Travels round the UK

I'm off for a week of Superduking around the UK.

After two months in Spain with a sat nav to help I've finally concede that they might be a good idea. Got myself a Garmin with twisty road feature so off today on a 200mile leg to test it out.

Very nice! I was just reading some reviews of the Garmin and Tom Tom twistie road features earlier this morning. Enjoy your travels!

get yourself a telferizer ram mount. Replaces the tank bolt, a lot easier central then on the end of the bars.

http://www.telferizer.com/products/

Trouble with that is I have a Scptts damper fitted and tbe bracket covers the tank bolt.

ah, maybe not then !!! Like the clip-ons, never seen them before on a superduke.

Set off early from my mates house in Royal Tonbridge Wells yesterday morning.


Arrived up in Lancashire 350 miles later for a well needed pint and a packet of peanuts.


This trip was the first with the new visor from Arai with the separate flip-up black screen. I thought it was a bit gimmicky when I first saw it but in practice it's a bit of a revelation really. At £70+ it's not cheap but I guess it's like having two visors in one. I like black visors on sunny track days but have always struggled with them on public roads, especially when riding through tree lined lanes when the on/off shadows mean that you are sometimes plunged into dark just when you don't need it. This is brilliant because you can just push up the dark bit quickly but not end up with wind blast in your face and unprotected eyes. I thought that riding fast with it flipped up would maybe create a drag that would strain your neck but it doesn't - even at 100mph+ not a problem. Even when turning round to look over a shoulder which I have to do a lot because I have no mirrors. Also because the dark visor only covers three quarters of the clear one there is always a clear strip of vision at the bottom which is exactly where the clocks are on the SD so you get a really bright view of the rev counter and speedo when riding.

Took a short spin over to Glasson Dock this evening, down the old Cockerham road where we used to race our RD250s and KH400s back in the early 1980's. There's a village hall that used to have a bikers night every Saturday and the carpark used to be full up with old strokers, GS750s and ratty Kawasaki 900s to the blaring sound of AC/DC, Rainbow, Whitesnake and Status Quo. Those were the days Now the building looks like a respectable community center with potted plants and manicured lawns.

Those roads might have been great for us back then but now they seem narrow and badly surfaced for the likes of the SD now. You can't stretch it's legs and use the power really for most of the time and series of bends that I still know like the back of my hand for those days seem constricted and awkward and I missed the smoother tarmac and sweeping bends of A roads that are more like racetracks. Also there are many places, blind bends, humpback bridges and hidden entrances and I was aware that I was approaching them slower than when I was 18. We must have been mad back then without a care for our own safety. Mind you, I lost seven friends during those years so it wasn't like we weren't being constantly reminded that it was a dangerous thing to do.

The Dock itself is still a big meeting point for bikes at the weekends but tonight it was deserted with the dark threat of a typical Lancashire rainstorm closing in across what had been a beautiful blue sky.

Thanks for taking the time to take pics- that is a great looking bike. I rode in almost identical weather today, from seattle to Bend, Oregon. Looking forward to more of your ride report.

Great updates! Enjoy your travels. Looking forward to the next update.

No pictures from yesterday's adventures because I never stopped riding to get the camera out of the tail pack. I'm always a bit jealous when I see other peoples posts on travels, (especially in the US or European mountains), showing the amazing roads they are riding. But I don't understand how they get the pictures because with me I'm always riding so hard that the view appears round the corner, over the horizon, whatever, and I think, "Wow! What a view", but I'm so busy also looking at the road and apex and shifting gear or braking hard that I'm through it and into the next bit before I even think to stop and take a fooking picture. If I spend too much brain power on looking at the view and watching out for a place to pull over and take a pic then my mind is off the ball. I guess I ride too fast and focussed!

I went to see a friend from college days who lives in Clitheroe so I took the back roads through the Trough of Bowland. Really good to just get on the SD and do a hundred miles or so with no luggage and no aims. I might go back up into the fell today so will try to get pictures for you all. Some of the roads on the Lancashire/Yorkshire border are really great and there's not much traffic about compared to down South.

