Itchy Boots at the ABR Festival 2025

Itchy Boots at the ABR Festival 2025

Everybody doing good? It’s nice to be here. I have taken a break from my journey to Japan to come to the UK on a book tour.. And while, things have not quite worked out. the time? Did anyone see Yeah. Anyway. Oh, I’s. The main thing I was going to come how it’s like to ride around the road on a vintage motorcycle this summer. I thought that
would be an interesting topic to talk about. So I’m heading to Japan, and I’ve just completed kind of the first leg of the journey. So where I started this bike in Istanbul. Okay, so I started in Istanbul. And so far, I rode through Turkey, and then I went into Iraq and then into Iran, back into Iraq, to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and then I took a quick jump to Yemen, but that was on another motorbike. Then back on my bike and then to Dubai. That’s been the first Leg, and I think it’s about 20,000 kilometers. I have to count it because my bike has no dashboard, I have nothing. I don’t have, yeah, nothing. So I have two kind of mentally countdown kilometers I’m doing. So it’s about 20,000. And so, yeah, I now came to the UK for the book tour. I just want to say, thank you so much for everybody who already bought my book. Yay, I hope that you’re enjoying great. It’s very I shared a very personal side of the story of my book. And because so many of you bought it, it made it as a Sunday Times bestseller and a New York Times bestseller Don’t that they means. That just means there’s more people are going to learn about our world. Right? Adventure motorcycling, it is the best world. And so I’m really happy that more people get to know us now. So, but, okay. I want to first talk a little bit about, you know, the choice for a vintage motorcycle and I thought, maybe I should go back first to my general bike choices, which are doubtful sometimes, maybe, according to the Internet. and explain you a little bit, you know what bikes I’ve ridden so far and why, because I started my journey in India and I rented a motorcycle first, which happened to be a Royal Enfield Himalayan because it was fancy. Because that’s basically the only bike there was there. So I was like, okay, I’ll take that. And then I liked it, so I was like, I’ll buy that. So that was a Basanti. And I rode that motorcycle. from India then back to the Netherlands. And then my next plan was like, okay, now I want to ride from Patigonia to Alaska. But this motorcycle that I bought in India had Indian plates. And so the paperworks was a little bit of a nightmare, and I crossed 25 countries as Ahmed Mohammed. It worked, it worked. But, you know, people said, like, you’re not going to get away with that in South America, or especially actually in Mexico. They really want to make sure that you are actually really, really the owner. So then I was like, maybe I should have a motorbike with Dutch plates, and that’s registered to my name. So in came the second Roy Enfield, Dhanno. And I rode it from Patagonia to I made it only until Peru, and then COVID hit. So, I had to escape. I had to get the bike out as well, and I went back to the Netherlands thinking what am I going to do with my life now. And I basically just looked, where where can I go? Which country is open? And at that point, Northern Europe was open. So I was like, off I go to North Cape.” And so I was like, okay, I need a motorbike. And I did very little research. I just go like, Googled adventure motorbike for like for Northern Europe. And that gave me this one, so I put a secondhand Honda CB500X because I knew I knew like, okay, it’s. probably going to be more tarmac, so it’ll be a good bike. It was a good bike, but I find it too heavy, you know, so I was actually terrified taking a even on gravel roads, because I was like, “Oh, this thing is so heavy.” So it was good for that trip, but I was kind of like, hmm, not really it.” Then when I finished that trip, South America, was still closed, so I put him back to Peru to continue. So I was like, where and I go, no, South Africa got opened. Yes. So off I go to South Africa, and I went to a motorcycle shop, and, well, they had secondhand Honda secondhand KTMs, but the KTMs were too pricey. I was like, let’s it. expensive. So then I bought the secondhand Honda CF 250 L. So cute. And I rode five months around South Africa and maybe be able to one a Zimbabwe, then tried my first rally on it and broke the subframe in half. So the bike now lives in a motorcycle museum in South Africa. You can go and see someone other there. But riding that motorbike really introduced me to how it’s like to ride a light bike. Because, okay, many people will still consider these to be light but not in really in my book, like, 200 Kilos, I find it still quite