Mayan Prophecy Countdown

I managed to work out ferry times pretty quick this morning, in fact it was a great effort doing it online, because in the end it only cost me 10GBP for the ticket, but another 4GBP because I used a credit card! Still, from memory, it cost me something like $53 Euros to get here from France, so swings and roundabouts 🙂 Farewell Barbara, and the crazy cats, Jasmina and Jasper, very curious cats indeed! 🙂

I had taken other photos, but I am getting a lot of blurred ones, I will have to check my camera settings, it is not as intuitive as my old Olympus in the menu system. Never mind, I got to the ferry on time and was soon strapped down and on the way east.

As you can see, there were other bikers on this trip, the ones in front were just heading over to Paris for the weekend with their girlfriends. This is one of the bonus’s of living over this way, quick getaways to anywhere just about, but you have to put up with the bad sides of the bargain, shit weather!!! These guys were soaked through, not the right gear obviously 😉

I headed off when we got to France and just slabbed it, keeping in mind the fact I was now back on the other side of the road. I had a fair way to go, around 350km or so but I had plenty of time, or so I thought at the time. The weather was not bad, a few light showers but that was not a big problem, and I saw a few nice cars on the highway as well.

I had a fuel break that failed, for some reason I could not work the Belgium card system, it kept saying incorrect card, even though it had Mastercard stickers everywhere. Then not long after that I missed a turn on a free way junction because my GPS locked up and I did not notice it, this caused me to take a 35km loop back before I got back on track and lost most of my spare time that I had up my sleeve. But, later in the afternoon, I was off the interstate system and using the rural road network and saw my first real taste of Holland 🙂

Not long after, and only 3/4 hour later than I intended I arrived at Arnold’s place where I was offered coffee and a chat. After that we propped the bike against the wall to access the swing arm and chain area and inspected the problem area. There were probably a few things that may have caused the failure, but the main one was chain tension. Even though I had adjusted the new chain after the initial 1,000 km, it may have not been enough, so the chain slap looks like it could have whacked into the install. After some consideration, we installed a new bracket and nozzle assembly, but placed the components in a different order, this way they would be higher up and more covered by the swing arm itself. This would also protect the assembly in case of thrown up sticks and the chain would probably come off the sprocket before it hits the nozzle now 🙂

Thanks for the help Arnold, I am a lot more confident about the system now and of course have a back up system in case of future breakages or failures caused by crashes through the eastern states. You can see the system I have at his web site, Pro-oiler And I promise to clean up the back of the bike for you 😉

I was running very late now and hit the slab and headed north, I had 190km to go and it was a good run, fast and easy, except the last 40kms because I hit heavy rain, but I stayed dry once again 🙂 I arrived at Vincent’s after 9pm and we were soon upstairs drinking beer, he made me a nice salad dinner, and we worked out some plans for the weekend, nice to meet you again 🙂

Cheers from Alkmaar, Holland
TravellingStrom