Terje Rakett, King of the Desert

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A few days ago Terje from Norway send me those crasy pictures from him in the Sahara.
Its very cool to see his Triumph (that we generally see in our city streets) flying over the Sahara dunes. For this trip Terje has been supported by his brother Jan from the Reiersen Motor
Tank you very much Terje and keep in touch for your next adventure. Frank


I have always loved motorcycles. My first big motorcycle worth mentioning was a 1969 model BSA Rocket 3. It was a 1000cc Norman Hyde Rocket 3. It was powerful and fast. I sold it and bought the new Bonneville when it arrived in 2001. I figured I love riding more than wrenching, even though wrenching is fun I do like to have a reliable motorcycle that can take me around where ever I want to go, when ever I want. So it had to be the new Bonneville. I love British and European motorcycles. The Bonneville is, in my opinion, the most versatile motorcycle there is.


The first day after I bought the Bonnie from the dealer Classic Motorcycles, I took off for a 5000 kilometer round trip. I started in Oslo where I live and headed up north to Alta where I’m from and where my family lives. I made a stop over in Finland and visited the Britti-Ralli. When I got home I had time to start working on the bike. A few things had to be changed and one thing led to another. To make a long story short, it went from a classic looking motorcycle to a really nice caferacer before it run around as a scrambler for a year and among other things visited Dakar in Senegal. The scrambler phase led to a real hardcore offroad period, which was necessary for the Sahara trip in 2009. Now it's back to a rougher styled cafe racer.


All in all the Bonnie now have 120.000 kilometers on the meter and is still running strong. It have been modified on the suspension side and I have done some small changes to the engine with a small HP gain. Among other things I have changed the exhaust pipes, removed the airbox and run K&N filters on the road and UNI pod’s off road. The carbs have got some bigger jets and the rpm cut-out is now at 8900 rpm’s.

Let me just say something short about my three greatest trips on the Bonnie.


First, the Dakar trip was great. It all went fine with no problem what so ever. I have always loved the Dakar rally and have wanted to ride my motorcycle in Africa too. Back in December 2006 I decided to do more than just the usual talking and I started to plan my Dakar trip for April 2007. I only had 3 weeks off from work so I had long days with riding ahead of me. The worst part of the trip was crossing Europe to and from. It was a bit boring with all the motorways, but the whole experience in Africa made it worth it. The trip was 17.000 kilometers all in all. I went through Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania and then Senegal. The route back home was basically following the same way only a bit more too the east. I had it all on this trip, the cultural differences, the change in weather, heat in Mauritania and Senegal, heavy snow in the Atlas mountains, cold nights and warm nights and a always changing scenery in the nature. The Bonnie was loaded with extra petrol cans and my camping gear. It was a low budget trip so I had to spend the nights in my tent or at cheaper hotels.


The second long and nice trip was in September 2007. Me and a friend went to London, England for the Ace reunion and Brighton burn up. I’ve always liked the caferacer culture and to ride with my club mates in Ton-Up London from the Ace cafe to Brighton was great, even though 10.000 motorcyclists on the road made it a bit of a slow ride.

My third long trip was actually done mostly by car for the transport stages. The car was old, a 1985 model VW LT. Underpowered but still a strong van. Me and my brother Jan Tore (Mr. Reiersen Motor) loaded our motorcycles into our van and headed south from Oslo, Norway. Our plan was to go to Morocco and race our bikes in the mighty Sahara desert and a fitting name for this journey was, The Sahara Freestyle Rally 2009. On our way we stopped in Germany and picked up our good friend TommieBgood. For this trip Tommie had a Yamaha XT660R, Jan Tore had a Honda Africa Twin and I had my Triumph Bonneville. The drive from Oslo to Ouarzazate was a no problem 4-day drive.


For the first part of the trip we had Bikershome in Ouarzazate as our starting point. Peter at Bikershome was so kind and let us park our van there while we rode our motorcycles around for a weeks time. We brought our tents on the bikes for this trip and headed out for the mountains south-east of Ouarzazate. We rode around and after a couple of days we went to Zagora. We had some high speed riding in the desert, both in sand and in the rocky stone desert. I managed to do the ton on my Bonnie a couple of times somewhere on the piste between Foum Zquid and Zagora, just to see my brother Jan Tore pas me on his Africa Twin. The Bonnie really took some hard beating and I discovered the rims had some serious dents when we arrived in Zagora.

Back in Ouarzazate we spent another night at Bikershome before we packed the van and left for Erg Chebbi, the mighty dunes of the Sahara desert. Between Ouarzazate and Erg Chebbi we had a great journey in our beloved van, who we now had given the name 'Schmutsige Helga. We arrived in Erg Chebbi and found a nice hotel where we could leave our 'Helga' and have this as our base camp. We then spent a few days relaxing and riding our motorcycles around in the desert and we spent our last night camping in the dunes. Me and Jan Tore slept right in the sand in our sleeping bags while Tommie choose his tent. At night it was blowing and the flying sand covered our faces when we where sleeping. Around us some ugly looking camel-spiders where crawling, hunting in the dark night and doing their best to scare the crap out of us.

This three big journeys on my Bonnie have been great. There are so many other smaller, shorter and joyful trips on the Bonnie so I can not mention them all, but my Bonneville is the greatest motorcycle in the world and I will ride it forever.

all pictures © Terje Rakett

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