I had met a lady and had started dating her, she was aware of BMWs (her sister had gone with an R bike rider recently) and she was interested in travel. She accompanied me on the trip to Mexico in the winter of '92. The trips had become a sort of winter routine, this was different in that we escaped the first, brutal, arctic touring 400 miles south by disassembling "La Vaca Guma," driving to Tucson in the VW van, reassembling the bike and heading South, through Nogales. Is this a sign of wisdom, or age? Other than hammering a hole in the gas tank on horrible roads (patched with epoxy and rip-stop nylon cut from a pair of pants), this trip was mechanically the smoothest of the four journeys south. Met some memorable folks on the trip, including Ann and Anne from Bristol, England, Peter from Australia, Shari from Hollywood, Calif.; in the campgrounds of Pelenque. We all later regrouped in the campground at Tulum. I was the only one with transport, they all were going by bus; so I was useful for supply runs and short tours to waterfalls and caves. Very relaxing trip.

Back home, my preparations intensified for England. The UK bureaucracy, of course, screwed up the nursing paperwork, not to be straightened out until two weeks before I left. The people in Camberwell told me I would have to arrange some sort of transportation, as I would be working in the community in London. No Problem, sez I; I'll just air-cargo Strider over. They agreed: no problem.

Strider was showing a little wear at around 280,000 mile, so I figured it would be easier to do any required work here, before going over. Now remember, I'm running the special order 3rd over pistons from Capital Cycle. Surely they have extra ring sets for them. Well, found out they don't exist. I'm out of oversizes, what to do? Replace the cylinders, I suppose? Decided to try an experiment: Bought some standard early R80 rings and cut them down to proper clearance. Seemed to work OK. Recut the valve seats, figured that would do for the next year or so. Come August of '92, I leased out the house, mothballed the Mexico /5 and the '65 Microbus, and started off for the east coast with loaded saddle bags and FOUR duffle bags over the back. The gross overloading would snap my Luftmeister sidestand in Indiana. Bob's sent a new one via two day UPS to my brother's in Massachusetts. The family knows I'm due to show up there when bike parts start arriving at their door. Arrangements were in place; I showed up at Newark's Air Lufthansa Air Cargo, watched while they strapped Strider, with two duffle bags still strapped over the seat, to a pallet, paid the $700 shipping and bummed a ride across the airport to the Virgin terminal. Two hours later, I was on my way.

Was met in London by the Health Authority staff who had set up the scholarship on that end, who took me to a teacher who lived in Plumstead, not far from where the classes and field work would be. He rented out a spare room, as many do, to help make ends meet, in very expensive to live in London. Nice guy, he was most amused by the idea that I had a motorbike arriving at the airport in a couple of days (via Germany). A couple of days later, I took the Underground to Heathrow, helmet in hand, and collected Strider, non the worse for wear. Rode home (on the LEFT side of the road--eegad!) in the rain, of course, stopping to fill the almost empty tank (the air-cargo people allowed a couple of quarts to remain) with real honest-to-God hi-test leaded petrol.

I had a six week orientation, before the course began, two weeks into that was my first "Bank holiday," giving me four days off. Up to the Edinbough Fringe Festival I went. Wonderful feeling of: "I LIVE here!" Lucked out and got what was probably the last Hostel bed in town and spent two days walking about, dropping in on avant-avant-guard productions and street theater. Good time, even if the hostel was infested with drunken Aussies.

Back to London and soon in class with 39 other students, all British. 20 were District Nurses (home health care) the other 19 were Health Visitor students, like me. Interesting stuff, with guest lecturers from the London medical colleges giving most of the classes. Field work was two days a week, working out of a clinic in Camberwell, the poor part of London where George Orwell spent his "Down and Out" time during the Depression. Lots of stark high rise tower block estates. Didn't ride much because 1. Traffic was a total zoo 2. Public transport was excellent 3. Petrol was $4.00 a gallon 4. Property crime was endemic. Strider spent most of the first few months chained up, under a cover, in the front garden of Ian's row house in Plumstead. The studies were demanding, with a lot of research and homework. There were two two-week periods of time, called "study leave", that were intended for research and writing papers. I, of course, decided to more properly use the time for touring. The trade off was that virtually every weekend was given over to library time and paper writing (I had 11 formal papers during the course, but no exams). Once in a while, I'd head up to Oxford and stay in the hostel there, one of the few hostels that allowed camping, so there was always room.

