A NEW BEGINNING

In the Spirt of adventurism we are back on the road with a 3500km race across India, Kerala in the South to Shillong on the far Northeast nestled in between Bangladesh and Bhutan in the foothills of the Himalayas. Our chosen vehicle is the hugely humble and very inappropriate Baja Auto Rickshaw.

With a whooping 149cc 2 stroke engine it's capable of only 55km, gradient and wind allowing. 

But its limited only by law to 45km. 

It does have breaks but they are in fact rubbish, considered inherent death traps and are only normally found and used in the cities, 

We'll be pushing ours to the limit and beyond. 

James Rutt Esq is Co-driver drive on this adventure as Mark Tuhill is on his own adventures in China

Wellcome aboard Mr Rutt

                                     Our route takes us through many terrains and climates
                              
                                                     View Team RAPSURE's Rickshaw run 2012 in a larger map


                                                   Check out our new blog here - http://gandtracers.blogspot.com/


                                                           THE G&T RACERS - 2012 RICKSHAW RUN

we are back in blighty. (click here for last photo's)

Although our journey ended rather abruptly and fell short of our desired distance, the lessons learnt would have been the same regardless.

lesson 1 - When all else has crumbled around you, you have to rely on only yourself to sort shit out.

Lesson 2 - its when shit goes wrong, then and only then do you realize what your really made of. "Let the good times roll"

Lesson 3 - shut up and do it!

With my head in my hands....

After months of planning, our dream had been slowly taken from under our feet.
due to poor planning and orgainisation by the "League of Adventurists" we are left with only 5 days to drive the remaining 3700km to Asuncion. (which is pretty muich impossible in our little trikes) Now almost all but 15/63 teams have had to leave their underpowered sofa´s in the Lifan Grave yard in Puno. its a very sad sight to behold, each bike has been pimped an personalised only to be left for dead just 1300km from the start.

So i want to thank you all for your support and we´ll make this up to you by doing something equally dangerous and stupid in the next 12 months. Those of you who sponsored us, your money will still go to those to whom we pleadged. and we will make every effort to raise more money dispite this massive error by the powers that be.

More pics to follow when we find a decent computer..

L.

Correct Link for Justgiving site

Hi All,



I have just been made aware that the my justgiving link at the top of the blog is wrong. Im not sure if this has prevented anyone from donating or not?

lloyd seem´s to have got his link correct so i´ll put it down to Lloyds competitiveness! ;)



The above unfortunately is now somewhat academic because after spending from dawn till dusk yesterday in Puno trying to organise our export paperwork for our mototaxi into Bolivia. We finally had to come to the depressing realisation that our road trip was indeed over!


During this trip many things have conspired against us. We have spent only 5 days on the road and 8 days being delayed at the start and along the way by the beauracracy of actually taking ownership of the delayed bikes and then getting them insured and out of Peru.



We thought that the challenge of this trip was to get a moped towing a sofa with us and all our luggage across the Andes and 4000km from the start to finish within the 14 days allowed or longer (upto 3 months).

Unfortunately as challenging as this is proving with the poor machinery (yesterday the exhaust snapped off at the head)and steep dangerous roads, bandits(not actually seen any yet), the final kick in the nuts has made it impossible to complete or get close really.



Therefore the grim reality after thinking that we were finally ready to leave Puno with all neccessary docs last night to enter Bolivia, was that no one had bothered to find out that the bikes cant cross until monday due to them being classed as commerce and the border closes for the weekend to all but tourists.

This meant that any chance we had of making it to the end had gone and indeed to one of the drop off points along the way.
All we would achieve would be to drive into nomans land and have no way of getting to an airport to fly home in time for our connecting flights on the 13th from Paraguay.



We managed 1200km in 5 days of driving over the toughest part of the route. It doesnt look proportionate on the map because of the winding accents and decents of the Andes (70km decent zigzaging every 500m one night). We were capable of doing 300-400km a day on flatter geography driving 15 hours a day with just fuel stops, which would have put us in good sted had the bike survived and the borders been kind.

What went wrong...

