Heading for the Midnight Sun

The Land of the Midnight Sun

Well winter has nearly passed and apart from my pedestrian visit to the Los Pinguinos in Valladolid North Spain and a trip to Italy where I dragged a 350 cc Cagiva engine around Turin in a suitcase, I have done no trips on the Derbi.It's been sitting out in the rain all winter and needs some work on it before I set off again on Easter sunday.
But before I tell you about the ride, I would like to point out I have been working tirelessly on a web site for language listening in aid of UNICEF and you can see the effort so far at www.listen-here.eu/

The ride I am undertaking is a trip up to North Cape at the most northern point of Europe in North Norway.It's a chance to see the midnight sun and will mean that I will have covered the whole of the Northern coastline on the little old Derbi Cinquenta.



The ride is in memory of Luca Jones who lost his fight against Leukaemia late last year.I hope to raise awareness of the need of all young men aged between 18 and 30 years of age to register for bone marrow donation.

I have chosen Easter Sunday as a symbolic time for rebirth and a bone marrow transplant can give somebody that chance to live again.

I would like all bike riders and clubs through out the world to make a ride on that day in support of their own countries organisation, which in England is the Anthony Nolan Organisation. This is the banner I am riding under, and that of course can be modified to your own lanuage

Bikers Have the Balls-Have You?

I intended to start the ride in Brittany North France and ride the coast over the three months to reach my target destination, but was alerted to Derbis 90th anniversary meet in Barcelona on May 26th. So I have altered the plan to incorporate attendance there as it is a special day and who knows what help may be offered from Derbi in pursuit of further rides.

It means that I now start the ride in Amsterdam and follow the coastline to Brittany and then south to Barcelona. After the event there I have 6,000 kms to ride retouching the coast at Amsterdam and following it up through Germany Denmark Sweden and Norway. I haven't worked out the route and destination after that, but I have only three weeks to cover the distance. So here's hoping for a trouble free trip.

I need to do some modifications, especially for Norway where it is mostly wildness. One important factor is fuel. With garages and petrol stations often 300 kms apart I need to make a carrier for carrying fuel cans as the Derbi only has a 120km range with the tank.

The other is a couple of spare tubes and a spare tyre . I will also be breaking from my roughing it on the street regime and will be taking a tent and cooking stove so the bike is going to be weighed down quite heavily this time. Slow Slow Slow, or as the Italians say Piano Piano.

Updates will be coming in thick and fast from now on, so do stay tuned in. And I will be doing the blog in Spanish after sorting my irregular verb tenses from listen-here.