On the Road Again!

Sunday the 17th October 2021.  The Meldrews Sunday Breakfast meet incorporating Ride the World. Didn't happen. Why? The Meldrews part did and that is blogged already.  The Ride the World bit didn't. Why? To complete the challenge to ride to two places on the Overland magazine's challenge, I needed to have the TomTom fully functioning and on the bike.  I had done the groundwork. I had made sure that TomTom could communicate with the Cardo Scala fitted on my Shoei Qwest helmet. TomTom fully charged. All good. What was a stumbling block as that I had not actually foreseen nor had I checked was that the locking kit was in fact locked or maybe unlocked. There are two keys. One locks the whole shebang to the RAM ball on the bike that means the TomTom cradle is locked in place and can't be removed. The other key locks the cradle so that the TomTom can't be easily removed or it can't fly off the cradle in bumpy, possibly off road, conditions.   And yes, both were locked...

A slight change to the route. Gibson's is off the table as they are no longer doing breakfasts.  Instead we have run a poll on the Meldrews FB page and the NAAFI Café at the RAF Museum at Manston has topped the poll. I have changed my route accordingly. Point 4 is the café.

The best laid plans of mice and men.... or more accurately,   " The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,  Gang aft agley" Go wrong! Robert Burns wrote this about a mouse.  But of course it does apply to us.  The plan to get two of the waypoints from the Ride the World challenge ticked off on the way to and from the Ride to the Wall bollixed due to the petrol crisis that affected southern England and to some extent still does! My plan to get the two in Kent was similarly cocked up.  But never fear. Sunday the 17th is Meldrews Sunday and an opportunity to get on the road and waste some of the earth's valuable fossil fuel supply for my own selfish gain calls to me.  We haven't decided where to meet for breakfast yet but maybe somewhere along my chosen route would be good.  Gibson's? H's? See how that goes.

The sticker has arrived and I can get out and knock off the two places in Kent that qualify for the competition. Plus there are two that Neill has planned to visit to and from the Ride to the Wall run at the end the month.

I was sure I had signed up for this earlier in the year. My brother did and had been ticking off the places as he has been out and about. I went to the site and tried my usual email address I keep for things that are non-family/personal related. A Yahoo address that I can ignore the spam that comes it everyday. I tried a variety of passwords - no luck. I tried to get a password reset and it said the address wasn't recognised. So I registered.  It accepted all that and I am in. Website link -  https://www.overlandevent.com/ride-the-world The idea is to visit and and photograph yourself, bike and the  official sticker at the location. The locations are places that although in the UK, are also around the world. Given that the British and Irish have over 500 years of buggering off to the "new world" and naming the new places they have built after the one they left in UK it should provide us with many many places!  I am always amazed that people left where they lived, fo...