C90 Vs T80 – The Verdict
Captain Custard
After weeks of frantic searching I finally got my hands on that most elusive of beasts, the Yamaha T80. By the time I collected it
The Road of Bones, Siberia
18,000 kilometres (11,250 miles)
Yamaha T80 Townmate
A trip inspired by the Long Way Round, the epic motorcycle adventure involving a quite good actor and his unknown actor mate, who is now a well known mate, though still not a good actor. They made the journey from England in the UK, across Europe and Asia to conquer the Road of Bones on state of the art BMW motorcycles.
We couldn’t beat that, but we could certainly out-crap it. This is why we chose to attempt the 18,000km trip on the vehicle that is to long distance off-roading what syphillis is to romance. The Yamaha Townmate.
Welcome to the Wrong Way Round.
When the Long Way Round came out on the tellybox there were a lot of armchair commentators. Some loved it. Some hated it. Those that loved it saw it for what is was. Two mates with the opportunity to do a round the world trip and film it. Who wouldn’t?
Those that hated it bemoaned the fact that Ewan and Charley had a support crew and were sponsored to the eyeballs. But again, who wouldn’t? They still rode a very long way on motorcycles and anyone who’s ever done it knows it’s hard.
We’d nearly crippled ourselves trying to deliver pizzas to the Italians and we never even left tarmac. We then did cripple ourselves riding chopped Honda C90’s to Portugal. These were trips in the thousands of miles not the tens of thousands. Nevertheless we considered this ample training to ride half way round the world on a bike with the same horsepower as an electric toothbrush.
This trip was soooo big we decided we’d need our own office. We installed a phone and started ringing sponsors. The parallels with the Long Way Round were uncanny.
They got free BMW’s. We got a box of stretchy things which were meant to be the future of bungee cords. They weren’t.
They got free luggage and GPS. We got five litres of oil.
They got enough medical supplies to keep an army going. We got a USB stick each which contained our details if we died.
They got camping equipment. We got some inner tubes.
It was in fact our most successful blagging mission ever. We even got fully kitted out with Frank Thomas clothing. Shortly after they went bust.
Whether through sympathy or genuine enthusiasm, it seemed a lot of people wanted to help. With that much pressure there was no way we could let them all down…
Too knackered to smile
After weeks of frantic searching I finally got my hands on that most elusive of beasts, the Yamaha T80. By the time I collected it
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