Frostbite is optional!

For those that were either out of the country or on another planet, yesterday, Saturday 29th of November, was not a nice day. It also coincided with the first of Acorns Santa Runs in Brindley Place in Birmingham, I had promised Sanjay that I would attend and bring along one of the cheques I had already received.

Well I did make an attempt, some might say brave others may say stupid, I should have believed the forecasts and stayed in bed. I had spent Friday night fettling the last few things turning the bike around in the garage so I could just ride it straight out, putting a few more stickers on the panniers, basically just making sure I could just get going without messing about. I got up just after 7.00am and looked out of the window, still dark and murky, with the sunrise not due until 7.45am I was planning to get going just before 8.00am. I got myself sorted, even had time to make myself a flask of tea to take with me, which I promptly broke as I banged the base to hard as I put it down on the floor as I got the bike out of the garage, the garage floor now has a big tea stain to got along with all the oil and other muck.

Anyway I got going just after 8.00am so many layers of clothing on, I felt like the Michelin Man, the heated grips at full power and I didn’t feel too bad. I should have realised that this little trip was not going to work out well when I broke the flask. And the next problem was not far behind. I had to stop for fuel in Tadley, about 5-6 miles from where I live, unzipping the tankbag off the base to get at the fuel filler cap, I found that when it had been in for service they had not put the base plate back on properly and I had to fiddle around and adjust it into the right place to get cap off, in doing so I didn’t take the tank bag fully off the plate, being lazy well the strain was too much and I broke the zip which meant more messing about after I had filled up.

Finally I got going through Aldermaston Village on to the A4 and then onto to Junct 12 of the M4 at Theale the weather was miserable, still not fully light and that drifting Fog that makes driving a nightmare, you start to build up some speed and then you round a corner or come down a hill and you then hit a thick bank of fog that slows you right down. In these conditions it heightens all your riding senses. With the dampness on the road surface, diesel spills stand out like a big Bear Trap just waiting to catch you out if you let your concentration drop for just one second and boy it seems every roundabout I came upon had this thick line of Diesel right through what would have been the optimum riding line. I wish drivers particularly commercial drivers took a bit more care and didn’t overfill their fuel tanks.

I was now later than originally planned but thought I could make up the time and still get to Brindley Place before the first group of running were sent off at 10.30am. I left the M4 at Junct 13 Chievely and joined the A34 for the run north to the M40. It was here I started to encounter my next problem, this time with my new helmet, particularly the visor which was misting up really badly despite being fitted with a Pinlock anti-mist insert. Earlier in the week I had taken a great deal of care fitting it exactly as per instructions. It left me with what could be best described as Tunnel Vision which required a couple of unplanned stops to clear the heavy build up. This was compounded by rolling banks of fog, which was causing the traffic to slow quite badly at times.

I soldiered on and despite the knowledge that I was now going to be late and would miss the first run, there were 3 starts planned for the morning and I would get there whilst things were still going on. I found the faster I went the visor would not mist up as much, so when I got onto the M40 I thought I could maintain a constant speed, just above the legal limit (honest) and that would hopefully make up some time. However by now I had been riding for nearly an hour in temperatures just above freezing and with the wind chill factor of riding at speeds in excess of 50mph, it was starting to take it’s toll and I was very tempted to stop at the Cherwell Services for a good warm up, I thought no I will press on, I’ll be okay. (Idiot! Pride over brains).

Just after the turn off for the services I started to notice how the temperature was dropping, at least my core temperature was and my fingers were getting colder despite the heated grips being on full power. As I approached Banbury I was starting to feel as if I wasn’t going to make it, as the forecast heavy fog for the Midlands was first encountered, okay it wasn’t that heavy but I started to see the build up of moisture on the screen of the bike and drops of water falling away from the mirrors and brush guards. It was now 9.45am and despite the fact that the traffic flow was not slowing, I just felt I was getting later and later, and colder and colder. As I approached the Gaydon turn off the fog was really starting to build up but what was more worrying was what had been moisture dripping off it started to stick to the bike and build up a bit like a wet slush. It was at this point that I deemed that enough was enough. I was starting to get really cold, I couldn’t feel my feet anymore and my finger tips were starting to be painful. So with a sense of failure I turned round set off back home.

