Herman had always proved to have a cool head in a crisis and was a lot braver than the rest of us!On a cold February night in 2004 I arrange to meet my close buddy Baz in the local. As I bored him with plans of my trip and the tale of Adam, Herm and Martin’s decision to drop out, Baz told me he would loved to have been involved himself but with limited funds and commitments elsewhere there was no way he could do the whole trip, enthusiastically he suggested sailing out to Switzerland and meeting us on our return journey, I pointed out Switzerland was not the easiest place to sail to but it got us thinking. By the time last orders had been called we had hit on a daring new plan which would see all the jibbers being given a second chance to be part of the adventure.

The plan was for three riders to share one bike in a relay, starting with Baz who would ride from home to northern Norway, he would then hand the bike over to Herman and fly home. Herman would ride the Russian leg and then swap with Adam in Turkey, Adam would then ride the final stage back through Eastern and Western Europe.

I called Andy the next morning to see if he had any objections, like me he was still a bit miffed with the lads dropping out as they had, he agreed to the plan and I called the guys who were all immediately sold on the idea. Because the boys had already dropped out once it was decided that Andy and myself could not let our trip be jeopardized by anyone doing it again, with this in mind we had to insist that the third bike was not reliant on us. This meant unlike the original plan to have all the spares, cooking equipment and other essentials spread between all the bikes, the third bike would need to be self sufficient. This would mean that if there were any complications with the relay or anyone failing to show Andy and I could continue and the third bike and rider would not be relying on us.

Baz was now firmly on board, the boys had agreed on Adam’s bike being used because he had already had the Dave Lambeth treatment. It was decided that Herman would do the Russian leg, in part because for all of us this was unknown territory and Herman had always proven to have a cool head in a crisis and was a lot braver than the rest of us!