in which it’s about to be seen.

…numb hands battled to set up the tri-pod and clumsy numb, dirty and dusty fingers tried to pre-set the camera. It had be early morning, we’d been exhausted, dusty, unwashed and Lisa was bruised from a fall the previous day. I’d clumsily run from the tri-pod and camera to my bike half a dozen times already and not managed to sit on the damned thing before the 10 second delay on the camera had come round and the wrong photo taken. Finally I’d managed it and had caught the image we’d wanted; the two of us sitting astride our bikes in front of ancient mountains at 16,000 feet in Bolivia, with a salt lagoon lapping at our feet, full of candy floss pink flamingos who were feeding and flying in their thousands. That was the reality of the photo, and yet here we are warm, fed, uninjured and thrilling at the idea of seeing that image here, up on that gigantic white screen, larger than life for everyone and anyone to look at and share. It looks so glamorous. I thought to myself…”if only they knew”!

By 6:00pm guests were starting to arrive and Brendan had smiled when we’d asked how many guests he now had booked.

Greg had done us proud. We sat earlier at his home and had generated new movie style graphics, that now incorporated Google earth in all it’s glory, and that highlighted our route from one key location to the next. It looked great and at last gave a global visual reference for the scale of our journey and route to date.

Guest’s were now arriving in droves and the bikes and cars parked up outside were now filling the earlier vast but barren car park.

Friends we’d not seen for months had turned up, and even a few unexpected faces that we’d seen last after only just arriving in the States. We’d last seen Sherman ‘sledge Hammer’ at Jim Hyde's Rawhyde Adventure Challenge. With a warm handshake and a glint in his eye, he leant forward and confided that he’d remembered I was partial to rum and coke. With that he handed me a large yellow plastic cup full of the sweet dark stuff and Bacardis finest. Sherman you’re a star!

It was time to kick off. Both the bikes had been set up in front, one each side of the huge hanging screen and Brendan was already making his generous introduction. His voice transmitted through the state of the art microphone and P.A. system. The lights had been dimmed and people were waiting. Again we thought…”do they all realize it’s just us and that Ewan and Charley aren’t coming”?

The following two hours just flew by and even with a break after an hour for food and questions it was all over too quickly.

To our astonishment we’d attracted over 150 guests’ who braved a cold, dark windy night to join us. When clearing up we’d asked Brendan if the presentation had gone OK. If he was happy? Was it what he’d expected and basically did we hold our own in light of the other big name presenters he’d hosted? The testimonial kindly written for us by Brendan below pretty much mirrored his verbal response and left us both more than a bit ‘gob-smacked’.

‘I would like to thank Lisa and Simon Thomas for their recent presentation at our dealership, South Sound BMW.

In conjunction with Ride West BMW, over the last 12-years we have had the pleasure of hosting some ’100-plus presentations’ from both regular and ‘BIG’ name moto-personalties alike. Each and all bring something unique and interesting to the table.

It’s easy to say that Lisa and Simon ‘set a new standard by which all future presenters will be measured’. With almost 160 guests the turnout was close to store capacity.

Their obvious passion of motorcycles, adventure travel and each other is clear and infectious. The audience clearly enjoyed the quick, and often irreverent, answers to the questions they asked Lisa and Simon. The slide show portion of the presentation moves at a perfect pace and the dialogue fits nicely with the incredible images, photographs, video and maps presented.

The banter between Lisa and Simon adds to the feeling that you are involved in a conversation with them rather than a pre-planned talk. As they are not professional journalists or presenters, there is a feeling that anyone who was committed to it could accomplish the same trip. The fact that they are still on the road made us and members of the audience feel that rather than just being entertained, we are actually participating in their journey.

As a BMW dealer, the bikes are a testament to the brand. Lisa and Simon both speak highly of their bikes and the equipment that they use. For us, the bad press often eclipses the good so it is refreshing to have our products presented in a very positive light.

