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  The North Norfolk Coast

  Gary 12:16 on August 8, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: Gladius (7), Norfolk, Preparation (23), SVF 650 (4), Trip Report, V-Strom 650X (6)

  Gen and I spent this past weekend in Loddon, Norfolk for a gathering with friends and we decided to take the bikes to get some more of that all important road experience…

  We set off on Friday night at around 17:30, hoping to at least get off the motorways before it got dark. The first part of the journey seemed to go well, but as we got to the M25 we hit traffic, and I mean traffic, it was almost 21:00 by the time we got to our first service stop on the M11, already starting to get dark with 100 miles still to go. Our luck then changed as we managed to stop at the same services as Dave, Steph and Adrian, we both breathed a sigh of relief realising that we could follow them the rest of the way and the pressure was off now I wouldn’t have to navigate in the dark (a good thing considering my navigational skills in the light). We arrived at Nina and Ollie’s at around 23:30 and after a bit of chit-chat with everybody we all settled down for the night.

  

  I woke up at 08:00 Saturday morning, the plan was to go for a ride with Ollie and his GSX-R 750, we were on the road by 09:00 the weather was looking good. We rode to Lowestoft first, to tick off the most easterly point in the UK; Ness Point on Gas Works Road. I admit I have seen better scenery elsewhere, Gas Works Road is aptly named but regardless, this is the most easterly point in the UK and it deserved a visit and some photographs. We continued north from here up to Great Yarmouth and then north-west around the north Norfolk coast, we rode some fantastic roads here; nice and twisty, the way all roads should be. It was good fun riding with Ollie, it’s always good to watch other people riding; how they take their corners, where they position themselves in the road and even the small things like where they park their bike are interesting. We met up with the rest of the guys for lunch and then walked around Norwich for a bit before riding back. In the evening we stayed up playing nerdy board and video games into the early hours of the morning, alcohol was consumed by most and great fun was had by all!

  

  On Sunday we did more of the same; nerdy games with a BBQ for lunch, but all of this unfortunately made us late leaving and we didn’t set off until around 16:00. We’d just got onto the A11 when I had an unpleasant experience with an idiot car driver. We’d just come off a roundabout onto a section of dual carriageway, there was a junction on the left and a place to u-turn off of the right-hand lane. I had accelerated up to around 60mph and a the car driver decides to pull out of the junction, “moron” I thought and proceeded to move out into the fast lane so I could avoid colliding, my plan would have worked too had the idiot not moved over into that lane too. I panic-braked causing my back wheel to lock, I veered over to the centre of the carriageway and found myself between the car and the curb, at this point I was so close to the car, I was getting ready to hit the road, I remember thinking “this is going to hurt”. To avoid hitting the car I went up on the grass verge in the centre of the carriageway and somehow managed to come to a stop without falling off, I was VERY lucky.

  

  We carried on for the next 100 miles or so, the M25 thankfully was pretty good all the way, but we weren’t taking any chances and left it for the M40 where we stopped at a service station which by pure chance was home to a Starbucks, I was a happy man! We left the services around 20:30 and unfortunately it dawned on me that we would be riding, yet again, into the night. The rest of the ride home was fairly uneventful, we took the A338 from Oxford until a road closed sign threw us off track and onto a lovely “B” road, one which I wouldn’t mind revisiting during the day sometime. I decided that it would simply take too long to get home if we kept going like this so I took us to Newbury and then used the A34 and M27 to get us home as fast as possible. We arrived at around 23:15, it had been a long ride and it wasn’t in the most enjoyable conditions but we made it none the less, it was definitely challenging and we came out on top. France, Spain & Portugal… we’re ready.

   

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  Camping Brecon, A Test Run.

  Gary 22:27 on July 28, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: Adventure (30), Brecon Beacons, Gladius (7), Motorcycling (12), Preparation (23), Trip Report, V-Strom 650X (6)

  The story so far is this; we’ve got our bikes, we’re in the process of gearing them up and we’ve done our first long(ish) ride up to Avebury stone circle. In October we’re going to Spain for three weeks, which means at some point along the way we’re going to have to camp. I’ve bike-camped quite a few times now but for Gen who has only just started riding it’s something else that was on the list of things to experience.

  

  We decided to ride up to Brecon last weekend; the longest trip we’ve attempted thus far and stay in a pre-booked campsite, one step at a time. The weather forecast wasn’t looking great for the weekend but we decided to go anyway, as I’ve said before (and get constant reminders about from Kev); we can’t control the weather in Spain so why try and control it over here? Besides, we need all the riding experience we can get!

  

  We arrived at 19:00 and set up camp after finding our way around the campsite (Gen’s first experience of riding on grass)! After spending a while getting setup and sorting everything out we decided dinner was in order; a bit of tinned Chilli and some rice, it was simple but it filled a hole. We then played on our DS’ (in true adventurer style) and had a coffee before going to bed.

