Motorcycle Explorer August 2015 Issue 7 | Page 166

A Dakar in Ireland! You won't need
£70,000 to enter and you don't need to
ride like Marc Coma or Laia Sanz! From
scooters to even a GS can play here.
25th to 27th September 2015
So what's the craic?
My mam and Dad worked for concern and we lived in Yemen and
Iran from 1971 until 1978 . Its during this time we got the taste of
adventure. As kids we would take off with our dad for days on end
in his Landover Santana , He taught us how to check each other’s
urine for blood in case we picked up Bilharzia, how to remove
snake venom , kill scorpions , drink water and what not to do when
handed a pistol or ak 47 to play with. And how to know if a dog or
monkey had rabies. We lived through the over throw of the Shah
in Iran and the beginning of the Civil war in Yemen. As kids being
on the move was our life and when my parents decided it was too
dangerous to be adventuring around the middle east with 4 small
kids we came home to Ireland in 1979 after one last journey up
from Sana through the middle east Europe and Home .
I don't think we ever settled back to normal life. My dad rode bikes
as a young man mostly tiger cubs and when I was 16 he bought
me a scooter , a French bike a motobecane 50 cc pedal start and
while not the coolest machine it was a bike and bikes have been
part of my life ever since. In 1988 I was an exchange students on
my third tour of duty and up until them pretty board with the whole
French thing but in 1988 I ended up filling in for my brother Jethro
who pulled a sickie and I ended up on the boat to Roscoff. How
glad I was when I ended up in a Farm in Brittany in a family of four
boys 2 of them Frank, Karl much older that me 1 of them much
younger Hans than me and 1 of them about 2 years older than me
Ralph and the next guy up Karl was bike mad . It was the first time
I ever saw a Honda Dominator , the Dakar , cafe racers (Motobecanes
tapped out to the last with cross bars )cafe culture and birds. When
I got home I told the brother it was the worst exchange yet and I
went back for 2 more summers the bike bug was deep now.
Fast forward to 2000 home from the UK after 10 years working in
construction and Simons of Lincoln , studying at night at the
University of Westminster London and graduating as a Building
Surveyor about to get married back in Ireland and the boom is
about to kick off . 2005 or first boy is born and by 2008 we have
a family of 4 kids , a house a surveying practice and the recession
sweeps through the country like a ufa- rah "dust devil"