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Day 11 17th April 129 miles Merzouga to Ziz Gorge
This morning we all line our bikes up for a photo shoot along the side of one of the dunes. It looks quit impressive. Next it’s a relatively short ride through the mountain pass to Ziz Gorge where Dave the DL/Kwak owner is knocked off the road into a canyon wall by a map reading bus driver. Apparently the coach was on the wrong side of the road, Dave slowed down but it was still coming at him so he slowed right down to about 40mph and started to sound his horn but still no response. It was at this time he spotted the driver reading the map and not even taking a glance up to look were he was going with no option and no room to manoeuvre Dave dived to the right and hit the wall. The bus driver never even spotted him, even when Dave hit the deck the driver just kept on driving blind up the road. Dave is ok but for a tiny scratch on his knee but the accident has completely ripped off his right footrest, bent his crash bars and removed his mirror. It will be a couple of days before he finds a welder to make a temporary repair on the foot rest bracket but for now the magic putty that sets like steel gets him back on the road. To think back about what happened he was very lucky not to have lost a leg. On the way here the other Dave on the yellow BMW who has just celebrated his 41st birthday is suffering really badly now from Merzouga tummy (being polite again:-). He jumps off his bike almost before it stops then proceeds to run into an overgrown field at the same time trying to get his trousers down and just makes it. The field looks remarkably like a cannabis crop and right out of nowhere a local gave him the Moroccan version of “ow do mate” ....unbelievable.
We don’t see him that night, as he is to poorly to eat so takes to an early bed.

Day 12 18th April 218 miles Ziz Gorge to Fez
We reach Fez with ease and find it quit simple to locate our hotel THE FEZ INN. Its a five star hotel that only costs £25 a night on the outskirts of the new part of the city but this did not prepare us for the old city inside the walls that night. About ten of us decided to enter and have a look around. Our instructions from Nick were. Take a £1 taxi to the Medina If you don’t feel you need a guide and do get lost in the city we will bring your bike back to England for you, Good luck. Never a truer word spoken. Well you have to don’t you? So, our guide Mohamed, who we found or should I say he found us for a ridiculously low fee of 20 dirums, took us on a guided tour of some of the 947 streets of Fez around the Medina. The streets or should I say alleys are about 4 feet wide at most, smell of donkey shit and look like hell and very often feel like it. The alleys are split into many different trades, copper and silver trinkets, lace leather and food. It’s quite an eye opener. In the food area we're looking at all the raw meats on show where you can pick what you want to eat and it will be cooked right there in front of you in the gutter. We all politely decline as always rubbing our fat bellies with the sign that we have already eaten - but we haven’t really eaten since breakfast that day and its now 7:30. We just wanted to experience the atmosphere not the delly belly the next day or the Merzough squits. As promised our guide took us to the famous tannery. If you don’t know what this is, it’s the best leather producer in the world and leathger from there has been binding books and making all kinds of leather goods for centuries. But if I was the devil in this modern world this is where I would send all the sinners in this world to repent. It stinks like nothing you have ever experienced before and its not even summer yet, apparently when it gets really bad! We head back to the hotel for something to eat.

PHOTOS:
Tiz n Tichka pass (x3)
TWO PASSES DONE ONE TO GO

Day 13 19th April 147 miles Fez to Chefchaouen

Day 14 20th April 147 miles Chefchaouen to Ronda (Spain)
It’s now time to go back to our old friends at the customs office in the town of Ceuta. This time we have another problem that’s going to empty our pockets. Dave the rider of the Pan European has lost his passport and if he does not get it sorted today, Wednesday, he is stuck in Morocco until Monday at the earliest as it's going to be a public holiday. He shoots off to Tangier to the Consulate office to sort out a new one, which seemed pretty easy in theory but ended up a slow process as he had to produce a police report about how it was lost or stolen. So he now has to find the police station while the clock was ticking. To say these one finger typing police officers were slow is an under statement but you just can't rush them. Fortunately he made the last ferry in time to reach Ronda at just after midnight. While we were drinking and eating and talking about the film Midnight Express and the experiences of William Hayes.

Day 15 21st April 567 miles Ronda to Villarluengo
One of northern Spain’s best-kept secrets lies here. The road that takes you from Cuenca, the N240 to Teruel and the best bit is for last, the pass over to Villarluengo where we are staying tonight before we have another try over the mountains in the morning. And to think we should have done this twice on the trip if it wasn’t for the snow. That would have been mind blowing knowing what was to come so you could prepare for a real fast ride today but we just didn’t know how long this good road was going to last, there were no clues on the map as to when it would change. It looks remarkably like Yosemite national park in eastern California with a lot of HWY 1 California thrown in. And yet again I have to say there was hardly a sole on this road all day, talk about having your own racetrack. It's about 200 miles long, you will find it easy on a map just look east of Madrid. All afternoon it was a series of long 200 and 300 degree bends left and right on very wide and very grippy roads for mile after mile with very few short straights to bore you. You could easily get your knee down on this stretch of tarmac. I have to say this is one of the best roads I have ever ridden the Suzuki SV on.

