Ride to the Rock

Ok, easter holidays is comings. Career change in the near future means that I am unlikely to get school holidays off for very much longer so Carpe Diem and all that.

Here's my plan:

1.Ride to the rock of Gibraltar and back
2.?????????
3.Profit

Idealy I'd like to ride down as far as Merzouga in western Morocco, go experience some dunes. But this adds on an extra 900 miles to the journey and I'm not sure I can handle that in the short time I have.

I have my trusty pointy SV of course, however I am looking to upgrade to a Daytona 675 as soon as I can convince some git to buy my car. So I wonder if I should do it on the new bike (assuming I have it in 8 weeks time), wait and use the SV. Or even use the ancient Suzuki 2-stroke 100cc trail bike thing I have sitting in the corner of my Garage that my dad assures me will work just fine as long as I clear out the carbs and start using it regularly again. Would be better in morocco probably, but with a limit of maybe 65-70 with a tailwind could be a nightmare for the rest of the journey.

Thoughts?

Wanna come with?

Am I an idiot?

-Peace

[Paul the 6th]

sounds good matey - I'm gonna head to europe at some point in april me thinks. Never done a trip to europe myself but will keep an eye on this for any advice.

Tbh if it were me I'd be tempted to take the sv. Foreign roads, still getting used to a new bike etc.. I'd prolly do something stupid like set off from a petrol pump with the nozzle still in my hole. Also, 100cc run away would be like kicking dead whales down a dirty beach after the first 100 miles (that's just my opinion again).

Could be worth going with a mate if you can find one with funds & matching holiday time off.. Apart from that, breakdown cover, map, compass, camera & money..

Done

This is gonna be ultra budget, no frills stuff. No hotels/hostels (except possibly in Morocco if I do venture across the med).

I've not done a bike trip on the continent before, although I have done a couple of long car trips as far as Prague, Italy and southern Spain. Those were all planned out in advance with a fine-tooth comb though. I feel excited to hop on the bike and and see how far I can get. Not gonna go out of my way to find the perfect road or best scenery. Just ride where I ride and eat and camp as cheaply as possible.

Does anybody know anything about camping rough? There are parts of northern and western europe where it seems perfectly normal to just find somewhere out of the way and camp rough if you want to save a few euros on finding a campsite. Is this the case in places like France and Spain? Or am I going to get eaten by stray cats?

I had considered hitch-hiking it, but I definately don't want to do that on my own and sadly no bugger seems to get the holidays off work but me.

I think the 100cc could be fairly torturous, the only possitive thing is I can abuse it as much as I like and if it were to break down in Morocco, it would probably be cheaper just to scrap it and fly home. It really is that big of a 'pile. You do read about people travelling all over the world, two up on ancient 125's so maybe its do-able.

Wouldn't take the a 675 to Morocco. Hired a DT125 there once & that was pretty good. Reccon SV would also work. Would love to go back, be a bit more adventurous and and hire for longer but it aint cheap. Bloke I hired it from was a bit "You do know how to ride a Motorcycle?"

Here's a pic:




Edit: Meaning it aint cheap to hire a Bike. Morocco's cheap.

Edit: Slogging a 100 through Spain sounds a bit Joyless unless you've got unlimitted time.