  We woke up on Sunday morning to the now familiar sound of rain; I pretty much expect rain when it’s time to take a tent down now. We had some porridge for breakfast, got dressed and packed up the tent when we got a bit of a gap in the weather. Not long into the ride home and the light showers turned into heavy showers, and the heavy showers just got heavier, eventually allowing Gen to experience the “bullet effect” you get when riding along at 60mph+. The bad weather caused us to miss an exit for the M4 and we accidently carried on into the centre of a very wet, very busy Cardiff. I think this was the single most depressing ride I’ve ever had; I was cold, wet and angry at myself for missing that exit, but I suppose it was a good learning experience for Gen and I’m glad that she pulled through it, wet weather doesn’t really get much worse than that. We eventually arrived home safe, excited and proud that we had completed the goal we had set out to achieve.

  

  We clocked up 320 miles on this trip; Gen has now experienced a motorway, a rather windy bridge, some nasty weather and unfortunately more of my shockingly bad navigation skills. It sucked that we didn’t have more time to explore this weekend as there are some beautiful landscapes and fantastic roads over there, the Brecon Beacons will definitely have to play host to a future trip or two.

   
• 

  Swildon's & Goatchurch

  Gary 00:44 on July 7, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: Adventure (30), Caving, Challenge, Explore (4), Trip Report, Walking (4)

  There was one thing I’d never really challenged myself with and there was one question I’ve always had lingering in the back of my mind; was I scared of small spaces? I had no idea…

  This weekend I had the opportunity to go caving for the first time, the chance to answer my question and to challenge both my physical and mental toughness. Swildon’s Hole is the longest cave on the Mendip Hills and the upper part was to play host for our first venture into the underworld.

  

  Cavers Gary, Mikey, Ian, Tara and Terry.

  Swildon’s was a fantastic introduction to caving, it managed to quickly get us into the spirit of things; as soon as you enter the cave you’re sliding down, twisting around and squeezing through things. The cave allowed us to experience a little bit of everything and was exactly what I was expecting from my first time down under, but I still didn’t feel challenged and I didn’t have a real answer to my question yet.

  Once we’d finished with Swildon’s we decided to have some lunch out on the green, we were talking about caving and my vision about “hardcore caving” came up in conversation; a long, narrow, person-sized tunnel, the very thing I imagine when I ask myself the question. As soon as I explained this vision, our experienced caver Richard said the two words that would change our day completely; “The Drainpipe”.

  Goatchurch Cavern is a cave on the edge of Burrington, also on the Mendip Hills. It has two entrances and a network of slippery passages that end with a thin phreatic tube known as “The Drainpipe” or “The Bunny Run”; 30ft of long, tight passageway only really navigable whilst travelling forwards. The image below is not my own because we didn’t take any cameras down with us, I don’t normally like posting photos I don’t own but I just had to show you what the Drainpipe is like!

  

  Because my big mouth got us into doing this in the first place I rightly took the lead into the passage, I didn’t hesitate, I just dived in and got on with it; I knew people had done it before and I knew people would do it after me, all I had to do was focus on the goal and keep on moving. The walls didn’t close in on me, I didn’t feel a need or want to get out, I think the worst part was the amount of effort it took to actually wriggle myself through, it takes almost a surprising amount of energy to move yourself when you don’t have a lot of free space to play with. The trip through seemed to last a while, I think this was purely because I had no idea how long it was going to last but eventually I made it through to the cavern on the other side and the rest of our team followed; each and every one of us made it through that passage, it was an extremely rewarding experience and I think we all felt that warm feeling of success, there’s nothing quite like it. A few minutes rest and we made our way back through the drainpipe (in record time) and began our tiring ascent of the cave.

  I felt on top of the world when we emerged from Goatchurch, I was now carrying the valuable answer to my question; am I scared of small spaces? The answer is no. I am now invincible; there is no obstacle I can’t navigate, no danger I won’t face and no challenge I would hesitate to accept!

   
• 

  Concluding the Pike

  Gary 20:56 on June 22, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: Adventure (30), Bikes (13), Motorcycling (12), Preparation (23), Scafell Pike (6), Trip Report

  I covered 1,019 miles in four days on this trip; I used about 75 litres of fuel leaving me with an average of 61.76MPG. I think I spent about £75 on fuel though this may be a little inaccurate as I’m guessing the value of the fuel that was in the tank before we left. I spent £27.00 on the campsite, £34.65 on food & drink and £149.99 on Alt-berg boots.

  

  This trip was a huge test compared to Dartmoor. The only complaint I have about the bike is that the seat could be better; after around 100 miles I was finding myself getting uncomfortable and wanting to stop so I think a gel seat may be on the shopping list. Apart from the sore bum though, I can’t really complain, I don’t get wrist problems anymore, the riding position is great, the bike is still great fun to ride despite its larger size, the whole experience is just much more satisfying, I can spend less time worrying about my aches and pains and more time enjoying the ride.