The organisation called the Adventurists who have organised many other trips succesfully, totally messed this one up with the help of Honda. Honda decided at the last second to not deliver the bikes as contracted because they weren´t confident they could complete the trip and didnt want their name associated with failing the distance over such extreme terrain with so much publicity surrounding the event.

The Adventurists tried everything including suggesting debadging the bikes but alas they still said no. The obvious thing to do would have been to cancel the event, however they found an alternative my contacting ´Lefan´ for the bikes instead at late notice.´



This is where the problems started because the bikes turned up late and in stages with no one knowing how many and when the next batch would show. Also the paperwork for each bike was also turning up in drips and not necessarily for the proceeding bikes that had been delivered. This is why we started 3 days later than intended.



Secondly the bikes didnt arrive in time to legally assign them to the individual teams. Therefore as a quick fix, all the bikes were put in the directors name for speed and then rented to us. Unfortunately they didnt think this through because it meant that we could only leave and enter countries commercially, involving reams of paperwork and big hold ups at the borders while the bikes are weighed and the paperwork is passed down the lines for authority and back again.



The final straw being that as a "commercial vehicle", we cant take then across at the weekend and will likely spend a day crossing once there. Even with this there is no guarantee that the paperwork will be corrcet once we get there as it has been wrong twice before.

So of the 62 teams of 2 and 3 that set out, 12 were present last night for a meeting with the company to see if there was anything left to do. For the few people who have lots of time to complete it then it maybe possible (one guy has a return ticket next March).

For us, unfortunately its over and our thoughts turn to all of you that have sponsored us and have been following our progression with so much entusiasm.
Personally im disappointed most because of all the support we have had in the last few weeks with lots more interest in our trip than i had imagined.
With the above in mind, Lloyd and I stamped our authority on the meeting by talking most loudly. The upshot being that they will allow us free entry into another simular or same rally in the next 12 months whereby we can give you the value for money we intended!


The adverturists have said they will issue an apology, taking responsibility for our failure to complete which i´ll post when i have it.

Despite al of this, we had an amazing 5 days of sights and sounds which i´ll don´t regret and will never forget. We also managed to come through some pretty desperate situations of dispair which have shown us that we are as good in an bad situation as we thought we were! ;)

We have lots of Vid and pics to show you and obvioulsy have 7 days left to get to Paraguay by bus and plane. Therefore expect to see some pics of the salt flats and Le paz etc before we go. Im sure Loyd will also have something to add.

Right, off to ritually burn the bike on film and then 8 hour bus to book to Le Paz.

M X

Break for the border

Its 7 am here and i have time to kill despite going out late last night. We are at 3800M and although we are climatised to a degree, breathing is a struggle and just standing up quickly or walking a flight of stairs can put you in the í just finished my first marathon´position.
Basically i wake myself up every morning at this altitude because i cant catch my breath laying down in any position. Every 7 breaths i get short and need to take a massive lung full to compensate. This is common to a few of us, maybe i should put the local cigs out hat im smoking!

We spent one night in Cusco and caught up with some friends like Philly Fireman John that we met the previous week and then set off to continue our mission to reach Bolivia.

The journey was 389km to Puno where lake Titikaka lives. We set off at midday and caught another American friend on the road. We managed 279km over 7 hours straight before the cold and dark got the better of us. Spent the night in a 3 bed hostel with outdoor toilet and shower and piece of A4 paper taped at one end to the ceiling as a light shade costing 2 quid each, it was the only place in town but served its purpose.

Finished the final 100km in 2.5 hours the next morning in glorious sunshine but still cold to arrive at Puno.

Lake Titikaka is the highest and largest lake in the world at 75km across. People live on the lake on man made read beds (see pics).

Fiesta day in Punto so we got drunk and are now waiting for a solution to the latest red tape issue to get our paperwork to allow us to cross to Bolivia. In truth its been a massive disaster and lots of peeps have abandoned ship because of the continued screw ups by the organisers to get everything sorted to allow us smooth passage.
19 People have so far droppped out through injury, mechanical fault or time pressures due to delayed start. We are now at the front with 6 others waiting to cross into Bolivia.

Hoping to be in Le Paz tonight if we jump through all of the hoops in time to allow us to do the 7 hour, 280km drive today.

M

who´s idea was this exactly?