heavy. But when I wrote that one, I really realized, I really can go anywhere on this motorbike, you know? It doesn’t matter I can always. if I’m on a single trail, I can turn the bike around. If it falls upside down in a ditch, I can I know I can get it out of there. And it still took me everywhere I hear.. So I was like, okay, something about this bike. So when I left it behind in a Motorcycle Museum by that time, Peru was still closed and I was done waiting. So I was like, I’m gonna restart my journey to Alaska in Ecuador and I need a bike to do that. In Comes still, CF 300 Rally, because I really liked the little Honda, and I was like, the problem maybe was the fuel range. I mean, it has a tiny tank, I can’t remember, 7.8 liters or something. It’s a nightmare. So I was like, I need a bigger tank, I just need more range. And I need maybe some a little bit more body. who doesn’t like, you know, you still want to feel like you’re riding a motorcycle, right, not a moped. So that bike kind of ticked the boxes. So after two second hand hondas, I bought my first new Honda and shipped it to Ecuador and then rode to Alaska and completely, how do you say it revamped it? You know, did it all work over to make sure the was in perfect condition again because then I was like, let’s do Africa So then I rode with that bike from Morocco, down West Africa to the south, and then back up on the east side. And then, well, I had an accident. I’m not the first one probably to talk about an accident. Mine, luckily wasn’t so bad, but, yeah, it took me out for a little bit. At that point, I was like, okay, I’m also going to retire a motorbike. You know, I think I was like, “This is it now, I’ve taken this this bike for a very long way, it’s done his job, I think it’s time to retire it. In comes this baby. Yeah, she’s pretty, she’s pretty. So this is my current motorcycle. as a Yamaha XT 600Z. Her name is Frankie, and the reason of the name is because the motorcycle is basically completely stripped back down to the frame and completely rebuilt up again, but then also using a lot of different parts from this motorcycle, but like models from late ’80s, early ’90s, which had already l in some ways. slightly better parts here and there. So it’s a 600 cc single cylinder and it has about 40 rpower. And when well, I can’t really say I rebuild a bike, I obviously did nothing. But Maurice who has a business called Motoriritz in Germany, he’s been building and working with these bikes for a few 35 years, and so I had the pleasure to work with him or see, look at him, work, and admire it. And so but the vision we kind of had for the motorcycle was like, it needs to be in a good shape because I don’t you know, you’re going to have challenges, but I don’t want to buy a bike. It has been sitting doing nothing for 30 years and it’s going to break down around every corner, you know, that’s people too much. A little bit of trouble does well on YouTube, but you can’t have trouble every day. So I was like the bike needs to be in a proper good state. So it has the engine is completely rebuild, so it’s basically a new engine, a new gearbox, and then the parts on the bike kind of vary from between 1982 until 2024. So, for example, the rims are they were a spare for the 1982 Dakar rally laying there as a spare for a motorcycle, never been used. And now being used for the first time on my bike, which I thought was pretty cool. So yeah, she’s a little bit of a Frankenstein project but we tried to kind of keep, like, the original look. I didn’t want to change too much with like a modern headlight or stuff like that. I was like, who needs some lights anyway. So what we did do was, for example, change the indicator lights, because in the ’80s, they had these massive blinkers and I know like, okay, I dropped the bike once and it’s going to break off. So there we chose like to use like smaller blinkers that are not going to break off. And, well, Frankie came to life. Now, maybe you wonder, okay, so, but why, after all this history with all these bikes, did I go for a vintage bike this time? And after the third Honda, after Alaska, that’s the name of the third Honda, I knew, okay, it’s no more Honda. for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is that it was already my third Honda in a row, and when you do a little bit of social media, people are going to assume that you’re being sponsored. And I was never sponsored by Honda. Like, there was absolutely nothing that Honda did for me which is fine. I was like, “nobody’s going to believe me if I go again for a Honda, right? So I was like, okay, it has to be a different brand. The second reason why I was like, maybe I don’t want to ride a Honda anymore Well, okay, this happens. Somewhere in West Africa, somewhere between Sierra