Finally !!!!

I got real lucky yesterday and was able to make it over to the 3 Counties Hospice in Worcester. I got a weather window just long enough, in fact apart from the wind that was a problem at times, the weather was pretty good and the ride back was a great pleasure up until the part when I was washing the bike down and it started to rain again. I would really like to thank Fran Winterbourn, the Fundraising Manager for meeting me there and showing me around.

I did follow the planned route listed below and the first section from my village up to the A339 at Ewhurst did prove to be the tricky part as I expected, I took some footage using the helmet cam and it gives an idea of the conditions, although it is not the best due to riding into the sun, at the same time it has to be viewed with the sound off (noise from the vibration and wind roar is too much), but hey! It was the first time I’ve used it so that first section is an experiment. It does show some of the flooding and mud that had come off the fields with the heavy rain on Friday night and early Saturday morning. It was a pretty uneventful ride to be honest, apart from the gusting wind which reminded me why I didn’t like the A419, it is down to the fact that in places you are quite high up and with the wind yesterday it is quite tough, I did have one occasion when I relaxed a bit only to be caught by a sudden gust that pushed me into the outside lane of the dual carriageway, I had been planning to pull out to overtake a van so I just let it go, thankfully there was no one travelling faster than me coming up on the outside.



The visit to the Hospice was both uplifting and heart rending at the same time, seeing the common area and some of the children playing with their parents, cannot leave you with anything other than warm thoughts about what the staff and volunteers do, then the teenage common room makes you smile, they have put signs up and are very clear that it is theirs and off limits to anyone else. But the most telling part for me and I am not ashamed to say made me well up and proved a real battle for me not to break down completely, were the two rooms they have set aside for after a child dies, they have special bedrooms where the body can stay until the funeral and the family can visit. Even the thought as I write of seeing the small cot and the crib alongside it in one of those rooms is bringing tears to my eyes. That visit alone has made me more determined than ever before.



As the weather was that good I decided to come back using a different route and I am glad I did, it was great fun. Basically the route was, Pershore, Evesham, Broadway, Stow-on-the-Wold, Bourton-on-the-Water, Burford, Witney, Abingdon and then down the A34 to Newbury, then retracting the morning route along the A339 to Ewhurst then back through the lanes to home.



I set up my other digital camera, a Fuji Finepix S1000 for the ride to Pershore and again it worked pretty well, apart again from the sun and the sound level, due to its design the microphone is on the side and the wind noise on the footage is too much, so next time it goes out with me, I’m going to use some tape to block the mike off, I’ve also worked out the problem I had with the helmet cam was vibration so I got a work around for how it mounts that should make it better next time. I will also look to put the footage up, again without sound.

As I arrived in Pershore the footage will show another guy on an another Africa Twin, again he had added a couple of tweaks to his, if he reads this, sorry I didn’t stop and had to push on as I had someone coming around to collect some old parts during the afternoon. During the whole ride The further I went during the afternoon the nicer the conditions got, It was then that I decided to really take the long way home, by going through the Rissingtons and Barringtons going past the old RAF base at Little Rissington, well really it is at Upper Rissington and now a business park like so many other RAF bases. But first I went through the beautiful village of Broadway and then up to Broadway Tower which is one of England’s outstanding viewpoints and, at 1024 feet (312m) above sea level, it is the second highest point on the Cotswold Ridge. Built in 1799, it is a perfect example of an eighteenth century Gothic folly from which it is possible to survey an area which includes as many as thirteen counties. The views encompass the Vales of Evesham and Gloucester and on a clear day you may also see across the Severn Valley and as far as the Welsh Mountains.







As I got down near Burford the clouds started to build and the sun disappear, straight away I could feel the temperature drop so it was time to really push on, then on the quick blast down the A40 just as I am passing a couple of cars I glance down at the tripmeter to see how far I’ve travelled I think to myself, I’m getting low on fuel, no sooner I start to work out where the next petrol station than the engine starts to miss and I lose speed, a quick fumble around behind my left knee and I located the fuel tap and switch to reserve but in the seconds it takes to do this my speed has dropped from close to 80 down to less than 60 and the cars are coming past me again on the inside. Thankfully as soon as the fuel gets through I’m back up to speed I know of a big Petrol station at a set of lights on the road from Witney towards Abingdon and pull in there to fill up.

The roads were pretty clear and when I got on to the A34 I was really able to open it up, from Abingdon to home in less than 30mins, not bad when you consider it is 32 miles. I’m really glad I got back when I did within 20 mins the wind is picking up again and it completely clouds over, all of which was a pre-cursor for one hell of a storm overnight which took out the power for 2 hrs. Just as I was settling down to watch ‘Match of the Day’ so it was an early night whether I wanted to or not.

As you can see from the final photo, the bike was in a filthy state by the time I got home and I just had time to wash it down before the first of the rain started I even had to push it back into garage so I could dry it off and spray it with some protection treatment. One thing I always try and do at this time of the year is to clean the bike as soon as possible after a ride to ensure I get not only the grime but mainly the salt off.



It feels a bit a strange writing this chapter of the story the roads taken through the Cotswolds are probably some of the furthest from the actual coast this challenge is all about.

I usually sign off with an adaptation of something a friend of mine uses to sign off his emails, one of Mick’s other favourite sayings is ‘I started off with nowt and still got most of it left’ I mention this, as I have been listening to an album by a Blues artist called Seasick Steve, he is an American that was pretty much discovered by Jools Holland, he appeared on Later with Jools Holland and then at Glastonbury, he now lives in Norway and is on tour in the UK at the moment. Well his latest Album is called, ‘I started out with nothing and have got most of it left’ It’s well worth a listen if you have heard him. He also plays a guitar if you can call it that, it is a wreck from a junk store that only has 3 strings but boy can he play it.