  We had it all on this long weekend; a problem with a bike, large mileage days, bike camping, a mountain climb, some wonderful mountain passes and some problem solving moments too. A brilliant test run for me, the trip has made me aware of the gear I need to get, the gear I don’t really need and has given me more of that all important experience I can take with me to Spain in October.

  Time to start planning the next one…

   
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  Climbing the Pike - Day 3

  Gary 23:49 on June 15, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: Adventure (30), Bikes (13), Motorcycling (12), Scafell Pike (6), Three Peaks (4), Trip Report

  The plan on Monday was to take some mountain passes and some roads through the Yorkshire Dales in order to get to Alt-berg, the boot makers to get me some new motorcycling/hiking boots. I was woken by Kev again (you may have noticed I do sleep rather well) at 07:00, considering the mountain climb the day before and the descent down the cliff route I wasn’t actually feeling too bad, nowhere near what I was feeling on the way home after Snowdon last year anyway. We washed up, got ready to go, ate nothing for breakfast (we’re pretty good at doing that) and we were on the road by 08:00.

  The first two mountain passes on our route were the Hardknott Pass and the Wrynose Pass. These two roads are pretty much everything I pictured when thinking about the Lake District they’re the sort of roads I’d seen in pictures but having never been to the Lake District before remained as pictures. At first they just seemed like normal countryside roads, we’ve got loads of them over on the Purbecks, but then suddenly you turn a corner and you see it; the long winding path up and through the mountains, you can literally see a mile or so of twisty roads in front of you, it’s hard to take your eyes off the road to take in the beautiful scenery that lay around it.

  

  Once you get to the start of the ascent up into the mountains the roads begins to climb quite quickly with some very sharp, steep corners which turned out to be rather tricky to ride in some places. The weather was good, it did get a bit cloudy at some points but overall fantastic compared to what we were expecting this weekend and I’m thankful for this, I fear these roads may not be as much fun in the wet as they were in the dry.

  

  We arrived at Alt-berg dry and in one piece if a bit hungry; the original plan was to stop for food on the way but we hadn’t found anywhere for breakfast and thought it might be a better idea to get my feet sized up first and then go to one of the pubs we passed for a pub lunch on the way back. I was very impressed with the service at Alt-berg; we walked in the door without an appointment and it didn’t take long before my feet were measured up and I was given a pair of boots to try on. I experienced some movement around the heel and after being hesitant to mention it the fitter took the words out of my mouth when I started to explain the problem, he worked his magic on the boots and they then fit perfectly. The best news of the day was that the boots I tried on for fitting were in stock and I was able to take them away with me that day, I’ve not ridden in anything else since. There’s something great about supporting a great British company like Alt-berg; they’re providing a fantastic service and making top quality hand-made products, absolutely brilliant!

  

  All snug in my new boots we made our way back through the Yorkshire Dales, stopping off for a pub lunch along the way (once we actually found a pub that was open and a pub that was serving food) at a rather typical Yorkshire pub, we had some good food and we even had a bit of entertainment from the bar lady who insisted she could smell burning and proceeded to get the rest of the pub in on the action, classic!

  We had two more passes to cover on the way back to the campsite; Kirkstone Pass and Honister Pass. Kirkstone pass is very well known, I think it’s considered to be one of the best in the Lakes but after the amazing twists and climbs of the passes in the morning, Kirkstone was tame, short and well, I think both Kev and I agreed, disappointing. We moved onward to Honister Pass and this saved the afternoon for us; the views here were amazing, the pictures just don’t do it justice but the variety the Lakes hold was very apparent in this beautiful landscape.

  Back to the campsite and a pub dinner finished the day for us, 230 miles along some of the best and varied roads I’ve ever ridden. Riding roads like those and seeing the landscapes they provide is what this is all about. I want more.

   
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  Climbing the Pike - Day 2

  Gary 07:47 on June 12, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: Adventure (30), Bikes (13), Motorcycling (12), Scafell Pike (6), Three Peaks (4), Travel (7), Trip Report, Walking (4)

  Sunday was the day of our climb up Scafell Pike, the second mountain of our three peak (in 24 months) challenge. Kev started his morning at 05:30 and with the lack of a 20p decided to start this morning with a rather cold shower, whilst I on the other hand, was fast asleep until Kev woke me at 07:00, I do love my ability to sleep in pretty much any condition sometimes.

