Slaughter house and long hauls

We woke up relatively early at the hotel and I took some time in getting photos organized and to write yesterdays blog entry. Breakfast was fine and then we felt ready to tackle Nimbelles engine problem.

Both Miles and I had been pondering the problem and concluded that it was bound to be in or around the ignition coil. Nimbelle has, or really HAD, a separate ignition coil, a conversion that no doubt was made in the US. Ordinary Nimbii have an ignition coil integrated into the distributor itself, so some rewiring had obviously been done. By Miles, it turned out.... In the spares box I brought from Harlosa, I had a new standard ignition coil/distributor assembly so we decided to make a reconfiguration back to the original ignition coil system. This was done in a slaughter house where the hotel restaurant apparently use to butcher wild boar and the motorcycles had had a scary night there among all the hooks, lines and knives. Nimbelle was pretty tame after a night in such terrifying surroundings so she did not do any further tricks at that time. The operation went well and both the patient and the doctors (I and Miles) survived. Nimbelle had gotten her strength back and we could pay the rather stiff bill (posh hotels got posh bills) and ride off into the mountains. Today was going to be a long ride since we had to make up for the Nimbelle mishap yesterday too. But traveling cultivates both your mind AND your gluetus maximus.

The mountain roads were EXTREMLY curly at this stage and one could not help but wonder wether, or not, the planning department had any rulers at all. The bikes went well though and we climbed up and down like mountain goats. Most of the time the view was obscured by trees but, now and then the trees cleared up and you had a wonderful mountain view. The landscape gradually turned into plains and we had a road side lunch in a road side restaurant that seemed to be operating on a franchising basis. Nothing wrong with the food though, and replenished, we started on the last leg of the day trip to Mantova. Nimbelle had begun to act up again, however, and Miles were riding as if his seat was covered in tacks. It turned out to be a loose ignition plug cable though, and once resettled, Nimbelle, once again ran smooth as a Nimbus should. I have begun to plague Miles and Lars-Inge with the phrase: 'MAN – I am good!' whenever I have fixed a problem and I think I am getting on these guys nerves somewhat. Good. That will keep them alert! The fixing of the cable was done with a cheerful repetition of my mechanical mantra. The guys groaned. Rather unpolished of them, I think!

Montova proved to be a rather charming medieval city with an ancient city center. We parked and Miles phoned his friend Claudio, whom we were going to meet, and then we set out on the pursuit of an Internet Point that could take lap tops. Eventually we also found one! The could not take lap tops as such, but they lent us a USB memory stick where we could put our material we wanted to upload and then stick that memory stick into one of their computers. So, I could do three days of images and an additional blog day, which was excellent. Our fans at home had started to grumbled about 'no pictures' and 'Where are the new entries?'. Believe me, dear audience, it is not that easy to get the material to the net! The memory stick was a good trick though and I will definitely get myself one of those! Jolly delighful, I'd say! Jolly delightful in deed! Hmmm.... Yes.....

The team spent the evening at Miles friend Claudios house and we were treated with hospitality. We had a very good dinner and a great evening, despite certain linguistic challenges. Miles stayed at his friends house and Lars-Inge and I spent the night in an agricultural centre outside Montova where they also took guests. We had a tiny (but clean) room with a weeny bathroom and an itsy bitsy miniature shower. Tomorrow we are going to set out on foot back to Claudios house where the bikes are and try to rise Miles so that we can get going.

Wise from several days of transmits, I have prepared this days transmission into a memory stick friendly format and I will twist the arms of my fellow riders in order to get back to the internet point and try to get it uploaded. All for you, dear audience.