Take care and as Mick says ‘You don’t stop riding when you get old, you just enjoy it more!

Finally... Let’s try again

Also the weather is also set to be pretty good, okay it’s going to be wet where I live to start with but it is going to be significantly warmer than it has been so far this year. So it is all systems go for this coming Saturday the 17th of January.

I’ve not been resting on my laurels though, I’ve continued to chase down potential sponsors as well as tinkering with the bike. One of the major challenges is going to be mounting and getting the Mobotix camera working on the bike. I have a few ideas and but getting what is fundamentally a camera designed to be mounted on a building and powered over Ethernet working on a motorbike is going to be an interesting challenge.

On the subject of cameras I will have two others for use on the ride one mounted on the bike handlebars and the other on my helmet.

It is an Oregon Scientific unit that is powered by two AA batteries and uses a SD card to record up to an hour of footage. It’s actually pretty light and I can’t really feel the additional weight on the helmet, the one thing don’t know yet is how the wind resistance will effect it when riding at speed.

One up side of the illness is the fact that it really gave the weight loss an in turn the fitness program a real boost, overall I have now lost over 8kg or 16lb since starting, which in turn has led to approx a couple of inches off the waistline. Part of that is down to no alcohol for the last 2 weeks and I don’t know how long I can keep that up, especially in this industry.

The added benefit of the weight loss is the fact that I can do some light running these days, I’ve had a long term injury on one of my knees, that dates back to when I was playing Rugby but I aggravated it last year playing Cricket and before you laugh I was the leading wicket taker for the club last season, so there! Anyway back to the point I went out for a bit of a run last Sunday morning with my dog and I took my small camera with me, the next picture will so you why, however the best part is when I got back my knee felt fine, so the rest after the cricket season the training in the gym and now the weight loss, has meant my knee while not brand new certainly doesn’t ache the way it used to after exercise.

Until next week when I am hoping to not only get some photos up but also a small video clip.

Take care and as Mick says ‘You don’t stop riding when you get old; you get old when you stop riding!

Well!.... Best Laid Plans and all that jazz

Only hours after I wrote the previous update, I was hit with the dreaded Flu Bug and yes it was Flu and not Man Flu or a Cold, I will keep it simple, I have never shivered so hard in all my life, in fact I shivered so hard it hurt, I even pulled a muscle I was cramping up so much, that was then followed by burning up for the next 3 hours.

I am not going to go into any great detail about spending 3 days in bed, it’s bloody boring.

I have however spoken with the local Fundraising Manager for the area, Fran Winterbourne and arranged for a new date of Saturday 17th of January for the re-start weather permitting, this cold snap has to finish sometime.

Just before Christmas I did an interview for a local newspaper, okay it is only a free one but still they have featured my story on the 2nd page, in fact main pieces in the whole Newspaper and takes up almost the full page. Lisa from our Marketing Department is now sending out another batch of press releases to the West Midlands Press to see if we can get them to take it up as well.



I was talking with John from work yesterday and he was asking me whether I had started etc, he also mentioned that he had been reading the blog and found it rather interesting so rather than end this with the shortest update so far, for obvious reasons, I thought I would give you a little insight into what we discussed as it covers one of the instances that stimulated the idea in the first place.

I had always wanted to do a big ride but was stuck on things like a long trip down through Europe to Greece to give an example however each one would require a fairly major amount of time off work, so obviously they kept on being put off. I had been watching the first series of Coast and found it really interesting, so the inklings of an idea started to gel.

Then one Bank Holiday my ex- wife asked me to take my 12 year old son up to her parents so he could spend half-term there, after a lot of discussion and persuasion shall we say, she agreed I could take him up on the bike and give him a bit of a boys adventure with his Dad.

We set off on the Saturday morning early and I dropped him off near Chester with the Grand Parents late afternoon, after we had taken a non-motorway trip up the country, sticking to more interesting riding roads etc, mainly taking in the Welsh Borders around Craven Arms and Shrewsbury etc. Yes the Long Way Up (okay, sorry about the pun).

After going to see my Father on The Wirral and then spending Saturday Night with some old friends in Chester, I was left with the ride back home and a couple of free days to do it, so I decided I would ride down the North Wales coastline to Mid Wales and try and see what it would be like to re-create the Coast programme but on my own and on a Motorbike, after that I was hooked on the idea. It is not just the riding, it is the scenery, the history and even some of the quirky little facts you come across on the way, as an example of what you may find going forward with the blog.

Do you know where the title of the Beatles song Nowhere Man comes from? Well, here’s the answer and a photo to back it up. In the late 50’s John Lennon was sent to stay with his Auntie who ran a famous pub in Chester called the Bear and Billet, it did become infamous during the 70’s and 80’s as the place in Chester to get your ‘gear’ if you know what I mean. Anyway I digress in the 50’s it was one of a large number of watering holes inside the City Walls of Chester up Watergate St. However she used to live just over the bridge in Handbridge down by the River Dee in a little white cottage called ‘Nowhere’, okay it’s changed a lot over the years and is now a very desirable property.

So there you are Trivia No 1, get ready for many more as I travel around the country.


Take care and as Mick says 'You don’t stop riding when you get old; you only stop riding when you get confined to bed!'