I was still cold but I wanted to get home and into a hot shower to warm up so I pushed on past the Cherwell Services and back down the A34 but as I went past the first Oxford turn off I thought I had to get something warm into me and remembered a good biker haunt on the A415 near Dorchester (Oxfordshire) Fox’s Diner. Even hardy bikers get into there even when the weather is as bad as this.


The above picture was taken on nice warm day obviously. Along with a nice Bacon Bap and a large mug of tea inside me I felt a lot better and I started to thaw out. The nice people running the place allowed me to put up a poster advertising the Charity Run and I even bumped into people I knew. The picture below show some of the new mods and stickers and was taken on the Diner forecourt.


When I finally got home, I turned the heating up as much as I could and stood in a hot shower for about 20 mins before I felt I had thawed out. I will make another attempt in a couple of weeks time when the Santa Run is due to take place in Pittville Park in Cheltenham. I then spent the afternoon fixing the zip on my Tank Bag and writing some more ‘begging letters’.

The one positive out of the day was ‘My Baby’ ran faultlessly all day and the trip of close to 200 miles did take the odometer to past 40,000 miles.

Take care and as Mick says ‘You don’t stop riding when you get old, you stop when you get frozen solid’

Thank You!!!

All that time spent writing begging letters has really paid off handsomely. Thanks must go to a number of companies for taking the total committed to over £1,100 and a number of others promising to contribute but to date have not given me a committed sum if we keep going at this rate we should hopefully exceed the overall target by the end of next year.

It would be remiss of me not to mention them all now. Firstly CNet Training has been very generous with a donation of £500 closely followed by FineLine Labelling Ltd who came up with £300 JNC projects have committed £100. Then outside the IT industry. The helmet manufacturer ARAI through their UK distributor Phoenix have offered a significantly discounted price for a new helmet and on this basis I will therefore commit the difference to the Charity. I won’t give the exact cost of this, however let’s just say that ARAI are not only the best they don’t come cheap.



This last couple of weeks hasn’t seen as much work done as I had planned however time is moving on rapidly, it is only a couple of week away from a couple of the Santa Runs I am planning to attend on the bike. I’ve fitted some extra parts to the panniers, these are water bo9ttle carriers and an emergency fuel can, this could be vital as I have a habit of pushing my luck as far as fuel is concerned. This 2litre Plastic Can will give me an additional 10-15 miles.

I’ve got a load of stickers to put on the bike this coming weekend, the weather doesn’t sound that good but I’ll get the heater on in the garage and get stuck in (no pun intended).

One thing I have done and it may sound a bit crazy and ahead of the game, but I do intend to start camping out as soon as possible. I spent the weekend going through my camping gear, sorting out my stoves, cooking gear. Washing my sleeping bag, sorting out the blow up mattress, yes at my age I do need one of these and although they can be a bit bulky and weigh more than a roll up foam mattress, I believe a good night’s sleep will be vital.

One of the reasons why the preparations have slowed down, is quite simple. WORK. I was away all last week from Sunday evening through to Friday Night on a course at CNet Training This week I am on the road with meetings in the North of England, so once again I am writing this from my hotel room. One of the benefits of being away on a course last week was the hotel I was staying at had both a gym and a swimming pool. A real bonus and it allowed me to really work hard on my fittest levels. I feel a lot better for it and I worked really hard and have been dieting on top of that, but I haven’t seen the weight come down but I do feel a lot trimmer and the old belt to tighten by one more notch.

One of the next elements I need to achieve is to plan my first ride from Calshot Castle, I am hoping to do it over the weekend after New Year, but given the probability of bad weather or at least wet weather. I am planning to stay at a Youth Hostel, I just need to work out which one will be best. I( have done a bit of a test run last year along this section and I reckon I will reach somewhere around the Bournemouth/Poole area so I will be looking for one around there and hope it is open.

