Crazy Englishman / Verrückte Engländer, 1000 miles on a 1958 SR2!

How high are the hills? This high: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountains_and_hills_of_Scotland



I weigh about 12 stone 4 lbs which is 78kg. About average I think. I will have other people in vans carrying all of my parts, tools, clothes and tent etc so that will help a lot.

I hope I'm not slower than everyone else! A lot of people are riding modern mopeds and scooters.

Hi Tomarse,

... so you don´t have to hesitate about your weight and the baggage-carrying while cycling through the scotish hills -> perfect!

By the way: in this forum we call the "modern mopeds and scooters" simply "toilet bowls", ´cause they are ugly

You took the right decision: you will ride the simson metal-bike from 1958, so you are very cool and smart. Don´t think about the pack behind you You will rock them!

Regards,

Bernd

"Toilet bowls".

I think I'll wait until the end of the ride before I call other people's bikes that. Otherwise they might leave me in a cloud of 2-stroke oil smoke if something goes wrong with my Simson.

I've just taken delivery of my new helmet. I'm sat here in my office at work wearing it now, trying to decide if it's the right size.

STRIKE ! ... remarkable crazy image in my head

I think we all need pictures to believe what´s going up in your office now...

Regards,

Bernd

I just tried to take one with my phone but it is saying it has run out of memory. Now when I try to delete old photos, it says "not enough memory to perform this operation". Not enough memory to delete things? Hmm, Nokia aren't what they used to be.

This is a problem of all systems. You need free capacity for one picture to delete one. It´s strange but it is so.

Der Tim

Tom, I have a web-adress here (in swizerland); they have 2-stroke-oil with a taste of strawberry, ore onion, ore what you want to have. You can be "very amused", if the other g(a)uys behind you on the chinese rollers (buildet in russian from one thousend hands of children with in the middle a flame of a little candlelight ) will get in the nose.

You will be the best on this race on the old simson!! Believe me!! Its not a problem (you will need a pillow for your backside); but you must have the mecanical Things of your moped clear.

I can prepaire you a motor for your bike and the scottish highlands! Specally for this tour!

Hey Tom,

the idea is nice. No worrys the bike will make it. Your advantage is that you can fix it all by yourself not like the yoghurt cups. And of course with a backup car like Evan McGregor - rose petals fallin from the sky
Im asking myself why you chose such an old communistic relict? And how do get a clou of it? I think the old Simson bikes are not very often in UK?!

Oh yeah, there are a lot of guys who drove with old Simson bikes incredibles routes. Like Florian Rolke he drove 12.000ks to Cape Town -> no backup.



@ drehmoment: the west of Ireland is nice, but try the north west (the Alaska of Ireland) -> county Donegal. From there drive the hole north, Derry -> Giants Causeway -> Belfast. I tell you : Mustia!!


greets Hagen

Hi Hagen!

I´ve cycled several times through Ireland. ... I drove these roads also in the north districts by bicycle.
I will tell you: Derry (rotten rain & rotten hostel), Giants causeway (rotten rain), Limavady (rotten rain), Portrush (rotten rain), Bushmills (rotten rain, brandnew and perfect hostel and delicious whiskey in the bushmills destillery ), Ballycastle (rotten rain) and ... Game over!

After that I hurled my bike & wetly luggage into a greyhound and drove to the southern Dingle peninsula (remarkable sunshine ). So I built up my tent again to dry it and went to dingle down-town by bike (rotten rain again... ). After a hot tea in Dingle my sleeping bag in the tent was SWIMMING But nevertheless: I love this magic island

Several years later I travelled for holidays with my girlfriend back to ireland. Before travelling she bought a brandnew goretex-jacket (t´was her first stay there). But why do I tell this?
´Cause we travelled by car and got two weeks of daily worm sunshine

Sometimes you´ll never know...

Luka Bloom is from Donegal, isn´t he?! I am listen to him every year while he is presenting his Hamburg-Gig in the "Fabrik", he is a great artist.

Greets,

Bernd

I´ve studied in Donegal and lived also a while in Cork. And both times I had always sunshine above average. Compare to you i´m a lucky bastard

Since i broke up whith my green love i thought several of times to go back. But since the finance crises ->

greets Hagen -> In the hills of Donegal



P.S. Sorry for off topic..

I found out about Simson's after searching for internet for old mopeds in general. I found this wild Hungarian creation and fell in love. WARNING - the following photo may offend people that don't like customised bikes:


I then bought the only SR2 that I could find currently for sale in the UK.

I've heard about the strawberry scented oil before. I think I might have to get some. I just searched online and it's available in the UK too. Have you tried it? Would it make my hands smell better and stop my girlfriend complaining when I'm trying to fix my fuel supply?

Norbert, I'm going to build a fresh engine soon to use for the journey but if there was the possibility of borrowing a good spare engine then that would be fantastic. I'm hoping to have lots of spares with me on the trip. Of course, I won't need them though!

Oh, I forgot, at the weekend my brother stopped someone attempting to steal my old Simson!



















Angefügtes Bild

Give us more pictures and more details.

Der Tim

The incident occured at 09:32 on Sunday morning in my back garden. The suspect (who later transpired to be my niece) was aprehended whilst trying to reach the pedals from the seat. The suspect was remanded in custody for the duration of the Teletubbies show.

Congratulations cause of the brave intervention of your brother, hope the young lady ist still arrested while drinking water yet?!
I still remember I´ve seen a report from this experiment of thievery in an exclusiv BBC documentation on last sunday evening...

>> How younger -> so much worse!!! <<

Tomarse, is it possible to get one more picture of the Simson SR2?! It`ll be great!

Greets,

Bernd