What started as a modest idea to go for a short ride through France has morphed, ridearound style, into an epic adventure that far exceeds most of our usual bright ideas. This, technically, is not true because we regularly have wild ideas, the difference this time is that our tickets are booked and the sat-navs are starting to tremble!

At the end of September, most of team Ridearound and a few additional friends are setting off on voyage of discovery.

• We will discover huge mileage as we cross countries.
• We will discover beer at the world famous Oktoberfest in Munich.
• We will discover interesting odours in the tents we will be camping in.
• We will discover the history of BMW at their museum, also in Munich.
• We will discover the many turns of the Nurburgring race circuit as we trundle our fully laden tourers around.
• We will discover multi-national gastronomy as we have breakfast in Germany, Lunch in Brussels and Dinner in France.
• We will discover claustrophobia (if applicable) in the Euro Tunnel.
• We will discover our inner interior designers at the Grand Designs Live Exhibition in Birmingham
• We will discover brown trousers by bungee jumping in Bristol.
• We will discover doughnuts and gambling in Weymouth.
• We will finally discover sleep as we head home!

That’s right, we have a lot to do and, I agree, there is a good chance it will all go to pot when we get to the beer festival. But with our adventurer hats on, we plan to have a bloody good go at it all! At the very least, it will put us in good stead for some of our next crazy adventures!

Much much more to follow!

Amazingly, we still have 5 weeks until the adventure begins and we seem to be quite well organised. Tickets are booked, a rough plan is in place that will ensure we get to where need to be and some research has been done to ensure we make the most of our time away.

This is all very unlike us so expect some panic a little later on!

Last night most of the group met up for a planning session, a few beers and some BBQ meat! We managed to conclude that on the first night we need to get past Paris. Then, completely overwhelmed by the effort involved in making such a decision, we gave up on the planning and got back to the beer.

Dave and Leigh had a taste of Wayne’s special sauce!

At 234,000 on the Scoville scale, it caused tears and a bit of breathlessness in Leigh and a sudden, unquenchable, burning thirst in both that resulted in even more beers going down the hatch!

We have to test out some equipment for the trip so keep an eye open for that coming soon!

The last thing I wrote was 4 weeks ago. A lot has gone on behind the scenes but I guess no one has updated the site. With less than a week to go, we have been getting the bikes ready and trying to figure out how to pack everything. With any luck we will be better at keeping the updates coming when we are on the road!

To keep you going, here are a couple of pics from our tests!

The bandits range is about 200 miles. The GS’s will do 300 at least.

Had a lot of rain last night before we stopped at nearly 4 this morning. The sun is out today though and we have covered 220 miles so far!

Friday morning all set to go

We have completed our few days down in Munich. We visited the massive Oktoberfest beer festival and took in the BMW museum which took nearly a whole day. We will shortly be leaving and heading up to the Nurburgring.

After an early start and a 5 hour ride we made it to our guest house where we unloaded the panniers and headed straight for the Nurburgring. We had time for 1 lap of the course and it was amazing.

View Nurburgring in a larger map

As soon as we’d finished we grabbed our obligatory stickers and headed back to the guest house again.

The following images are copyright to the photographers as indicated on the watermarks.

There were a number of unrestricted autobahns on the way up which was an experience in itself. Cruising along at 90mph and having a Porche fly past at twice your speed is not something you see everyday.

We are absolutely knackered now… Dave is already asleep, so its an earlyish night before we do even more exciting stuff tomorrow!

It is now “tomorrow” and I’m going to post this update after a full english breakfast in Germany.

We have just left the Spa racing circuit and are having a bite of lunch here in Belgium.  Pictured is Dave’s Double Bicky Burger!

So lunch in Belgium complete… On to France for dinner!

So we completed one of our challenges and had dinner in France.

After our dessert of strawberry cake rolls, Dave had to repair the front left indicator on the Bandit after it was damaged in a slight horizontal mishap in Belgium.

Not a bad day, breakfast in Germany, lunch in Belgium and dinner in France. Off to the Eurotunnel tomorrow.

We have arrived in the UK after a 35 minute train journey. The Eurotunnel was really simple even though we had to buy return tickets since they are half the price of a one way… figure that out.

The nice hotel manager let us park out side the hotel!

We have arrived in Bristol for the bungee jumping. Should be a good laugh. Pictured is Leigh screaming like a girl… Just kidding… We took it like men!! What a rush!

There will be more to see in the video when we get back if Daves phone works!

6 months after our triumphant return, we have finally remembered to complete the video! This is our longest production yet and we have learnt a lot about what type of footage we need to get on future trips. As you will see, the video elements tail off a little at the end. Either way, it was one hell of a trip so this is a great reminder for us!