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The joy of motorcycling in England


PaulT

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  • 4 years later...
You have got to be kidding!!

Myself and friend from a prominent motorcycle club in the Midlands decided that we would do the Lands-End to John-O Groans for a local kids charity. We planned to do it during the May bank holiday weekend back in the mid to late seventies.My friend on his restored 1965 Bonnie and me on my 900 Beemer. Everything was going well until we got near to Gretna Green when my friends Bonnie started to fail to fail with ignition problems so he struggled back to Glasgow, mean while I plodded on and got to Gretna and too several photo's of my BM parked next to the JoG sign for proof that I had made it then got back on the bike and headed south. I spent the night at a pub in Yorkshire and had several medicinal pints to put me to sleep. Not long after I hit the M6 and it started snowing, it continued to snow all the way south to the midlands and beyond.Even with a water proof suit I was frozen and stopped a some friends and fell to my knees in front of their fire, I was absolutely frozen and shuddering. We still managed to raise £500 squid for the handicapped kids though.
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I learnt a valuable lesson coming down the Cat and Fiddle in about 1960 in Manchester overdrive, in a Bedford lorry, with a part load of meat pies.
The downhill corners came up much faster than I expected, the brakes were fading, and I couldn't get back in gear, as the engine wouldn't rev fast enough.
I eventually got it back in gear by a combination of double declutching and loud graunching.
I never, never, did it again.

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Mr Wiggy - What a truly horrendous story of yours - total stupidity and only £500 for handicapped kids when you could have created more ( handicapped kids that is) by using your "medicine" and not having the sense to stop in bad weather.

The Cat and Fiddle road is notoriously bad and I can see that the experience of nomoss was bad. I once was at the top of a (small) hill and the brakes went on a non-syncro Ford snub-nosed something (milk van during summer hols).Was certainly more than one double de-clutch before finally getting it into gear near the bottom! My heart was doing overtime.
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Are all you folks living in the real world? This trip from Lands End to John-O-Groats was organised in conjunction with the hospital and our bike club (The B.M.C C) who's members including Olga Kevlos & Albert Mole to name but a two. Olga was an ISDT competitor who beat several of male competitors while Albert was an ex TT racer and Flying Marshal.

The idea was to do the complete trip on A&B roads only and no motorways, dual carriageway could be used too. I also used to take part in the Jumbo run which involved the B.C.Sidecar.Club members..
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Boozing a lot on the evening before leads to a muggy head the next day.

OK - so you hit the M6 and thus failed your stated aim of only using A and B roads. If it was for safety reasons then fair enough but still doesn't excuse the drinking when undertaking long journeys on consecutive days.
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Gave more confidence on the road!!!!!!!!! Goodness.

I agree it was more "acceptable" to drink and drive then (I was as guilty as the next person), but there again wasn't the accident/injury rate from drink driving much worse (relatively) then.

Certainly shouldn't condone it, now or then.

BTW My father had his leg amputated following a motorbike accident during the war. In terms of riding motorbikes or even bikes. though, its far more dangerous nowadays. Especially with the amount of traffic around.

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It would better if I had said a couple of beers, because we had A pint before our meal and another to wash it down with.That was early in the evening aroundt 19:00 hrs. This was always done in a licenced B&B or hotel restaurant and we would hit the sack as we always did an early start and paid the bill before we left.

Every time we stopped in the evening it was between 18:00hrs-19:00hrs and have the same two pints prior to and after our meals, and neither of us suffer with hang overs because we would need to drink an awfull lot more than two pints..The point is that I or my budy have never taken it upon myself to drink and drive especially when doing a charity challenge.
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Dicky,

Get real will you, as nomoss said back then it was unlikely that you could buy a beer over 2.5% proof,

I rode down from Inverness where I stayed over night with a club members brother and sister in law who where both tea teetotallers. Even when I departed it was sleeting so for the sake of safety I headed towards Glasgow then onto the M74,then onto to the M6 by which time it was snowing, so what would have the A&B roads have been like? ICED up that's what, there was more trafic on the M6 than would have been on any side road, that was the reason for travelling on the M6 it was slushy because of all the traffic so din't have time to freeze over, and you no doubt would have gotten off the M60 onto to the minor roads and 10-1 gotten stuck. I remained on the M6 doing a slower speed and got home rather cold and later than I anticipated but safely.
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So "several medicinal pints" has become two. About that time, I am frequently told, I apparently had 3 pints of Pedigree and I was totally "blotto".

Fair enough about the motorways. I'm using the M6 tomorrow - any sponsors? With the roadworks I'll probably be going at 50 mph for most of the journey.
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If you are referring to Marston's Pedigree, I was brought up on that and yes it's a strong beer, so it's a case of the individual's metabolism as I could consume 5 pints before it started having any effect on me.Which points to the single fact that no two people are the same So stop being so judgemental about others.What is wrong with having a couple of pints? Both consumed in the bar before and after a meal then retiring to bed for an early start the following morning?

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