Day -2 - China - June 8
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- Created on Saturday, 08 June 2013 19:28
The day after
We wake up with a slight circle to the head. Last night we were generous with ourselves, we drank wine in good quantity, without exaggeration but without forgetting the privilege of being able to hold a glass in our hands, in two days this will be just a memory and the next forty-five days, for sure, it'll be a mirage. Morning coffee - another privilege perhaps intended to remain so even though we have coffee packets that have traveled in our suitcases up to here - however it seems to be enough to give us back a decent perception of reality.
The Team is charged, the rain seems to grant the necessary respite so that we can continue work on the vehicles and already in these early hours of the morning, needs to divide the tasks, such as, updating the blog; however we discovered some complications with the site functionality, whose administrators were located in Russia. They didn't reply to our requests for assistance - and it's up to Valentina do everything possible to move the situation, even though in the meantime has to look after her children with fever and a thousand other issues housewives.
Meanwhile, downstairs, a problem seems to undermine the rest of the squad. Because of the incessant rain of yesterday, some sections of the rear compartment of the pick-up were flooded, and lighting of one of the two generators had a short circuit, rendering unusable the electrical part. If there is no current we will not be able to recharge the batteries. If we are not able to charge the batteries, the bike that Nicola and Valerio will drive, certainly will have a reduced autonomy. A serious problem but apparently Nicola and Valerio, seem to maintain calm enviable. It's true; they are excellent organizers. They prefer to reason with extreme rationality and continue to work on those issues which they were already dealing with: to file the sharp edges of the rear windows; some cut by an hose and replace some parts applied onto the discharges from Mister Sun. Mirco captures the important moments with a technician look. Enrico crops and applies some stickers onto the tanks in which we will put the liquid reserves needed during the trip. Giorgio deals with many technical issues, by resolving the short-circuit on the generator's electrical part. With great patience and experience, makes a test, one by one, about to the fifty cables and wires that start from the generator by connecting fans, switches, sockets, batteries and other destinations. He understands what the problem is and solve it. At the end we breathe a sigh of relief and we go back to work on everything else.
After lunch the "music" does not change and remains so until late in the evening: there are spare tires on the roof of one of the pick-up to be fixed, to place the strips that reflect the light in the back, insulate the exposed parts, to do tests of loading and unloading, to fix the tools. Luckily Carlo arrived to help us. With a driver's license in his pocket is now a full member of the team and its contribution is no less essential than all the others. Obviously, the "writer" is always working with the boys. It's just while you do all these things that you realize how is ambitious the adventure that we are going to face. We are going to cross half of the world on board of electric motorcycles.
The electric motorcycles: the true protagonists of this adventure, have not yet been mentioned properly in our stories. It is no accident: the fact is that the development requires less time than that of the pick-up but also because the majority of the work has been done in previous months. The bikes will be the big star of the day tomorrow, when in the presence of local and national authorities, friends and supporters, journalists and curious, the team Meneghina Express will officially present at the ceremony strarting. This will be the realization of a dream, now more than ever restless and sparkling.
Path traveled today