Deleted account W
Guest
So my mate asks me and the wife over to his place in Norfolk for a meal to celebrate his 40th.
I’ve done the usual run to his place five times already this year and the A52, A17 then the A47 wasn’t something I was looking forward to.
I had a play with Mapsource and devised a cunning plan, at least I thought it was cunning at the time, I’d go as far as saying fecking stupid plan with hindsight.
The route avoided “A” roads as much as possible. I loaded it up and we set off at 11:30 on Saturday.
The roads varied from the usual back lanes to gravely tarmac single car width tracks with grass growing down the middle.
We’d told our hosts we would be with the for half three which left us plenty of time, so I wasn’t overly concerned at the sedate pace we were making.
We stopped in Wisbech for fags, fish and chips.
We left civilisation again (Wisbech is not normally associated with civilisation but it was the nearest we got), the sat nav sending us down the smallest lanes it could find.
During the next leg of the journey we stopped for a fag and a drink
And one of these passed us
Then another
And another
Nice basket on the back, wonder where he got that idea?
Then this chap stopped.
Turns out he’s a GS owner as well. He posted once on the board as “Andyabes” about a run to Le Touquet. He’d just got back from a run to Rome on his GS and explained the bikes we’re on a vintage run. His was a 1927 AGS 300cc (?) single. When he rode off he’d left about half a pint of oil on the road where he’d stopped.
We got going and the sat nav directed us into the grounds of a college and down a gravel road for about a mile, wonderful ? A few miles later we turn down a road called Mill Lane, windmill? Cotton mill?
No………. water mill, with a ford.
The waters only 4” deep but the road under the water’s a green slimey concrete slab.
Ah well all or nothing.
So I dropped the bike in the middle of it and deposited the wife on her arse in the water. I made sure I was ok and tried to lift the bike up, but it just slid on the green slime. A couple of blokes who were fishing in the millpond came over and helped get the bike upright. The wife got out the water and told me the new leathers we bought off Metalman’s Georgia last week were definitely waterproof, so that was a bonus.
The wife had another paddle and a fag.
We carried on down the ancient highways and byways of Norfolk until we reached the end of "Reedham Ferry Lane"...........I should have guessed what was at the end really?
It was now five o’clock and we’d only done 146 miles in five and a half hours, hardly a cracking pace.
We made my mates house half an hour later and got a nice welcome from his youngest son Raff.
Beers, champagne, meal, micro brewery bitter, Brandy, bullshit, bed, full English and back on the bike with the sat nav set to work out the fastest route home.
We stopped for fuel and then twice for fags.
We made it home in two hours ten minutes after covering 121 miles.
We overtook everything and nothing passed us. Entertaining but not in the same way as the previous days ride.
A nice warm up run before Ireland next weekend.
Got back in time for a few down the local in a sunny beer garden, which was nice.
Not the same kind of ride report as our overland adventurers but an adventure for Liz and me.
I’ve done the usual run to his place five times already this year and the A52, A17 then the A47 wasn’t something I was looking forward to.
I had a play with Mapsource and devised a cunning plan, at least I thought it was cunning at the time, I’d go as far as saying fecking stupid plan with hindsight.
The route avoided “A” roads as much as possible. I loaded it up and we set off at 11:30 on Saturday.
The roads varied from the usual back lanes to gravely tarmac single car width tracks with grass growing down the middle.
We’d told our hosts we would be with the for half three which left us plenty of time, so I wasn’t overly concerned at the sedate pace we were making.
We stopped in Wisbech for fags, fish and chips.
We left civilisation again (Wisbech is not normally associated with civilisation but it was the nearest we got), the sat nav sending us down the smallest lanes it could find.
During the next leg of the journey we stopped for a fag and a drink
And one of these passed us
Then another
And another
Nice basket on the back, wonder where he got that idea?
Then this chap stopped.
Turns out he’s a GS owner as well. He posted once on the board as “Andyabes” about a run to Le Touquet. He’d just got back from a run to Rome on his GS and explained the bikes we’re on a vintage run. His was a 1927 AGS 300cc (?) single. When he rode off he’d left about half a pint of oil on the road where he’d stopped.
We got going and the sat nav directed us into the grounds of a college and down a gravel road for about a mile, wonderful ? A few miles later we turn down a road called Mill Lane, windmill? Cotton mill?
No………. water mill, with a ford.
The waters only 4” deep but the road under the water’s a green slimey concrete slab.
Ah well all or nothing.
So I dropped the bike in the middle of it and deposited the wife on her arse in the water. I made sure I was ok and tried to lift the bike up, but it just slid on the green slime. A couple of blokes who were fishing in the millpond came over and helped get the bike upright. The wife got out the water and told me the new leathers we bought off Metalman’s Georgia last week were definitely waterproof, so that was a bonus.
The wife had another paddle and a fag.
We carried on down the ancient highways and byways of Norfolk until we reached the end of "Reedham Ferry Lane"...........I should have guessed what was at the end really?
It was now five o’clock and we’d only done 146 miles in five and a half hours, hardly a cracking pace.
We made my mates house half an hour later and got a nice welcome from his youngest son Raff.
Beers, champagne, meal, micro brewery bitter, Brandy, bullshit, bed, full English and back on the bike with the sat nav set to work out the fastest route home.
We stopped for fuel and then twice for fags.
We made it home in two hours ten minutes after covering 121 miles.
We overtook everything and nothing passed us. Entertaining but not in the same way as the previous days ride.
A nice warm up run before Ireland next weekend.
Got back in time for a few down the local in a sunny beer garden, which was nice.
Not the same kind of ride report as our overland adventurers but an adventure for Liz and me.