Leone and Liberia, the motorcycle starts making a really strange sound. Yeah, you hear it, right? It’s not good. So I sent this video to the Honda dealer where I bought a motorcycle when I said my engines make me strange sound. And they said, well, we give it 200 kilometers max, and then you’re gonna blow up the engine.” I was like, “Oh, that’s no bueno if you are in the jungles of Liberia, you know, on your own.” So I said, “Okay, but what can we do?” you know? So I asked the Honda dealer, like, “Okay, maybe now it’s time to reach out to Honda and ask if they can maybe help me.” And, well, why did I get into this story? So their response was, ” okay, then you need to buy a new Honda in Europe and have somebody take out the engine and then ship it to Africa and they’ll change it.” And I was like, oh, that’s a bit disappointing.” So I said, I expressed my disappointment, and then they changed it to okay, now, Honda will buy a second-hand Honda, take out the engine, but then I still need to pay for that engine to go to Africa and change it. So at that point, I was like, I don’t think I want to do that, you know? So I said, okay, well, I’ll just keep on going. If the bike just you know, falls apart in a pile of rubbish, I’m just going to abandon it buy a thousand dollar Chinese local motorbike and just continue from there. You know, might be fun as well. But then there are some pretty decent, good mechanics in Western Africa. If you search for And one of them said, “Listen to it.” And he said, ” I know, it’s just your cam chain tensioner” Which is not a big deal. It’s just a part. You order it, you change it problem solved, and the bike never had any problem anyway. So of course, that was the good news, huh, so the bike has done incredibly well. I absolutely love that motorcycle. But I also realized, you know, even though I don’t, you know, want to be per se a sponsored rider, it is really nice if you ride a motorcycle from a brand that you feel like if I’m really into trouble they’re gonna help me, you know. And especially because my YouTube channel always must go on. So
I can’t say,O, I’m going to wait here three months for an engine to arrive, because then, you know, all of you are going to be like, “Hey, what the heck? where are our videos.” So I always must keep going, keep going.. There’s no time for delay, you know? So in that sense, it really helps me if you know, you have a brand that is willing to jump in and help you with that. So And then finally, the third reason, because I do have to admit, like I said before, that’s CRF 300 rally was a perfect bike for me. It was perfect, you know, it was not too heavy, it had a good range, it was reliable. So I was like, okay, what other Honda would be better than this one? And actually none, you know, I was like, I don’t want to go to an Africa twin it’s too heavy. I don’t want to go for it for a 450 It’s you know, maintenance interval too high. So I was like, this is actually already the best one, but I’m not going to buy the same bike again. You know, that’s boring. So I thought, okay, let’s move on and look for something else. And when I think about a motorcycle, yeah, it’s always a compromise between, I don’t want it to be heavy so that you go towards enduro, but I also want a long maintenance interval. I don’t want to have to change oil every thousand kilometres or every hundred hours or counting it hours or something. I do need a bit big range, you know, I need to have like, I want to have like a 400 kilometer range in terms of fuel. Those are the things that are important for me. So then I start looking, okay, what, other brands are there? Because the brand is important and what up there. And then I started thinking, like, okay, I quite like this, this Yamaha Ténéré But the T7, for me, it’s just a bit too heavy. and too tall. And that was my thought. And now that I’m actually riding one through the UK it’s still my thought, you know? It rides really well and it handles to be be fair, better, obviously, than Frankie, which I think you can expect after 40 years of developing a bike, you may hope that handles better and it does. But I still feel this bike is really heavy. So if that bike is upside down in a ditch, what am I gonna do, right? So making them so heavy. I don’t understand it personally, maybe maybe you’re all really strong guys probably, but for me, it’s not so great. So I start thinking, okay, maybe if all these modern bikes are too heavy for me. Maybe I should, you know, look at older bikes because they didn’t always used to be so big and heavy, right? And then, on top of that, um a lot of more modern bikes, not all of them, of course, but they have so much electronics and they’re complicated. And I am in no way a mechanic, and I never will be. At some point, you