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Editor 'arris caught up with Rene at the 2009 Edmonton & Vancouver Motorcycle Shows where he posed 10 Questions from the CMG readership & staff about his epic journey.

The wrap up of the Team CMG diaries and the CMG Online awards for various acts of accomplishment, bravery, stupidity and crashing!

Team CMG are determined to finish the 3rd bi-annual Paris 2 Dacre dual sport rally. Part one of two of how the whole event unfolded.

Guy and Marleen are a couple of travelling Belgians that I've been bumping into all the way up Africa. They used to have a BMW 1100GS that they'd ride two-up through many of their tours of Africa and South America but for this altogether tougher trip they're in a Toyota Hilux pickup that's set up for life in the bush, complete with rooftop tent and 12V fridge packed with beer and cheese!

Has it really been 20 years since the CBR600 F1 heralded a new dawn in the world of 600cc sportbikes? The answer would be yes, but the original F1 — and for that matter, most of the resultant F series — managed to combine leading-edge performance with reasonable comfort, and good street manners to boot.

I often wonder after competing in a race weekend, that if I had known ahead of time everything that would happen that weekend, would I still have gone out? I guess not knowing must be one of the draws …

There were two more days to go and I just wanted it over. I was like an automaton: there was no happy, there was no sad. I was too tired for emotions anymore.

The 2006 FZ1 gets a whole host of updates, with the motor surprisingly being taken from the current generation R1 – surprising because roadster bikes always seem to be a generation back from their super-sports brethren.

On seeing the bikes for the first time, I wondered if the Yamaha designers were inspired by the art deco style of architecture from the 1920s, as can still be found in Miami or Napier in New Zealand. Or maybe they sat down and watched the old Buck Rogers’ movies and decided that the (then) futuristic design of the rocket ships was worthy of homage.

I was in a bad way, I was completely exhausted and it was all I could do to eat and put up my tent the evening before. I didn’t do any bike maintenance at all, other than buy a new air filter off the KTM truck to stick in my pocket.