I give my highest compliments to Lisa and Simon for all that they have accomplished. It has been an excellent adventure so far and we are proud to have now been a part of it. We hope to host them again and hear new stories from the road. Take it from me, if you have a need or desire for their presentation please do not hesitate to invite them.

Regards-
Brendan Ferrer
General Manager
South Sound BMW

Two tired motorcyclist went to bed that night, exhausted but very, very happy.

With a group of friends around for yesterday afternoon and evening at Greg and Mares we couldn’t have imagined a better send off, but now we’re back on the road and heading down to Tygard to once again see Scott at BMW of Western Oregon.

Scott had arranged for some additional waterproof clothing to be sent in and that we’d in turn arranged to pick up en-route South. To our surprise Scott had also arranged to sponsors us with some wonderful new BMW water-proof dry bags to replace our now worn Wet-Tex bags we’d been using since South Africa.

If that wasn’t enough you could have knocked me down with a feather when Bill ( head Sales Men) Scott’s resident photographer handed me his used Manfrotto tri-pod as a parting gift, stating…”well I don’t use it anymore, I’ve got a new one”. This to me was incredible, I’d been hankering after a decent tri-pod for a while as the cheap plastic one I use simply wasn’t up to the job of supporting the large Nikon lens I’m using. Besides it’s plastic and I seem to break things more often than not.

We’ve stayed again with Scott and we’ll head off South tomorrow, although the weather warning isn’t sounding good.

The weather warning on TV was now in full effect and forecasting heavy snow and recommending that drivers stay off the road. We didn’t have that luxury. And so with zippers, poppers and Velcro all done up securely and water-proofs and heated gear donned we waved goodbye to Scott and Tygard and headed off. The heavy rain from earlier was already now falling as snow. There was no way we could risk going south on the I-5 and over the elevated passes where thick snow would, by now, have already settled.

We were going to have to take the longer coastal 101, which meant a lengthy ride due West before even making any progress South.

As we headed West thick ice was already forming on the road in the shade of the trees that lined the road and more often than was pleasant, both bikes squirmed and slid worryingly beneath us as we hit the frozen water.

Today was just going to be a long, cold slog!

It was very late when two red-eyed bikers knocked on the doors of Issa and Amies in San Francisco, but it was great to be back.

We’d made a good choice to ride straight into San Fran and enjoyed a bright, dry ride back to Davis and to Sonnet’s small apartment.

With Siberia and Mongolia now in our heads as our next stage and with our recent cold riding experience we’d learnt some valuable lessons. Great as the Arai XD are…and they are! The reality is that for us and our all-around needs, they’re not perfect. You know what? That’s a dumb remark…there is no perfect helmet but what we have learnt is that we need a warmer helmet!

Back at Issa’s we pulled out boxes of kit we'd left with them and re-found are BMW System 5’s. Again, not perfect but they’re a damn site warmer and quiter than the XD. That idea came thumping home after just 5-minutes of being back on the bikes as we headed over the hill and back to Davis.

It felt strangely good to be back in old familiar helmets. Like re finding old and dear friends and picking up the relationship just where you left off.

Back in Davis it was time to face a few decisions we’ve made in the last few weeks, the biggest of which is to get back to basics for both bikes and kit. We’re pairing down.

The Wet-Tex dry bags we’ve been using for the last 2 ½ years are 70 litres each we’d be using the new BMW bags from here on out and with their capacity being only 55-litres we needed to re-org anise and re-think. We’ve both known that we’re carrying to much gear. Don’t get me wrong it’s all good stuff but we can’t get lulled into the luxury of being able to carry kit here in the States due to the easy riding, bearing in mind that Eastern Siberia and Mongolia and the riding simply won’t allow it.

So, for the last few days we’ve been making some ruthless decisions and saying farewell to equipment that we won’t be carrying from here on out. Easier said than done!

As always making one small change here has meant having to rethink and accommodate else wear and so the cycle continuous. Hard work but essential.