have to accept, these are things that I’m good at. These things are just never going. It’s just not my thing. I’m just not good at it. But even if I was a mechanic, you still need like computers to read out some, you know, errors on some motorcycles and stuff. and that’s fine, if you were in Europe or in, I don’t know, Northern America or something, but in a lot of the countries where I go to, like, what are you going to do, you know, if you into trouble? So my conclusion was, ” I need a bite to be simple, you know, as simple as possible It needs to be fixable by any guy outside the road with the hammer, preferably or a screwdriver. I don’t know what tools he has, but that’s going to be helpful for me. So. Then the other thing that I was considering is, okay, I thought, okay, now I’ve been riding around the world on a motorbike, I can do that. I think now I know that I I can do that. So then it becomes boring. I’m like, I’ve done that now. Let’s spice it up a little bit, you know? So for me, I was also like, I just need to find another challenge, you know? So, okay, I can ride around world on a modern new motorbike. but can I do it on a vintage bike? You know, that’s for sure gonna, you know, throw all sorts of other challenges in me. So I’s kind of I like, hmm, this sounds appealing to me. And then the final reason is just a love for motorcycles. I mean, like, when I saw Maurice, working on that motorbike, it was just an absolute joy, you know, to see somebody building a motorcycle with so much knowledge and so much love for this machine that I was like, yeah, you, I already fell in love with the bike before it was even finished, you know? And, yeah, that, yeah. Do you understand? Yeah. So I was like, this bike already means so much more to me than a brand new motorcycle that just comes out of the factory, right? So there we are, Frankie. Now, I I did already have some trouble with Frankie. And so I mentioned the trouble that I had, right? So this is in Iraq when I had a flat tire. Okay, no big deal, right? But when I posted this picture, so only people were like, “You should have ridden a Honda.” I’ like, “Really?” Right. Anyway., so I had a couple of loose bolts, and I’m not a big deal. Some of it, sorry, Maurice, but they forgot to put Locktite can happen. So then I put lock tight, never go loose again. Some might get loose again, but, hey, come on, is a 600 single Of course it’s it shakes like hell this bike, you know? So, of course, you’re gonna have a loose bolts sometimes as part of the job. Then I had a few bent gear shifters because I always try to fall on the left and that’s where it is. And again, there are many people said, like, oh, bet you should have had engine guards. Well, that wouldn’t work, because, for this motorcycle, the engine guards that were made at the time are super flimsy, are totally useless. So if I would want, like, there’s no now aftermarket engine guards for a motorcycle 1987. Like, who makes that? Nobody. So then I would have to like custom make whole thing. Too much time, too much money, not necessary. I have a bash plate that actually does protect the engine. That’s the main thing. A gear shifter will also bend, actually if you do have engine guards, because on my Honda with engine guards, I also bend the gear shifter, you know? So also, it’s not really a big deal, it’s bent, you bend it back. You can do it like three, four times, then it breaks, then you go to a welder, he fixes it. Off you go. So, not really a big deal then. I drained battery Who hasn’t done that? Left the lights on a bit too long, started a few, too many times. But luckily, this motorcycle has an electric start and a kick start. So I drained a battery sitting inside a wadi inside Saudi Arabia, so there’s a dry river bed in thick gravel. your going to push start a motorcycle in thick gravel, but you are going to start it when you have a kick starter. So I was like, oh, and off you go. That’s really nice. Now, the biggest kind of thing okay, I’ve had two rescues by two times where I had to put the motorbike on the truck and bring it to the mechanic And it took me a really long time to figure out what on the problem was, like, sometimes the diagnostic, so like, what is the problem? It can be the most difficult thing And later it turned out that in the build, we added an extra fuel filter, an extra aftermarket fuel filter just for extra safety, extra protection. And the morning that the bike first suddenly started cut out, that morning, I had changed that fuel filter. I was like, it’s probably time. I should have changed this. And I felt really chuffed myself. I couldn like taking care of my motorbike. So I changed the filter, and then, yeah, later that day, saw a bike is I’ve probably had a nowhere. So But in my thinking, I