Kampot – April 3rd, 2017
Apr 7th, 2017 by rallyadmin
It’s a bright, clear day and everyone is up and ready to get the bikes. The bikes are at Andy’s which is a few hundred meters up the road. He arrives, gives some direction and starts ferrying people up the road. We start walking. We’ll be sitting for hours day after day. Might as well get some exercise while we can.
Up the main road, down an alley way, skirt a mud hole, take a left into a small compound with some small villas. Under a roof are there 9 bikes, in various states of “oldness” but all ride-able.
On these moped rallies, we usually buy the bikes from some expat who collects the for us, does some minor repairs (supposedly) and then sells them to us as a lot. That takes care of the documentation for the bikes which can be a problem when buying the bike off Craigslist from someone who is leaving and needs to get rid of the bike. Sometimes it even works that way.
The group gets to Andy’s place (quite nice with nice plantings about the compound and a small swimming pool. We look over the bikes with the new victims, err, riders trying to discern which ones might be better than the others. The veteran riders know from past experience that this is a pointless exercise. A bike might start beautifully and then break down before we even get out of Andy’s compound. It’s all a case of karma.
Clemo has a system for distributing the bikes to the riders. It’s a version of a lottery. In the past, we’ve drawn numbers out of a hat. This year, we draw strings attached to the keys and then match a key to the security lock on the chosen bike.
We don’t use the ignition keys because the ignition locks are usually so worn out so that a given key might start multiple bikes. The bikes are all Chinese knockoffs of original Hondas so there may only actually be a few keys for the entire production run of the bikes.
We get our selections, try to start them and then go for a test ride down the alley way. Satisfied, we bid farewell to Kim, Andy’s housemate, and return to the hotel to load our gear and head out on the great Top Gear Challenge adventure, commonly known, amongst the veterans, as our first break down.
I think that I have the first breakdown. Andy is not traveling with us but he does take us out of Phnom Penh to a dirt road for a bit of off highway driving to get the juices goings. Everyone makes it back to the main highway north and turns back to Sihanoukville. We continue on the highway towards Phnom Penh.
Well some of us do. My bike had turned off when we stopped at the main road junction and when I tried to start it, the electric starter failed to start. No problem. I’ll just kick start the bike and we’ll get to somewhere where there’s a mechanic to fix the starter.
I look down at the tranny to find which side the kick start lever is. Not on the right side. And not on the left side. There’s a naked spline on the left side of the tranny where the kick start lever should be. Lovely.
Clemo arrives to see what the issue is. Since we had already determined that we had electrics (the horn and light worked), the issue had to be with the starter. Clemo suggested taking the kick start lever off his bike (his electric starter was working) and putting it on my bike.
Get my tools out, fight a bit with the bike. Put the lever on my bike. Try it. It starts. As long as Clemo’s electric start continues to work, we’ll be good to go. Fire up the bike and start chasing down the main group.
There aren’t many other problems other than starter issues for other bikes. That ends up splitting the group. But we all make to Kampot after dark. That breaks the first rally rule: do not drive in the dark.
But we all make it. We still have some issues but we’ll get them sorted out in Phnom Penh (hopefully.)
Obi-wan