Day 16 22nd April 469 miles Villarlungo to Lieu-dit Lafage Rocamadour (France)
Finally today we get to cross the Pyrenees but there are still signs of the snow we had in the higher parts but the road is dry and it’s warm. Myself and Les decide to shoot off up front to race these roads but we have to slow down after half an hour when we catch up a police van. Oh well time to take in the views.
Then you hit the Tunnel de Viella, it’s only about 7km long not the longest or the best we have been through. It will only take trucks in convoy one way at a time and there is a large holding bay at each end run by a traffic light system. You see why when you enter as the curvature of the roof just isn’t big enough to take two trucks side by side. It's black as black can be in there, you have only your own lights to feel your way through and you come out the other end wet and covered in dirt. But “god I love tunnels” especially when you have a rip snarling V twin with its pipes uncorked like my SV is. I am running with a pair of double outlet ART race cans. As usual I drop a couple of gears on entering to get the full appreciation of the money I have invested here in the bike. It sounds awesome always confirmed by whoever is following you. I can hear in the back of my mind the house track by Azzido Da Bass, Dooms night. If you don’t know what I am talking about here go and download it. It’s got that wub wub wub wub beat just like the v twin. You can feel the bass thumping right through you just like the bike does.
Again whoever is following me gets off their bike at the next stop to tell me that my bike sounded bloody fantastic back there. I’m grinning from ear to ear at this point “thanks I know” I reply.
Tonight we stay in a really beautiful Chateaux with a swimming pool. I was the only one brave enough to try; it was a case of dive in and straight back out again, too bloody cold.
Dave’s bike, the 1400cc Victory, has been playing up for the last 600 miles, it's now only running on one cylinder and now has very little power so overtaking is becoming a nightmare for him. He refuses to give up but in the end he has to as the engine gives way and seized up the next day with only 300 miles to the port. So it’s loaded onto the van to be dropped off somewhere in England, then a quick call to the AA to take him the final journey home.

PHOTOS:
KASBAH
Ait Benhaddou
PREPAIRING FOR A SAND STORM
EVEN THE DONKEY USES SOM PLOM Unleaded fuel

Day 17 22nd April 515 miles Lieu-dit Lafage to Saulley near Lille
One thing that really stood out about this day, LE PERIPHERIQUE Paris.
If you don’t know what this is I will try my best to explain. The Peripherique is the inner ring road around Paris central, it’s a crazy road to ride or drive on as it seems to be a 90mph thre lane moving traffic jam! There's less than 8 foot between each car on average but the wonderful thing is when you're on a motorcycle the traffic parts before you just like Mosses did with the red sea which will now allow you to ride faster. They seem very safe the French drivers and are well aware of your presence so sometimes we were hitting 95 to 100mph with only inches to spare..... a most exhilarating experience but more was to come. In the background we could hear a couple of bikes approaching our rear. When I say hear, it was quite obvious they were running full race pipes on their R1 and Bandit and were using the full revs of their engines 1st 2nd and 3rd at full chat wap wap wap waoooooow. I moved over to the left but they were going the same direction my heart skipped a beat as they came past at warp factor 3 with their elbows tucked in so as not to clash with any cars and slaloming through the traffic with ease like a hot knife through butter. They still had time to give us the right leg out thanks gesture that bikers in Europe can only do, then the sea of cars parted and then closed... as fast as they arrived they were gone again. I had a go at catch up but at 115 mph I lost my bottle and got back into the safer rhythm of the traffic flow. Well these guys must do this a lot to cut through this traffic at those speeds.
That night we stay in what I can only describe as an army barracks but its free strong French beer tonight so we don’t really care.
For our last supper we all go to one of Nicks' eccentric mates, Vincent. He owns the Station café in Saulley Station, St Bac, about 40 miles east of Dunkerque. If you have ever seen the TV series ALLO ALLO I am bloody sure this guy is the daft policeman who never pronounces anything right. He also has a 1932 railway carriage which he uses for accommodation, its a little scruffy on the outside but sumptuous on the inside. Its well worth a visit. Nick and a few others stay in it tonight. As we were leaving for the barracks, Patrick spots Nick's keys in the ignition of his R1 and starts it - a few try to egg him on to do a doughnut but he declines. I jump on and do a big burn out shredding huge chunks of his rear tyre up the side of the van producing lots of burnt tyre smoke, it was very impressive to see, we all bugger off back to our accommodation before Nick spots us.
The next morning when we all turn up for breakfast at the station we then wheel the R1 forward to inspect the work from the night before and to my horror his tyre is now glued to the car park and on moving it the tyre now has a big flat spot. Sorry Nick it just had to be done. He, by the way, is still in bed with a large hangover so I think I got away with it. Well he does get free tyres and sponsorship from a leading tyre company so I don’t feel too bad.

PHOTOS:
SAHARA
WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M UGLY?
THE MOTLEY CREW (thanks nigel)
SV EDGE OF THE SAHARA NO MORE ROAD AFTER THIS POINT

It's now the last leg home. It doesn’t seem like an 18 day trip has just happened it will probably take a while for it all this to sink in.

Day 18 23rd April 440 miles Saulley to Dover and home.

Now some of you probably want to ask how well did the SV1k do on the trip or even how did I with this bike. Well the simple answer is not a single problem with any rattles or leaks, no serious discomforts and no damage done. The engine sometimes ran for ten hours a day and not one problem. So there you have it, you can do any trip on any bike but this one was perfect for me. All I needed to do on my return home was give it a good wash and a service. Only thing the dealer pointed out after the service was the air filter was filthy. Well what do you expect!

Regards Chris............what next?!

PHOTOS:
ROADSIDE CAFE IN THE DESERT
THE TANNERY FEZ VERY SMELLY (x3)

MORE PHOTOS:
LOOK CLOSER AT THE MOUNTAINS no I dont know what it means
DAVES NEW FOOT REST REPAIR after the crash in Ziz Gorge
FURNITURE REMOVAL AFRICA STYLE
FRANCE ROCAMADOUR our Chateaux
WESTERN SAHARA

That's all folks :-)

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