TravellingStrom

Mayan Prophecy Countdown

I slipped down to the bike shop early and they said yes I could do my own oil change, they had oil but no filters. I have two, but that is now down to one, I need to stock up when I get a chance, they were for the difficult areas of Russia or China. Anyway, as I removed the bash plate I noticed one of the support brackets had snapped, so then it became necessary to pull the whole shebang off and get that welded up, but the lads did a fine job and all for $25, including oil 🙂

After doing a couple of posts and sorting out some riding information, I headed out to the bike meet near the lake. They were just starting to arrive, I had misunderstood what was going on, I though bike races etc, but it is just a rally. Anyway, I had myself a nice burger while checking out the scenery, a nice place to camp I reckon, pity I had not known about it beforehand as I had just booked into the crap hotel for another night, oh well.

As there was plenty of time before the six pm parade, I headed up to Skopja for a ride to find some caches, but I had problems getting to the one I had selected, the military had blocked the road, so I gave up and headed back. I had to pay a small toll, and the road was crap, I hope they use my 50 cents wisely!!!

That road has been gouged with a stripping machine, it went for ages and was horrid to ride on, especially the corners! I managed to get back to the bike place in time to get involved, probably against my better judgment, especially as all the rev heads were here. Check out these couple of small videos, in the second is where I meet Borsh, we had beer together 🙂

There were a large number of bikes, but I doubt there were a thousand like I was told would be there, maybe a few hundred all up, still, a very noisy and fun environment for bikers 🙂

Then it was off for a parade through town, right then my battery for the helmet cam died, so I took a detour through to my hotel, changed card and battery and caught up with them a few minutes later and worked my way through the pack.

There were some interesting sights with all the crotch rockets around, check this out 🙂

Once I got to close to the front of the pack I hopped off for a quick drive by action shot.

The parade went through town and back to the lake, I went to the hotel and got a cab back to the lake, so I could have a feed and some beer 🙂 The bands had just started up and the beer was flowing, many different types of club colours, but not bad bikers it seems, just different areas. These next photos are crap, my camera is seriously ready for the dump, me and cameras, not a good subject! I had caught up with Borce and his club friends and I stuck with them, they are a fun crowd. The first band was pretty crap, a bit distorted in the sound department, but the next band was brilliant, one of the countries best and they really put on a show, great jamming with a few other musicians just hopping on stage and ripping out some good ones 🙂

It was a late night, Borce gave me a lift back to the hotel around 1am or so on his BMW1200KT, now Des may be interested to know, but this bike also had a failed gearbox when new and even now the replacement is making some huge clunking noises again, so it will be getting sorted under warranty as well. Just for the record, Des from Cairns had one of these bikes brand new, then the gearbox blew up and was out of action for 6 months, very bad service. Anyway, it was a great night and I had been invited to Borce’s place tomorrow where they will help with routing ideas through Albania and Montenegro etc. They still had to ride back to Prilep, about an hour away, but they assured me they like night riding 🙂

Cheers from Macedonia
TravellingStrom