Sorry for not keeping you fully up to date with our adventure, due to the nature of the task in hand we have no0t been able to find internet or simply havent had time.

The shock of how bad these machines are has only really just sunk in. in the last 3 days on Our maching alone, we have had, 2 punctures, 2 snapped chains, 5 missing spokes, 3 fuses blown, almost all the removable body work has been removed by the road itself and stewn to the wayside. (its not littering if you dont notice) Our bike cuts out every time you get to traffic light, over heats if you stop for longer than 6 minutes, but it loves riding at over 3500m above sea level. im told i will come to love this machine eventually. (its gonna have to make me plenty hot dinners and massages if he thinks he can win me over that easy!)

The terrain, wow, from Arizona desertscapes to snow covered mountains, we have pretty much covered every back ground i could have wished for, but i know there is more to come. In the valleys the heat is so hot its almost unbearable, until you climb (albeit very slowly) up into the hills where we both have to scramble for extra layers, that combined with the wind chill driving at 20kph really turns the sunburnt red nose blue. Our lips are almost falling off, they cant decide if they are burnt or frozen. thank god for blistex.

Perils in Peru

Hi all,

Ok well we have just arrived at cusco, 3 days after the start and 700km. That may not sound alot or it may but i assure you its epic!!

The mototaxi is rubbish, it has no power whatsoever and i now understand why we didnt even see hardly any in Lima´s city streets. We have climbed upto 15,000ft in these things and down again at speed of between -5 and 15mph.

in addition to being slow they are also unreliable. So far we have had 2 flats, one broken exhaust bracket, both side pannels fell off and the ´sofa´at the rear is now only held on by mine or lloyds weight after the screws fell out. We have snapped 2 chains and 10 spokes snapped in the front wheel causing the second puncture. Oh and the batttery stopped working...

All of the above has happened to a brand spanking new motorbike that even now has only done 700km.

Now all of the above may suggest we have had an absolute nightmare. Well we have in parts but equally it has opened alot of doors to getting to know the Peruvians. The night before last we stopped to ask for oil late at night and ended up having a party thrown for us in the persons house where 30 people of 3 generations all descended on us for drinks, singing , booze and dancing..oh and frisbie in the street curtesy of Lloyd.
Leaving at around 10.30 pm tyo make the next town we broke down and whilst considering sleeping by the side of the road in our sleeping bags. lloyd spotted and photograthed a red back Tranchula within 1 meter of us on the road..... at that point we both dug deep and i miraculously discovered i had a fountain of knowledge about the internal combustion engine bestowed on me by my wonderful father as a teenager which i never new i had; on account of begrudgingly standing in our cold garage watching him renovate my first car.

The worst times for us are when the bike breaks down causing us to drive at night to reach a place to sleep. Generally we will have a breakdown that means we are driving almost blind down time dirt road with several 1000M drops inches away from the wheels. This is ok but then for the past two nights we have then broken down again with no spare parts or as last night, no tool to get the front wheel off.Yesterday we drove 15 hours which is only 3 more than any day.

People here are some of the best i have come across. every single person we pass on foot or in the car waves or hoots. When we breakdown we generally have more offers of help than we need. Last night at a desperate moment when again we were contemplating sleeping by the road and freezing. A lorry pulled up and changed our tyre for us using the spanner he had that we were missing. His wife and child dutyfully watched in the freezing cold while he spent the best part of an hour helping us out.

Aside from that, the Andes are an amazing sight to behold and the comntinously changing geoghaphy is mind blowing really. on hour we are driving through what looks simular to Arizonian dessert and the next we are surrounded glacier. one hour later and we could be in the peat bogs of Derbyshire.

Final thing i wanted to mention to lamly attempt to instill symapathy and aduration is that so far the group have suffered.... one lost taxi to the river over a 7 storey drop. One broken arm, one goudged head resulting in hospitalisation, one bail out by passanger due to panic of inpending death over side of mountail road, resulting in the taxi running him over suffering cuts and bruises plus total loss of confidence to ever get back in one again.

Its really dangerous and definitely the most dangerous thing i have ever done or will ever voluntarily do again....unless your reading mum , in which case its very safe and im having a lovely time. sent you a postcard! X