Explain the Attraction?

There are a huge number of magazines and books out there extolling the virtues of 'adventure travel'. A strange new phenomenon which seems to usually involve a novice rider going somewhere strange on their bike, getting into difficulties and being thoroughly miserable, before coming back home again and writing a book about how brilliant it all was.

The expectation (Ewan & Charlie)

In fact, next time you pass your local BMW dealer I would guess that more than half their stock falls into the 'adventure' category - GS, Paris Dakar etc. Buy the bike, and all of the lovely expensive accessories from Touratech, and you too can be a 'proper' adventurer just like Ewan and Charley, even if you never go further than the café in town. Image, it seems, is everything. Something that Harley-Davidson has known for a good long while.

The very issue mentioned

A good example of this phenomenon is Adventure Bike Rider magazine. A copy of this fine periodical that I read recently included numerous stories of derring-do, some in exciting foreign parts, adverts for the most eye-wateringly expensive kit I’ve ever come across, a number of ‘how-to’ articles on everything from what to wear to where to go and, my personal favourite, survivalist nonsense in case you are ever stranded far from civilisation and need to make a fire or drink something other than your own urine.

How to make fire the boy scout way

For when you run out of Perrier

Seriously, I sometimes think that this sort of thing must actually put off as many folk as it inspires. Who really wants to contract dysentery while riding a broken-down wreck on un-surfaced roads through a war-zone with the very real possibility of being shot at? I'll give it a miss, thank you.

Parked outside a hotel in Dijon, France

For the moment, I’ll stick to travelling in countries which have indoor plumbing and are not currently engaged in a civil war. Places which are not too dissimilar to the UK, except for the fact that it's far away, the food is a mite different and you can't always communicate with the locals. But then again that can be true of going to Yorkshire for the weekend! 

For Valour

While I normally post stuff about bikes and cars and what I’ve been up to in my garage, occasionally I'll branch out a bit if I find something interesting. This I found quite remarkable.

Representation of the medal

You can live in a city practically all of your life and still find new things every day. I recently heard about this online and yesterday, before the football, I went looking for it. It's a very simple memorial to three local men, John Simpson Knox (Crimean War), Henry May and James Cleland Richardson (both WW1).

The whole memorial

All three were awarded the Victoria Cross (for those of you in the US, think Medal of Honor) for heroism and their names are etched on the pavement at Bridgeton Cross, Glasgow, just opposite the local railway station.

Only 1,357 medals have ever been awarded, and three of the recipients came from this one small area in Glasgow.
   

Bridgeton Cross

I wonder how many people going about their daily lives actually notice that it is there or give it a seconds thought?