With a bit of luck I am planning to get quite a bit done in the coming week, I will have too, when I think about it I am only 5 weeks away from starting this endeavour and time has really flown by in the preparation, out of that 5 weeks, there is Christmas and at least one weekend when I will be riding up for one of the Santa Runs at least. Therefore I only have 2-3 weekends to get things completed. I though I had absolutely loads of time, now I’m thinking I won’t have everything lined up before I start and will need to play catch-up, it should be okay, given the first few sections are relatively close to home but not the way I really wanted it.

Take care and as Mick says ‘Don’t panic, just get on with it!’

Begging Letters!

A lot of the weekend was spent with a combination of route planning and writing begging letters, when not playing Taxi Driver to my children. Anyone with teenage children will know what its like, unfortunately there is no one to share the task with, when they come to stay with me every other weekend. The only problem being my Daughter is into Horses and works at livery yard whilst studying this means some very early starts. My Son on the other hand is mad keen on Golf and whilst I used to have a pretty low handicap (5) he is going to be way better than me but it does mean he is at the course and range from dawn till dusk at times, especially last weekend when he had a tee time at 8.00 and he wanted to be there 45 mins before to warm up. Now that wouldn’t be too bad, but the destinations are both about 10 mile away and whilst not in opposite directions, they are certainly not the same. Then at the end of the day the reverse is required. I timed it out one week and it was nearly 4 hours of my day spent running them about on the upside we do tend to have good conversations whilst driving around, I’ve banned their iPods in the car, I got fed up of the silence in response to questions or grunts.

The route planning is moving on at a pace the first book of 100 pages of route is now complete and it takes me from Calshot to a place call Halton Quay in Cornwall, quite close to St Mellion That has taken me the best part of 20hrs to do that work. Print the pages off, check and trace out the route, then double check that some suspect parts are actually legal to ride. As I have said previously I will use the closest legal highway or byway to the coast at all possible times. You will also see from the picture below, there is a question over the definition of coastline and I have chosen not to cheat, so I will trace out the tidal estuaries a closely as I can.


I thought I was doing really well until I had a look at a map of the UK, and it just went to show how far this really is. I’ve worked out by my calculations it will take me approx 3 days, 6-8 hours a day riding to get down to St Mellion. By following all these routes as closely as possible, given some of the roads I will be on and how twisty they are I reckon my average speed will be less than 30 miles an hour, taking into account stops and comfort breaks etc.

I have had a quick look at some of the other sections and thankfully there are long stretches were the main A road is the closest to the coast and I will be able to pick up some speed, in fact most of the North Cornish Coast from Land’s End upwards is covered by major highways, the only problem would normally be traffic, however I am planning to do these sections early in the year, well outside the main holiday season, so I should be okay there.


I starting off calling this piece ‘Begging Letters’ well I’ve had my first response, one from Ordnance Survey, giving me bad news. Something I expect from most of them, however ‘if you don’t make the call, you won’t make the Sale!’ They were very pleasant but basically stated that their sponsorship budget for the year was already committed. Still haven’t heard back from Wightlink Ferries yet and they were the first ones I got in touch with.

To be honest whatever I get is a bonus, I just want to reduce my costs and in turn the level of support Mayflex are giving, they are being very good and flexible in allowing me to do this. Churlish as it may sound, a lot of organisations wouldn’t even think about supporting one of their employees to do this never mind, provide the support of the Marketing Team to get it off the ground, quite frankly without them I would not be as advanced in the planning or have the whole challenge looking as professional as it does.

Okay Guys, I know you’ll be reading this and I am not creeping, I really do appreciate the help!

Well for another week I need to sign off and get back to some real work. Hopefully the weather will be better next weekend and I can get the bike out of the Garage and I can take some photos of the work I have been doing. That is if we haven’t floated off by then, the flooding in the lanes round by me, threatened to cut the village off today, it certainly stranded our Postman, whose van conked out in the middle of a flood.

Take care and as Mick says ‘Hey up, Father!’

Navigation Trials!

