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Anon
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Beddie's first tour...

After a bit more than a month on the road, I have finally found a nice place with free internet in Berlin, Germany, from where I can share an interesting Beddie story...

So as some of you already know, I left Sheffield a while back, aiming to do a music tour of Europe with a 1979 Bedford CF 250. Well, so far so good, and Beddie has proved to be much more reliable and in better health than the owner (er, this would be me)...

So we started off going to London, then Portsmouth, and Bournemouth, where the first signs of trouble showed up. Snapped alternator wire en route to Bournemouth. We were about 10 minutes from the venue the gig was supposed to happen, so I decided to not stop when the gauge dropped to 13V but keep on going so we would at least make it to the gig. We did, and it took a brief look to realize it was a simple repair. I hooked up the soldering iron to the inverter and soldered the wire back onto the connector, and we were ready to go in 10 minutes.

Then back to London for yet another gig and on the same night drove down to Folkestone to get on the channel tunnel. We were booked for the 3 am train. Good time, border cops are too tired to do anything so they just waved us through. Even the woman doing the gas safety check was too bored to do it so she just asked if the gas was off, without even checking. About an hour later, we were somewhere in France, on a layby. All good, apart from the fact that in the dark we didn't notice the railway tracks about 10 meters from the layby, and the night was like the Blues Brothers movie when Jake asks Elwood how often the train goes by and he replies "so often that after a while you won't even notice it".

Next day drove to Gent, Belgium and then did one of the longest drives of the tour, Gent to Potsdam, East Germany! Problem free so far for Beddie, but the same could not be said about the owner. By that point, my fever was high enough to render me unable to drive, move much, or generally do anything apart from laying down in the back. I barely managed to crawl my way through the gig and then had the pleasant surprise of finding a friend outside the venue, who had come to meet us. Good news, as the other guy I was traveling with was American.. A bit too American maybe, which means he did not dare drive anything with no power steering, manual gears, and the steering wheel on the wrong side. At least the girl who just arrived owns an old VW van and had driven it all around Europe, so she managed to get us to Leipzig. In the meantime I was getting worse and the fever was going higher.

As the clutch and gears are a bit too British for a German girl, Beddie stalled a couple of times on the way, the last of which he simply refused to start again. The good news is we were already in Leipzig. The bad news was that I couldn't really fix anything and we were in some traffic lights on a main road. So Beddie was pushed onto the pavement and I remained in the back. The girl stayed with me, while the American guy decided to try and walk to the venue. In the process, he was chased and beaten up by neonazis, and while making a run for it, got hopelessly lost. No money, no phone, no map, no address, and no way of contacting us. Two hours later, we assumed he made it to the venue, so Beddie miraculously started without any repairs and we drove to the venue to find him and play the gig. By the time we arrived there I was in such bad shape that I could not even be carried to the gig. So none of us made it to the gig that night. We had to remain in Leipzig for a few more days until I was a bit better so I could drive again.

During those days, the German girl gave herself serious burns after accidentally emptying a pan of boiling water on her while trying to make tea. A couple of days later she left for Berlin where she was bed-bound for the next two weeks due to the pain from the burns.

We cancelled our gig in Ostrava, Czech Republic, and I foolishly trusted my American friend to decide if we should try to make the next gig, which was in Eastern Slovakia. He somehow figured it was only a few hours away, so we started driving into Poland. Just outside Wroclaw, while stopped at a service station to get some food, Beddie stalled again and would not start. Having a look at the map, I realized that the town we were meant to be in, in a couple of hours to make the show, was more like 5-6 hours away, and we had no idea if Beddie would start again. So there we go having to cancel yet another gig.

Next gig was in Brno, Czech Republic. We made it into the Czech Republic, but Beddie stalled in the middle of nowhere in some mountains and would not start again. I removed the fuel pump (had been suspecting that all along) and found that the little shaft that holds the cam follower in place was ridiculously bent out of shape. I removed it and bent it back straight with a hammer. Reinstalled it and tried the pump again. This time Beddie would start but stall all the time and fuel was leaking out of everywhere. Time for the spare pump, I thought. But it turns out that the spare pump leaks fuel as well, because of some seals that are no longer sealing... I managed to bodge it in place and Beddie started again, but to be on the safe side, I called for Phil's kind assistance, who posted a new fuel pump to Ljubljana, Slovenia, where we were meant to be a few days later. Judging by the state of the two fuel pumps I had with me, this was a very wise thing to do. I should have gotten a working one before I left the UK, but now I'll know for next time.