was like, you know, you go, boss, can it be this, gonna be this, gonna be this? And I thought, it can’t be the fuel filter, because I had just changed that. So it took me a really long time to finally figure out that that fuel filter was just faulty from the beginning and it wasn’t letting fuel through causing it to just cut out. And in the meantime, I had changed parts and oh my God, I didn’t even put everything on YouTube because it was such a nightmare Anyway, it was just a faulty aftermark fuel filter, so also it was a really big deal. And then, oh, yeah. Then the motorcycle got stolen in Iraq. Yeah, so now I have had two Yamaha Ténérés stolen from me The 1987 won in Iraq and a brand new T7 in Swansea, Wales. Yeah, but okay, I found both of them back, luckily, because I hid an air tag in there. It was a really fun to find good spots. If you find a good spot, they’re never going to find it, and you will find your motorcycle, at least, or that’s the idea. But unfortunately, with this motorcycle, also, when the thief stole it, in a lot of these old motorcycles If you cut the wiring boom in the right spot, you can kick start a motorcycle without a key. So they tried that, but they cut it in the wrong place, and that means the motorcycle is just not going anywhere at all. So when I found a motorcycle back, I realised they cut the entire wiring loom but then, Maurice, magical Maurice he already installed a second wiring loom on a motorcycle. So very unusual. So the motorcycle is full of spare parts and everything is already built into the bike in twos. So it means if one part breaks, all I have to do is unplug plug in the next one and off I go. So it’s really built to help me out in situations where I really have to go, like I cannot just fix it, but like situations I really need to get myself out of I can save myself because all of these parts and the second wiring loom is already in place. So all I had to do was change three wires, and then the bike ran without any electricity, there was no key necessary anymore. It had no lights but to start it, all I had to do was kickets and to stop it, let go of the clutch or just unplug a wire. And so I rode 1,000 kilometers through Iraq and Iran, like that. So my right leg is still more muscly from all the kicking motorcycle. But at the time, so I was kicking like crazy, or especially in the morning, during the day, I usually got it in the first kick, so it was fine. But in the morning, sometimes, you know, you’re kicking, you’re kicking. And then a lot of people were like,, oh, this bag is terrible, terrible. But I mean, it got me out, you know, I was like, I don’t understand you people, you know? Like, it got me out of Iraq, until I reached Kuwait, where I could change the entire wring room and the bike was just back to perfect. So I think it’s an advantage. If the thieves in Wales had cut any wires on the new T7, well, I mean, I’m no mechanic, but I think you’re pretty.. You have a problem. Yeah. But anyway, so the point is, I have noticed that every single time I’ve had these issues that I mentioned now with this motorcycle the internet always told me, your Honda’s never broke down. Just my opinion, but I think you need to get another Honda. You have nothing but you have nothing but trouble with this one. And I don’t know. I bet that Noraly switches back to a new small Honda for her next season you know you should be on the Honda either. And the funny thing is, I was like, did you guys forget everything I had with the Honda? And I can understand why, because, I mean, in the videos, you may see like 10 seconds of a problem but for me, that made a bigger impression. I was often much harder to deal with with than only 10 seconds in the video. So I remember everything, but I thought, maybe if you guys forgotten, I thought, I’ll create a little refresher or what went down with the Honda So we hit the big waves. Every wheel bearing have to be replaced. So this is the reflector that This is the bad news. I lost I fell over, broke a mirror and my hand guard is bent, so now my clutch lever, it gets stuck. This happens I broke another mirror. Now I broke my right side mirror. So, see, my mirror just.. last time my throttle always bit stuck. And I hear something ticking. Oh i also have a red light coming on on the dashboard It’s a no bueno Look, it’s leaking so much. It’s just driping there. All of this is covered until my footpegs covered in oil. Alaska is turning into part KLR part KTM. I have a flashing light.ABS There needs ABS anyway, right? It’s completely slammed, chain guard Take it in. It’s completely broken. I bent my gear shifter against the engine case There are two enormous holes in my airbox. Okay, I have a serious problem. Alaska won’t start. It doesn’t start. I love you. I love