Don’t get used to all these updates, it isn’t going to happen all the time, it’s just that I was stuck in a hotel last night and they only had the Liverpool game on the television, don’t get me wrong I am into football but watching Liverpool isn’t top of my list.

If anyone wants to think I am a Ewan wanabee, sorry! I’ve been doing this sort of thing for a long time, okay I have not done what he has achieved but sorry I have to work for a living.



This picture was taken at the Coast 2 Coast Rallye in 2002. The ford is North of Bowland Bridge in the Lake District. The event is a 2 day Navigational Trial that starts at Flamborough Head and ends at Roa Island near Barrow in Furness. The route takes in the North Yorkshire Moors, before an overnight stop in Hawes at the top of Wensleydale, then an early morning start to ride through the Lake District and including a very exciting run over Hardknot and Wrynose Passes.

The whole event is a bit like orienteering on a motorbike 4 mandatory checkpoints on each day, with a total of over 100 points to get to over the two days. I came 5th in 2002, and 3rd in 2004. Unfortunately due to lack of numbers it was cancelled in 2005, the organisers had less than 40 entries so decided it wasn’t worth putting in all the effort to mark out all the routes and checkpoints. A great shame as I used to really enjoy that event. If anything I think that part of my desire to complete this task is based on the enjoyment of discovering new and interesting routes.

I promise to give some info on the equipment I will be taking with me or riding in.

Personal: During the Colder times, shall we say I will be wearing various layers, from Puma Compression shirts, you see the Rugby Players and some Footballers in, through to good old M&S Thermals and then a cycling jersey on top. On top of which I will have my Hein Gericke, Tuareg suit. (which has a slight oddity, the Goretex weather proof layer is a detachable inner liner, so usually the outer jacket becomes totally sodden but I stay dry). I then have a Giants Industries, waterproof oversuit if things get really nasty.

The Boots: a trusty old pair of Gaerne Motocross style boots I’ve had them for over 5 years and they are just about broken in. Waterproof if you don’t go paddling in fords, like the above image.

The Helmet: someone once said to me you either have an Arai or a Shoei head, and that is so true, I wear an Arai TourCross (TX) it is so comfortable it is amazing. I can’t even get a Shoei to fit and a helmet fitting correctly is probably the most important piece of your gear.

Gloves: I have a selection but my favourites and the ones I wear the most, even in deep winter, with the heated grips set at maximum are my 661 Winter MX gloves, a set of thin MotoCross gloves with a neoprene inner layer, they are so flexible but still warm.

I reckon during the complete ride the boots will probably last, the suit also. However the gloves will need replacing but they are quite cheap. My fear is my Helmet. I have had it almost 5 years now and that is about as far as it goes but at £300+ a go it is not cheap.

Take care and as Mick says ‘I started off with nothing and have most if it left!’

Route Plannning

I’ve alluded to the challenge I have been having concerning planning my route. The following is an example of the problem I am facing the following two images will give you some idea. If I look on Google Earth the route highlighted in yellow, it appears as if it is a single track country lane.

Now if you look at Google maps, it doesn’t actually exist, according to them or so it would seem.

However if you look at an Ordnance Survey, Landranger map of the selected area, it is identified as a Byway Open to all Vehicles, which means it is legal for me to ride and like a lot of things, ‘The truth is somewhere in between’.

This has meant the ‘inspired discovery’ of last week is not as useful as I first thought.

Now here goes, I spent a wet weekend working two computers, on with the OS website up. Then my laptop in dual screen mode, one which showing G Earth and the other showing G Maps. It seems like it is a bit over the top but it has stopped me from going down a couple of dead ends. One in particular looks fine on G Maps but it would have meant having to having to back track some 5 miles even on the Ordnance Survey site it appeared as if it is okay, only on G Earth can you really see the detail that the road involved tapers out as it runs by the Sea and it is obvious that the road has been washed away and never fully restored.