Well, the bodged one got us to Brno fine, and the gig was good, but the neighborhood was one of the scariest ones I've ever been to, and I've been to plenty of nasty places! By that point we were three acts traveling (picked one more up in Brno), so we decided to have one of us remain in Beddie at all times, to avoid any break-in attempts. All went smooth and we were on the way to Vienna for our next gig....

This is where the interesting part really starts... Upon entry in Austria, I noticed a cop van on our tail. About 10 minutes into the country we got pulled over and the slimiest nazi pig you can ever imagine demanded that we follow him back to the borders for a "technischkontrol"... As we were to find out later, this is the Gestapo's way of telling you that they do not respect the UK MOT certificate and you have to pass their own MOT equivalent if your vehicle looks too old!! So first thing they tell me the brakes are not good enough. So I ask them to prove it, show me how they can tell, as I was pretty damn sure that my breaks were better than most vehicles I've driven. To that, they suddenly decided that my brakes were fine and moved on... After trying for ages to find something wrong, they eventually decided to do a test where the front wheels drive on top of two boxes that move the wheels towards each other and away from each other! During this test, there was about 1mm of movement on both top suspension ball-joints, the ones with the grease nipple on top. So they said this was a fail. I told them that the vehicle has passed an MOT and will probably pass one again with no extra work, and that since we're both in the EU, they should respect that. They didn't give a donald duck and the nazi pig came and announced that we have to pay 72 euros "because the vehicle is too old and is not allowed in austria", and then we would be allowed in only to drive to the nearest garage and have the balljoints replaced. I told him I don't see any need to replace the ball-joints and that I do not agree with the result of the test.

We were kept there for 4 hours, with our travel documents taken away, until they realized we really were not going to pay. Eventually, we got DEPORTED from Austria and told "off the record" to not try and come back. So the nazi pigs managed to make us miss our Vienna gig. Since we are now not allowed entry into Austria, we had to drive around it to get to Slovenia. Back into the Czech Republic, that is, then down Slovakia, into Hungary, and finally Slovenia. By now, we had been pulled over about 6 times, the first 2 being while we were still in East Germany, 2 in Slovakia and 2 in Hungary. The second time in Slovakia they had a "mobile x-ray machine" check Beddie for drugs, but then they also brought in the saddest excuse of a cop dog ever, a stray mutt that looked like Scooby Doo, that was chasing his tail inside Beddie for about 10 minutes, before coming out to BITE the passenger side bumper... The dog-cop got over excited and happily announced to his colleagues that the drugs were in the front bumper (you know, the chrome one!!).... To that, 10 cops with flashlights ran towards Beddie and started trying to find drugs in the bumper... By that point I was laughing my ass off at the sheer stupidity, waste of time, waste of tax money and public funds. They can't even feed their own people but they can afford a mobile x-ray machine and Scooby Doos....

An hour later, after they realized it would be kinda hard to hide drugs in sheet metal, they gave up and let us go. We eventually arrived in a petrol station near Maribor in Slovenia where we slept. In the morning, we woke up with a cop car behind us, with two cops looking at us. We briefly considered to just walk up to them with our passports and ask them to check them while we were eating breakfast, just to save time, but then we decided against it. Funnily enough, we did not get pulled over in Slovenia. Not even once! We had an amazing gig at a 2-day festival in Ljubljana, and the next day I was hit by a very bad case of food poisoning...

I was unable to drink any liquid (or eat any food) for about 24 hours, and was getting VERY dehydrated. Eventually a Slovenian friend of mine (who was also the sound engineer at the festival) offered to drive me to hospital. I ended up with an IV drip to treat dehydration and loads of medication pumped into my veins to bring me back to a reasonable state. Funnily enough, it was the same hospital that Jossip Broz Tito had died in, in 1980. Very impressive, I must say. I was very pleased to find it looks a million times better than the average NHS hospital. I had my European Health Insurance card with me so I was covered by the equivalent of the NHS in Slovenia. I ended up staying in Slovenia for about a week until I could start eating properly again.

