We've all heard of Steve McQueen. The Great Escape Hilt. "Cooler!". Baseball glove and ball. That one.

We all know that Steve McQueen was a very skilled driver and rider, and that he done all of his own stunts. Well, almost all of them. That jump, the one at the end of the Great Escape, was actually done by Bud Elkin - the guy who got Steve McQueen into enduro riding in the first place. The insurance companies wouldn't allow Steve to do that jump, even though they'd allow him to ride the motorcycle.

Steve McQueen was such an accomplished enduro rider that the film producers couldn't find anybody whoul could keep up with him. This made the chase scene at the end of the film quite difficult - who could ride as fast as Steve McQueen? The answer, obviously, is "another Steve McQueen". So he rode both bikes - the one being chased and the one doing the chasing. Some clever editing makes it look like a single chase, but it's actually Steve himself riding in his t-shirt and also chasing himself whilst wearing a German army uniform.

Life was not always rosy for the young Steve McQueen. He ran with street gangs, committed petty crime, and was eventually sent away to the California Junior Boys Republic - optimistically described as a "boarding school for wayward boys".

He got lucky, he clawed his way out of that. He looked where he wanted the bike to go.

Even towards the end of his life, negotiating film contracts and the like, Steve always had some unusual requirements. In addition to his film pay, he'd demand lots and lots and lots of freebies. Razor blades, soap and - particularly - lots of pairs of jeans before he would agree to do the film. When questioned about this, he'd simply answer - "I like jeans". Several hundred pairs of denim jeans would be delivered - no further questions asked.

It turned out that he never wore a single pair of these jeans. He took them and donated them to the California Junior Boys Republic - where he had been "educated" as a kid. He'd spend time there, playing pool and talking to the boys about his own experiences. He never forgot where he came from.

So, a decision has been made. It's Bejing. It's not 2009 Dakar, it's 2009 Transorientale. No fanfare, no massive headline title of the blog - not yet anyway.

This is a bit of a bitch in a way. I could have coped in Africa - I speak French. Most, if not all, of the countries that the rally passes through were former French colonies. I spent time - albeit a short time - in the service of France. To mis-quote my Dawn to Dusk team name - "Seemed Such a Good Idea At The Time".

But Argentina? I have no business there. Tough as the race may be, it doesn't appeal to me. I never set out on this journey to do a round-trip from Buenos Aires to Buenos Aires.

Transorientale is the largest rally raid in the world - it is the new Dakar. It is 10,000 kilometres over 17 days through 3 countries - Russia, Kazakstan and China. St. Petersburg to Bejing.

I speak a little bit of Russian - probably enough to get my face slapped, but I'm going to have to work on my Chinese.

Apart from the beauty of riding through Russia - I've always had a bit of a thing for Russia - there is also the beauty of always riding East. Always riding into the sunrise, always finishing the day with the sun at your back setting in the West.

I put my race numbers on Goldilocks today. Changed the oil - twice - and tightened up all the nuts and bolts. She's ready.

Chief and squaw came over for dinner - I had spent all day cooking a bit of lamb (inbetween changing oil and tightening bolts) and was ably helped in this by the Wee Yin. She cut up the vegetables - using a real knife. She had respect for the knife, and was a little afraid of it. But, as I explained to her, how will you ever learn to use a knife if nobody ever shows you how? We had a few incidents where she wanted to chop the veg really fast - a la Masterchef - but she done very well.

It's funny how we expect kids - and ourselves - to stay away from things that they're not ready for yet and then - magically - one day to just be able to do it properly and nobody's ever shown them how.

I've noticed, recently, that I am starting to stitch together a lot of the raw skills that I've learned at BMW and AJP in the last year. Things that seemed alien at the time - like changing ruts - I am starting to work into my normal riding practice.

Skill is not a God-given thing. It takes practice. Lots of practice. It takes bumps, bruises and tears. It takes being prepared to make a complete idiot of yourself and carry on regardless. Above all, it takes knowing the right things to do and practicing doing them right - knowing is not enough.

Imagine a balloon. You blow it up in a series of breaths. With every blow, the balloon is stretched beyond anything it has been stretched before. With every blow, you could stop there and the balloon would be quite happy with that. You've got to stretch the balloons comfort zone further than it has ever been - then you'll end up with a nice large balloon. Or a burst one.

So that's it. Finally, I've figured it out. I'm a balloon. My Da has told me this for years.

June 2009 - St. Petersburg to Bejing. Nothing else changes - we still plan on going on the same 260 AJP bike with the same "as light as possible, great fuel efficiency" strategy. Now that Dakar has moved to South America, and become a brand rather than a destination, lots of people will be facing this decision. Simon Pavey already made it - he's doing Transorientale this year after doing Dakar 6 times. Lots of others are doing the same. Maybe it's not as dumb an idea as you'd first think.

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