As anyone who has ever toured on a motorbike will tell you, even if you travel solo you will never be short people to talk to.
Pass another biker on the road, and they will almost always give you a wave. Stop at a petrol station and the chances are you’ll strike up a conversation about your bike, their bike, where you’re going, where you’ve been. And it’s not just restricted to bikers - car drivers, truck drivers, even randoms in the street show an interest; most people who are willing to give you a nod, a wave or even just a second glance as you pull up will stop and ask the same questions. Riding on a Triumph modern-classic brings additional interest, because there are a lot of people out there who remember the original Bonnevilles of the 60’s, but are unaware that Triumph have started making them again. Even Harley’s don’t get the same kind of attention, because of the strength of the international brand; I've seen countless numbers of them since I've been out here and on Tuesday last week I even passed through a Harley rally on the way to Mainz from Koblenz. Triumph is a big name again in the UK’s motorcycle world, but I haven’t seen one since I reached Calais a week ago. In fact, on the continent Triumph seems to be more associated with a women's underwear manufacturer of the same name.
So you meet a number of characters on the way. There was the German guy and his wife who I met on my third night at a campsite near Wurzberg, and we ended up having a wide ranging conversation about the UK, Germany and Europe in general. Then was the rather elderly German gentleman at the petrol stop who told me “I like your bike; it’s not like the noodle-eating crap you get from Japan”. I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that one. In Prague, there was a solo Russian rider on a BMW who was travelling from Moscow to Lisbon and back……in 18 days. Epic. At the campsite on the Polish-Slovak border there were a group of Polish Harley riders. They could only speak a very small amount of English and obviously I can’t speak any Polish, but we still managed to have some form of friendly and enthusiastic conversation by using hand signals and pointing at things. Others are less adventurous; there was the Slovak rider at a petrol station near Bratislava who said that he wouldn’t like riding solo because he wouldn't have anyone to talk to.
But the most impressive one is a South Korean chap called Niall, who I met at the campsite in Budapest I'm staying at. He’s just finished a 6 month English language course in London and is in the process of travelling home. By motorbike. So far he’s been pretty much across the whole of Europe, including down to Greece (through Serbia and Kosovo) and indeed beyond (he’s been to Morocco). His English is at best average, as he’s clearly still learning. He doesn’t speak any other European languages. His plan is to get to the Russia border and hope that he will have a visa to get through. And ride across Russia. On his own. This is despite the fact, he tells me, that a Japanese guy was recently killed trying to do the same thing, after being knifed to death by a bunch of Russian peasants.
Now that’s a serious journey, and this guy is only 24. But what’s even more remarkable is his bike. He's not doing on something like BMW 1200GS - the biking world's equivalent to a Land Rover and the type of bike most would consider capable of that kind of journey solo. He's planning doing it on the equivalent to a Ford Fiesta - a 9 year old Suzuki 500cc which he bought in London for £850, when it already had 44,000 miles on the clock.
Nuts....
When Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman crossed Russia In The Long Way Round some ten years ago, it took months of careful preparation and they had a support truck following them. I haven't the first idea how Niall is going to manage with petrol - he'll get no more than 130 miles to a tank on his bike, and petrol stations in Siberia are few and far between. What about breakdowns, maintenance, I asked him? His response was simply that it won't be a problem - he had his bike serviced before he left the UK.
The cynical part of me says that what he's doing is crazy, unachievable and probably quite dangerous. But then you regularly read stories about people doing some remarkable journeys by bike. Ted Simon famously spent 4 years in the mid seventies riding round the world on a basic Triumph Tiger, one of the forefathers of the modern Triumph Bonneville....then he did it again the the early 2000's when he was in his seventies. When McGregor and Boorman did their journey, their cameraman did one of the most difficult parts of it on a battered 250cc bike after he totalled his bike.
So i'm in part in awe of this guy and in part jealous of him whilst also thinking he's a little crazy. But he's made it this far and he's been on the road or 7 weeks already. I hope he makes it home safely one way or another.