While there, I managed to rearrange one of the gigs we missed and get an extra one in Slovakia, so off we were to Banska Bystrica for the first one, through Hungary again. Budapest sucks, by the way... In Slovakia, everyone insisted that we have to get drunk to the point of collapsing, but we had to politely decline, myself mostly due to my poor health as I am a big fan of Slivka or Slivovica or Slivovitz or however they call plum brandy in different countries. I don't do the collapsing thing, but I'll normally be more than happy to have a shot or two. It was hard resisting. Leaving Banska Bystrica the next morning we had the usual interaction with some nazioid cops who insisted I failed to stop at a stop sign... The fine was very much up to discussion, starting off at 150 euros with no takers, and ending up at 20 euros and arrest threats... We paid them in small change and got out of there. Next stop was Ska Nova Ves, Eastern Slovakia. Really small and interesting place with absolutely nothing to do there if you don't know someone who lives there.

After this, there were no gigs planned for a while, so we decided we could use some rest and a bit of a change of scenery. So we decided to head to Berlin, where the German girl who drove us to Leipzig normally lives.

In the process we drove across Poland, which is a very beautiful country with many cops who never pulled us over! I guess they were busy mourning their president...

So Berlin is where I am writing the story from, exhausted but in good hands. Plenty of interesting projects and good people around here who live in communal ways. Beddie found a nice yard to spend most of his time in while I'm resting, and he's even found himself a girlfriend!! A VW van called Betty, owned by the German girl I'm staying with at the moment.

Pictures to follow soon... And don't forget, I still have to return to England... But I'm in no particular hurry now..!

To sum up:

1 Month on the road...

4000 miles...

1 broken fuel pump...

1 snapped alternator wire...

1 failed headlight switch...

1 half-broken fuel pump...

...and counting!


PS: In Slovenia they fill up British gas bottles!! Yay! That gas heater has really saved us with the horrible weather around here..

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Thu 15 Apr 2010 @ 16:02 Edit this messageQuote this messagePMQuote this message
Anon
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Wow...amazing times you are having! And glad your vehicle is still on the move. Good luck with the rest of your journey and tour. What band are you in? any chance of hearing some tracks?

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Fri 16 Apr 2010 @ 09:22 Edit this messageQuote this messagePMQuote this message
Anon
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ScoobyDoo: Thanks! I'll PM you with more info on the band..


Photos to follow soon...........!
Thu 29 Apr 2010 @ 16:23 Edit this messageQuote this messagePMQuote this message
Anon
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Oh, what an adventure, sorry to hear you got sick.

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Fri 07 May 2010 @ 09:12 Edit this messageQuote this messagePMQuote this message
Anon
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Hi

The beddie must be a cop magnet !!....Great story though look forward to seeing the photo's


Margaret

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Sun 09 May 2010 @ 10:15 Edit this messageQuote this messagePMQuote this message
Anon
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Suterman: Yeah, it has been quite an adventure. Sickness all part of it I guess..


Margaret: The Beddie is DEFINITELY the strongest cop magnet I've ever driven!! Cops even told me "what do you expect, driving THAT?".... Most people I met along the way said they have never seen anything like it. I'm sure Opel Blitz existed in the continent, but it really must have not been a very common sight, and they're certainly nowhere to be found nowadays. I found one in Amsterdam, but I went to the right place where I knew there would be one.. They even have Caddie Eldorados and Sedan DeVilles there... But they've got the cops visiting twice a day too...

Here's piccies: http://otherside.servebeer.com/gearhead/bedford/
Fri 21 May 2010 @ 23:27 Edit this messageQuote this messagePMQuote this message
Anon
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sounds like a great trip gives me even more confidence to do a bigger trip after france
Sun 17 Jul 2011 @ 09:53 Edit this messageQuote this messagePMQuote this message
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