I’ve now mapped the route from Calshot to half way up the Dart estuary, in Devon not that far really, however it has taken 80 A5 pages to achieve. Okay that sounds excessive, my alternative is to use OS Landranger Maps, that small section alone would have required 7 separate maps, at an average cost of £6 each. If I were to add up all the Maps required for the complete route it comes to a total of 125 without taking into account those needed for Northern Ireland. So if I was to buy all those I didn’t have in my existing collection I am still short approx 115 or nearly £700. The other problem being the waste, have you ever opened a Landranger Map, on some of the sections I would have a huge map opened and folded just for just a few miles, its just not practical.

So I now have an A5 ringbinder with plastic inserts with each one with a couple of sections of the route.

For all those that think I might be a Luddite I tried again to program my GPS to the level of detail I wanted and! Yep! it would take me absolute hours to program it to the detail I need and, in fact it actually missed the Byway I first started talking about on this copy of my Blog, okay it is old, but it is and has been a faithful servant but it would have sent me miles out of my way.

So unless I can blag the latest and greatest software update for it, which still doesn’t guarantee me success, my trusty printer is going to be working overtime.

Take care and as Dangerous Brother One says ‘Keep the shiney side up!’

The Starting Point

The Ceremonial start will be from the 3 Counties Hospice in Worcester on January 1st but the real work will start from Calshot Castle in the following days, weather permitting. From here I will be travelling westward, by doing this I am hoping to hit the tough part around and off the West Coast of Scotland where 60% of the challenge lies in early Summer, hopefully giving me some decent weather. I know, I know it’s a long shot but I’ve got to try.

What I haven't decided yet is whether to take a detour when I get to Lymington and jump on the Wightlink ferry to the Isle of Wight and do the coast of the island, or leave it until later, looking at the map it should take no more than a day. Part of the planning phase will now include contacting all the Ferry Operators I will potentially use and see if I can get some free travel from them, or at least a heavy discount, in return for which I will carry their logos on the bike as a supporter/sponsor. At this rate it is going to look like a mobile advertising hoarding.

The last time, I promised some information on the bike I will be riding (My Baby)

She is a Honda XRV750 RD07a built and registered in 1998. I have had the privilege of owning her since the beginning if 2002. Since that time I have completed over 20,000 miles, fallen off a couple of times, both in extreme weather conditions one of which was on a dirt track in North Wales, both times they were thankfully at slow speed. I have also been knocked off once, in the Lake District by some dumb woman who didn't look or indicate and was obviously too blind to see me before pulling across a road. Thankfully I almost anticipated what she was going to do, due to the mobile phone she had in her hand, unfortunately I didn't spot that until too late but it did allow me to start to take avoiding action which saved me and the bike from suffering more serious damage, this said she did spend a week in the care of Nick Robinson having certain parts replaced at her cost. (that ended up being an awfully expensive phone call she was making)

I talk with great reverence about the bike which you will find is common amongst everyone that has owned or ridden an Africa Twin. Since production ceased in late 2003 it has started to gain cult status, with adverts appearing for people looking to buy good copies not just sell them.

The Original XRV750 was launched in December 1989, being based on the 3 time winner of the Paris-Dakar Rallye, the NXR750. There was a major redesign in 1993 which brought about the RD07 and the final version the RD07a was released in 1996. It is seen as probably the most reliable bike Honda has ever built.

Some basic specifications: these are manufacturer's listings, My Baby has had some tweaking done over the years, to improve the mid-range performance, she is not a lot faster but she does get there a whole lot quicker than just about any other copy of the bike I've come across.

Engine Size:	742cc
Engine Specification:	6v V-Twin
Power:	62bhp
Some stats show 61bhp or even 60bhp the modifications on mine have increased this, to in the region of 67bhp (A very subjective measurement really as what really matters is the power at the back wheel, standard is 52bhp, mine 56bhp)
Torque:	46ftlb
Weight (unladen):	202kg
Fuel capacity:	23 litres
Ave Fuel consumption:	38 mpg
Tank Range:	190 miles

Next time I will add some information on the equipment and clothing I will be taking with me. Some of which will have to be upgraded or replaced across the year, as well as an update on whether my begging letters to the Ferry Companies has some effect.

Take care and as Mick says 'You don't stop riding when you grow old; you grow old when you stop riding!'