  The shop on the campsite opened at 08:00 but of course, as always, I was impatient and didn’t want to wait 15 minutes so we set off at 07:45 with nothing more than a few litres of water, four Tracker bars and a Kendal mint cake to keep us going; the diet of champions. The walk started off pretty much at sea level (I think it was around 35m) with a water crossing via some stepping stones. After the first water crossing the rest of the ascent was pretty much a non-stop uphill climb, not too steep, but it was definitely steep enough for my liking. The path up is rather uneven, lots of rocks sticking up at awkward angles just waiting for you to make a wrong move, the higher you get the rockier and more uneven the path becomes.

  

  Once we got higher up the mountain (~800m+) the cloud started moving in around us and we began to feel a few drops of rain, it was nothing major though and we carried on without any problems. Once you get to the top of the last scramble there is a large cairn marking the way forwards, it was noticeably cold and windy at this point and there was even patches of snow lying around, incredible! We followed the now unrecognisable path up to the summit, we had made it to the top and how lucky we were to have made it up there during a gap in the traffic; at that moment in time we were the sole victors of the mountain, we alone had conquered her and for a few minutes we alone could now sit back and enjoy the views as a reward for our efforts thus far.

  

  The original intention was to climb the pike, and then walk back to the pub in a circular walk via “the corridor” route on the way back, this sounded great but unfortunately a few wrong turns and a very bad decision later, our plan of a gentle descent turned into a potentially dangerous and painful experience for us both…

  

  As the track log from my GPS shows, after we came back from the summit to the crossroads, we climbed the hill to the north, however, at this point we should’ve been going downhill in a more north-easterly direction heading for the gap or “corridor” (who’d have thought the name of the route would resemble the route itself) between the two hills/mountains there. Instead of sitting down and taking a good look at the OS map we decided to trust my GPS and started walking back towards the campsite but after failing to find the path we started going towards the edge of what I can only describe as a rather steep hill. In our wisdom and after my famous words “how bad can it be?” we started climbing down the side of this hill. We only realised how wrong we had been when it was too late; a climb back up now would probably be just as bad as continuing on down so we made a decision and had to stick to it and boy did we make the wrong one.

  

  Kev’s knees were knackered and my feet had taken a beating but after many stops and a slow climb down we eventually made it to the bottom. After a well deserved rest we joined up with the path we should’ve been on the whole time and finally came to the pub, we sat down to enjoy one of the best drinks I’ve ever had and our first proper meal since the quality steak in a can from the night before.

  

  So, would I do it all again if I could? Hell yes; the sense of achievement, the stunning views and the surreal lighting up on that mountain were more than enough to make up for our silly mistakes on the way down, the next time I climb Scafell Pike though, I might give the cliff route a miss.

   
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  Climbing the Pike - Day 1

  Gary 22:14 on June 10, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: Adventure (30), Bikes (13), Motorcycling (12), Scafell Pike (6), Travel (7), Trip Report

  I left my house at 08:00 on Saturday morning and arrived at our meeting point at around 08:20 where Kev was waiting with some bad news; “I don’t think I can go Gaz”.

  

  Kev pointed to his shaft drive, and yes, the black stuff leaking out the bottom of it was oil. Fantastic, zero miles on the clock and we’ve already hit a problem! Neither of us wanting to cancel the trip we decided to ride to the BMW dealer and hope they would be able to fix the bike quick enough for us to get back on the road. We rode to Dorchester and luckily there wasn’t anything seriously wrong with the bike, in fact the BMW guy referred to it as “the seal that always breaks” I believe, quality! The seal was replaced within an hour and finally 2.5 hours behind schedule we were able to get on the road and start our journey to the Lake District.

  The first 140 miles were pretty easy going, I was fresh and enthusiastic to get going, the Strom was coping well and keeping me comfortable, the weather was holding dry. We stopped for a bite to eat and to fill up the bikes and made our way back out to the motorway.

  The next 130 miles were probably the most miserable of the whole trip for me, the rain started, the comfort level started to drop and eventually my gear let me down yet again and the rain started to get in through my boots. We stopped again after this section for a drink and I was very thankful when we got back out there that the rain had come to and end and the roads even seemed to be drying up, unfortunately the same couldn’t be said about my boots.

  80 miles later and we were pretty much in the Lake District, off the mind numbing motorway and onto the beginning of a fantastic ride into the heart of our destination. As we were making our way into the centre of the national park, the roads were getting better as we went, even the sun decided to join us for the last 50 miles or so and in doing so made this ride very enjoyable for me despite the comfort issues I was now experiencing. The road running next to Wast Water is fantastic and led us into Wasdale Head, unfortunately making us miss the campsite in the process but it was easily found on the way back up the road.

  

  We pitched the tents, I made us some food and despite the quality (the steak in a can possibly let me down) I was thoroughly enjoying myself, there’s something really special for me about being out in the wild (ok, I know a national trust campsite is not exactly out in the wild) and cooking yourself a meal using the most basic of tools and ingredients. I think camping gives me a sense of freedom and independence I don’t normally experience and absolutely love it!