you. there, brother. That moment, you really want the bike to start. I love you.. Too hot. I don’t know. So we’re because it’s most likely winter. I feel So, the good news is that they are going to work on the Alaska today And I, stop it. Whoa, whoa. All right, it’s stuck here. underneath. Is enough. No, no. It’s Oh, it’s unfortunate. You. Oh, no, I completely lost my mirror Yeah, they’re invented. Oh, no. My start button. This is when the bikes fell in the river, trying to get it through the Congo. Come on, come on, come on. don’t know why I looked so happy there, but I wasn’t. Okay, okay. I don’t know. I think it’s a connection between this tank and the main tank gotta do something about this tablet. So much fun things what you do go quite well always. So the bottom line, basically, is that it doesn’t matter what bike I’m riding, I will destroy it. So, yeah, that that’s just part of it. And I think like with so many of the mishaps I’ve had, you know, I always get a lot of probably very well meant advice on like, but you should have done this, and if you have done that, that wouldn’t have happened. But the thing is just, you cannot prepare and live in this illusion that if you prepare really well for a trip that nothing is going to go wrong. You know, that’s just not really reality, you know. If you sure, maybe if you only stay on tarmac, you’re a lot safer. in all these years, I’ve only fell one time on tarmac and it was actually quite at the beginning in India. For the rest, I don’t fall down on tack. You know, you fall down, where you try, I don’t know, across the river and do all this off road fun All right. So, yeah, you just know from the beginning, if you’re gonna do all of that, things are gonna go wrong. But that doesn’t happen to be a bad thing, you know, because ultimately, whatever you do in life, you’re gonna have problems and challenges, but as long as you enjoy solving those problems and challenges, you are on a pretty good path, you know? So I get all these problems, but I enjoy solving them. So ultimately, you know, it works out So that was kind of like, yeah, yeah, the story that I want to bring is that, you know, you try to find a motorcycle that fit you well, and you try to prepare, but ultimately, you know, the world is going to throw all sorts of stuff at you, but that’s when it becomes interesting, right? Because like all these moments that’s why I remembered all of this, because those are the most memorable things that happened, because in the moments that it all went wrong and I know, managed to get myself into trouble somewhere and I had to go and find locals to help me. You know, those were the meeting of people that stayed with me and that I remember and that I’ write about it in my book. Whereas the days that it all went smoothly and you had a nice ri day, scenery was beautiful. I don’t remember those days, you know. So, and luckily, I don’t have to go search for trouble because it will always find me anyway. So I’ll have plenty of that. to be honest, though, now that I’m riding through the UK, I do have to admit, I was a little bit bit worried that I was going to be bored. Because for the simple reason that, you know, I’m really addicted to that adrenaline high, you know? So it’s like, going through slightly more dangerous countries or, you know, like Iraq or Yemen or even Mexico, it’s such a rush, you know? So and it’s addictive, so I want more of it. So I oh, but if I go to the UK, you know, how is it gonna be like? And am I gonna, you know, also make interesting videos? But hey, then my bike gets stolen and I’m like, I’m sorted.” But no, to be fair, I’ve actually I’m honestly saying this, I have been so far loving my ride through the UK. I’ve also been really lucky that the weather that obviously also helps. But it has been really, I’m really enjoying it and I have to just try to shut myself up because otherwise all the time I’m going, oh, it’s so cute. Oh, look at this. It’s just so cute. So I’m really enjoying it here and maybe it’s also good for me to just to have a little bit of a break from all the really craziness because if you remember where I left in Dubai and if you kind of watch what’s going on in the world, then then you might also realize that the next part of the journey is going to be wild. So, yeah, that’s gonna yeah, so after I’ve finished the book tour, I’ll be going up to Scotland next, after I finish that, then, yeah, I’m going to go back to Frankie and brace myself for what’s coming next. So for those who like to buy my book, it’s very recommendable. I’ll be staying here now on the table, signing books, so if you want, you can pop up. And for everybody else, enjoy the festival and see you next time.

Itchy Boots at the ABR Festival 2025 reviews her selection of motorbikes.