Big Earth, Sat Nav and the biking life

With the silly hours ive been in work the last week i have neglected the blog abit and ive decided i should update today. the first main thing is to give a huge shoutout to Big Earth and all the people there who gave us a massive shoutout the other day on twitter, thanks guys.
other things ive thought about this week are to do with sat nav for the trip but i will be keeping after the trip, as far as i can see its between a version of the tomtom rider or a version of the garmin zumo. i have found a site that sells a zumo 500 deluxe with an upgrade to east and west europe maps for a total of 269 quid, i know its a discontinued model but the price is fantastic, i have also heard very good reviews bout the zumo. the only thing that holds me back from getting it, other than having no money after having to renew my car insurance, is that the tomtom comes with a scala rider headset that i was talking about in a previous post, am i saving money by getting these things at the same time? does it have all the connections i want like the mp3 player connection? only time will tell.
i have also been thinking of places we would like to pass through on the trip but havnt yet found and route, if anyone has any ideas id love to hear.
my final thought is about something someone said to me the other day, someone asked me why i got all worked up about motorbikes and the whole motorbike lifestyle, i just talked about it being amazing and the total freedom of it all, to which i got a blank look, i asked if he had ever been on a bike before to which i got a no, i decided after a while of thinking about it that if youve never experienced bikes and riding and everything that goes with it then people would never understand, maybe im just thinking about it all too much, i just like bikes.

CG legal again

Right, well I've finally had my bike MOTed. Seeing how I work in an MOT garage you'd have thought I'd have done it sooner than now, 2 months out of date. I blame the garden. And failing to realize when it was due. Anyway, it's done now, and I've now got to get practice for riding a bike I suppose, screaming down the dual carriageway at 62mph. Me screaming, not the bike, trying to will the legal speed limit out of 125ccs of commuter Honda. Bring it on.

bike to bike communication

ive felt ill today which is the last day off for a while, ive been looking at the possibility of finding bike to bike communicators that i could connect a mobile phone and satnav to through bluetooth and mp3 player to through a cable connection. i also wanted to have one that i could use in-ear headphones with too this would obviously remove the need for earplugs and would still keep audio quality. i have found a few sets that tick most of the boxes but price is quite high. i have found something called the Cardo Scala Rider, it seems to do almost everything i need but has no way of connecting in ear headphones and on the reviews sound quality is an issue, but some reviews say sound quality is fine, im guessing its all to do with which bike and which lid people use. the other bonus of the scala is that for the price of one set of the others i could get a twin set which would be all i need. at the moment this is what im heading towards. i will not be buying it yet and there are always new ones being sold but if nothing changes the £250 will be going on this set.
John

First Post on First Blog

As the title suggests this is the first post on my first blog, and I'm not sure what to write. At this point i am just going to write the first thing that comes into my head and eventually I'm sure there will be some sort of pattern occur.
This blog is to mainly keep a record of plans and inform people about the trip and to ultimately raise money for Unicef. At this point the trip is in the very early stages and there are still some major hurdles to overcome. On the plus side we have spoken to Unicef who are very happy for us to do the trip and even though it isn't possible to meet the people in the Ukraine that we are hopefully raising money for we have decided to take a day trip to the town of Pripyat which we feel is the next best thing.
At the moment, and especially at work I seem to think of motorbiking and being on a motorbike everyday, which usually brings me onto the trip. Above all else I hope the trip is a success and we do what we are planning.
I still have many questions for myself at this point and I am working through them one by one, questions like how long would it take to get through the EU country boarders? and how far is it sensible to ride each day? do we stop in at places on the way or just ride on? where do we sleep? all the way to silly questions like which set to use to communicate between the bikes?
I've already spoken to quite a few people that have been very helpful about so many aspects of the trip and have wished us well and pledged their support, I only hope this will continue as well.
John