Category Archives: Travel Blogs

A Clockwise Scandinavian Loop

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This year I am returning to one of my favourite biking destinations and will be spending late summer riding north to Scandinavia. Leaving the UK, riding up through Denmark and into Sweden via the Frederikshavn ferry and avoiding the popular and contested fjords and spending time island hoping skirting the Barents Sea exploring the Atlantic Wall. Having been to NorthCape in previous trips I am pushing further east and am planning to skirt south on the Finnish Swedish border riding the east coast of the Gulf of Bothnia and picking up a ferry from Helsinki into Tallinn and south through Poland to meet friends in Krackow and then stopping in Lienz to re-ride the Großglockner before riding home via Macon – planning will be on the fly, as in past years all I have arranged is a return Le Shuttle and one night in St Omer – excited already…

2017 In Planning

So what is in my Africa Twin toolkit?

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I have had lots of requests to make up toolkits for riders and my advice is almost always the same, you only need to worry and carry the tools you both know how to use and will fix the bits on your bike you know how to fix… That said, as promised, apart from spare tubes here is what I carry in my CRF1000L toolkit…

  • 8mm, 10mm, 11mm, 12mm and a 15mm open end and ratchet spanner (all these will do the chain adjusters, and all the remaining odd nuts and bolts on the CRF).
  • Three MotionPro tyre levers (08-0284 12-13mm), (08-0288 27mm), (08-0286 22mm).
  • Two MotionPro Rim Shield II plastic covers.
  • 27mm and 22mm socket and drive (you will not break the rear axle torque with the MotionPro levers so either under torque your axle or carry these).
  • 8mm, 10mm and 12mm long reach socket and small driver.
  • HW5 Hex.
  • 17mm Axle key.
  • Flat and cross head screwdriver.
  • Tube patches, glue and rubber gloves.
  • Cable ties.
  • Spare brake lever (53170-MEJ-016) – the only thing that has stopped me dead on the CRF is a broken front brake lever.
  • All in a Kriega tool roll and wrapped in a Karrimore waterproof kit bag.

Africa Twin Toolkit

Reflections on solo travel

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One of the luxuries of solo travel is not worrying about knowing where you are, I might never be truly lost, I always have the choice of a left or right turn and sometimes stopping and looking back is all that is required to get exceptional clarity on life – being dwarfed by nature often puts things into perspective.Reflections on solo travel

Hillclimb Cuneo – Col de la Madeleine

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Laying in the grass trying to cool down but no shade for miles as I reached the top of the plateau from a road off the Col de la Madeleine. I decided to follow the tracks of the famous 1920 hillclimb route as I snaked the sixty odd kilometres between the French and Italian borders through the edges of the Vanoise National Park on the SP212 and into Novalesa. Easy on the CRF1000, but i wondered how the original hillclimb enthusiasts managed in the 1920s on such sharp includes with unforgiving and unprotected edges?
Hillclimb Cuneo - Col de la Madeleine