I was introduced to Harman's, an independent BMW supplier and repair shop, out by Gatwick Airport. Given the scale of London, it was a half-day proposition to go there on the bike. Fortunately, they have an excellent catalog; I could telephone an order and have the parts in 2 or 3 days. At first, Strider required little. Then, I got backed over while riding in a narrow road. Cost the offending driver about $150 for a new front fender. More would come later.

One three day weekend in September, I flew to Amsterdam to spend a couple of days with Mother, on his houseboat on the canals of the city. For those of you who know him, from the Port Washington, Wisconsin club, he's quite the character. Took several days for the blood chemistry to return to normal after that little holiday.

First "study leave" in April, I was on the ferry to Dublin, spent a week in the Irish Republic and a week in the six counties of Ulster. The last few years, the IRA and the Loyalist paramilitary groups tended, with a few exceptions, to keep the violence amongst themselves. If you aren't a member of one of the groups, Londonderry and Belfast are two of the safest cities in Europe. Hoisting a pint of Guiness in a small town pub, by the road, is definitely one of life's pleasures. The roads themselves also are among life's pleasures. The weather smiled on me those two weeks and I remained mostly dry. Northern Ireland is a biker's paradise, the reputation of "the Troubles" definitely thins the numbers of wimpy tourists.

Back to the books for a couple of months, then I got to return to Belfast, this time to spend a week in a N.H.S. clinic, working with Health Visitors, in a Protestant working class neighborhood near the shipyards where the Titanic was built. Took the bike to get another quick tour of the Republic and the Northern counties in. Did I mention that Ireland is my favorite English (sort of) speaking country to visit?

My lady friend moved over to London in the summer, just in time for the last study leave, we spent it touring the southwest of England: Cornwall, Devon, Kent and so on. She would help with research a little, and while I was at school, go off and play in London. A lovely couple of months.

The last ten weeks of the course was an internship, with my own caseload, in a different part of S.E. London. This was the part they had told me I would need my own transport for getting around. Wasn't so. I was in a very poor and compact area of tower blocks with second and third floor flying causeways. Plus, it was in a area of absolute gridlocked traffic. So, I bought an ancient 3-speed BSA bicycle and used that. Fit right in, tooling around with my tweed coat and cloth cap, medical bag on the back rack. Strider stayed in the front garden.

After about 15,000 miles of using the R80 rings, and the abuse of London traffic, I called the experiment a failure. We were blowing a LOT of smoke. Tried another experiment. I knew the cranks of 750's are balanced for anything over that (900s, 1000s and so on), so I had the staff at Harmans weigh standard R80 (from the early models) pistons, and compare with 750 pistons. Perfect match. Height was virtually the same. Width was well within the allowable machining away space of the 750 cylinder sleeve. There was a Triumph shop with a good reputation down the hill, so, much to Ian's amazement, I pulled the cylinders off Strider (I had brought a LOT of tools with me), in an hour, and carried them to the shop with the new pistons. Two days later, Strider was up and running again, to Ian's REAL amazement. So, now Strider is a stealth R80/5. As Strider broke in, the experiment of the R80 pistons appeared to be working. Nice power band, spent a couple of weeks sorting out the jetting and haven't looked back. The course was ending and we were preparing for an new adventure, starting September 12th, 1993.

School's out! We took two weeks to tour Scotland, I hadn't been back since the Fringe Festival. Basically toured around the coasts: Channel, top and Atlantic. Very fast, and a little wet; still a great tour in it's own right. Back to Ian's in London for a couple of days to get ready to leave for the Continent. On October 1st, we shoved off on Strider, a 1972 R75/5 with 298,000 miles on the clock, for Istanbul and beyond.

To be continued.... Matt Parkhouse