I've work my back Racetec K3 out so popped into my local bike shop in Garstang, (John Carr who has been there in a little workshop for over 35 years) and they are getting me a new rear in for Monday. Being back in the town I grew up in makes me pretty nostalgic a lot of the time. When we were young we would spend the last few days of a tyres life doing burnouts all over the place. I can't say that I have ever done one on the SD but I might have a go later. I remember it takes a bit of guts and faith in the front tyre at standstill to dump the clutch and get the rear spinning.

I hear you about the photo taking, I have missed dozens these last few days for the same reason. When I do stop to click, it is because one of us just missed a deer and needs to change his shorts

Enjoying your travel tale all the same, have a great ride.

Welcome back.

Not sure where you are going but if it involves passing north Oxon let me know. I'm entertainin my boy this week (6) so I'm about and beer is available in these parts. Can even offer a spare room if a stop over is required.

Have fun

First stop today was a trip to Morecambe Bay. Not been here for a very long time, maybe 25 years. Lost a knee slider on the way back home last night so planned a trip to Lancaster to get a replacement. Guess what? All three of the bike shops I grew up with there had gone. It's a sad feeling pulling up to a building and remembering the shop windows full of the latest bikes and finding a charity shop or an estate agents. So I carried on to Morecambe on the advice of an old man who told me that there was a big Honda dealer on the trading estate there. Found it eventually but it was more of a car dealership and they only had one pair of sliders that were bright red so I gave it a miss. Not like I'm getting my knee down on these roads anyway. This estate is also the place where I passed my bike test in 1980, it gave me some memories I tell you, I kept on doing life savers and observing the road in a different way

Morecambe bay is famous for it's cockles and how dangerous it is to be caught on the beach with the fast tide. It killed 23 Chinese cockle pickers once in one go.

Next stop was Kirkby Lonsdale which is a mecca for bikers round here. Know as Devil's Bridge locally the car park was pretty empty today at 10 in the morning. Roads to get here are 20/30 miles of really amazing fast bends and sweeping highways. They are mostly bordered by dry stone walls and hedges and the visibility round many is impaired but if you slightly tune down the danger buttons in your brain you can really shift. I was passing all the other bikes out at that time by at least 20 or 30 MPH more speed. It was slightly embarrassing and I hoped that once I turned up at the bridge there wouldn't be a constant stream of bikes arriving moaning about the loony on the black KTM that passed them a while back with no consideration for biking etiquette. (they were in the way and going too slow is my only defence!!). Sundays when the weather is good there can be hundreds of bikes here, police presence and helicopters have reputedly spoilt the vibe a bit but there wasn't a sign of them today. Parked up next to two KTM 990 Supermotos and had a good blather with the guys. Both of them test rode the 1290 and thought it was overpriced and cheaply built so weren't interested.

25 miles up the road and across the border into Yorkshire saw me at Settle for some much needed fish and chips. Up North you can ask for 'scraps' and get an additional pile of batter bits they fish out of the oil. Mushy peas, vinegar, wooden fork, brill. Every town and village you pull into here has a load of bikes parked up at the market cross or outside some central cafe. Great place to meet people and have a chat. Whatever anyone else thinks about bikes they are definitely one of the best social engaging things to own. Bikers the world over are a brotherhood and turning up on one means that you are instantly accepted and welcomed.

Settle to home is a 40 mile adventure through the best of the Lancashire fells and moors. Sometimes the roads are OK and 100mph fastish but suddenly they degenerate into 'C' class and you'd be better of on a supermoto. Potholes, stray sheep, piles of gravel on blind corners, I:10 hills with no run off and steep drops to a mountainous graves. Not the race track analogies I spend most of my time searching for down in the South of England. But it's where I spent the best part of 15 years riding my loony two strokes and I know most of the corners still like the back of my hand. Truly nostalgic run and the views are really awesome.



Got home mid afternoon after six hours in the saddle. Crippled in pain, knees killing, shoulders fooked. But happy and content. Just not sure where I'm going to go tomorrow!