Many people tour countries on their motorbikes. Some on a whim, or some as a planned break. We want our journey to have a deeper meaning than a simple sightseeing trip, or motorbike getaway. We feel the journey is a large undertaking, and should not be merely for our own desires to ride motorcycles, but it should serve others as well. Sharing an interest in the Chernobyl incident, we count ourselves lucky to be from the UK, both being born in the months before the disaster; those born in Pripyat would not have been so lucky. The site of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster may not seem a first choice holiday destination. It is, however, a reminder of how we should learn from the mistakes of the past.

The deserted town of Pripyat stands as a solemn testament to not only man's destructive potent to life on earth, but also to the sacrifice people are capable of in order to save it. While the calamity at the Chernobyl Reactor number 4 claimed many lives, exposed hundreds of thousands to radiation, and left the surrounding area uninhabitable, the actions of the fire-fighters, reactor workers and liquidators who put themselves in danger prevented the situation from becoming far worse.

During the summer of 2011 to raise money for Unicef we are planning to ride a motorcycle each from Durham in the north east of England to Chernobyl, travelling through France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Poland and finishing in the Ukraine.

We are hoping to get support from as many people as we can and start raising money towards the end of 2010. Readers of the blog can help by following us on the left, spreading the word and getting others to read and follow and donate if they want to.

Many thanks from the riders for everyone's support.

Friday, 4 June 2010

work gets in the way of my bike

im on the only day off in whats worked out to be 14 days, meaning ive had hardly any time to ride or blog, i will be trying to make up for it in the future.
physically there hasnt been alot happening with the trip, we have decided the trip is going to be taking place in june/july of next year and that we will be setting a more exact date towards the end of the year but again that isnt really new.
on the communicator front i decided to probably go for the scala since most of the bad reviews about it are about the lack of sound, and i found a guide on hard wiring a set of in ear headphones into them and i feel im good enough with electronics to give it a go. the scala set that comes with the tomtom is only a mono one and wouldnt be what i need anyway.
i want to thank the people that are following and the people that are watching us but not following for whatever reason, i know there have been problems when people are trying to follow and hopefully that is now sorted.
an update on the hardware side is that i decided to get a netbook this week, with the 10.1" screen its gonna fit well into the panniers which will let me take loads of pictures and video while we are away and it means i can update the blog on a day to day basis. the price that i paid for it too i couldnt say no. on a technical note ive done away with windows on it and am running ubuntu which is running really well.
ill try and update the blog more often
john
Posted by John Bailey at 19:21

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