Two go Uralling to the seaside - pt 1

[MMC]

Two go Uralling to the seaside.

So, there we were, one Sunday evening. Pip had just had a call from a cousin telling us she was getting married in Cornwall in June. A friend e-mailed us the same evening inviting us to a pic-nic on Dartmoor. The wedding was at one end of the week, the pic-nic at the other. Sounded like a fine excuse for a holiday to us. Then Pip said “Why don’t we take the Ural?!” What a girl!

Now, Pip usually needs a car full of stuff just for a weekend. So how was she going to manage with just this little case for a whole week of Cornish Uralling, plus a family wedding?




I still have no idea, but she did, and looked fab too.

The whole idea was a trip as far from our usual ‘get there as quickly as we can’ runs as possible. That meant planning a route that involved ‘red A roads if we must, yellow B roads and those little black and white roads.’ No boring trunk roads or motorways for us. We had plenty of time to wend and wind and we were damn well going to enjoy it.

So we did. We found backlanes and clattered down them all the way from Bampton to just west of Bristol where we found this:




Time for a cuppa - and THE best Scotch egg from the farm shop next door.








They were selling an appropriate sort of water for sidecarists too:



Refreshed, we headed onwards to Exmoor where we were staying our first night. No point in hammering along, is there? We thought it would be fun to stay in a couple of Youth Hostels on the way down. When I cycle toured as a teenager, they were always great places. Now, with a few years and a few posh hotels, they’re still great. Although rather small. I’m sure we had more room on the last Brittany Ferry we travelled on:



But breakfast was good (as was the previous evening’s Venison Pie and pints of Otter at the White Horse), so we planned a few more windy lanes:



Somewhat greyer skies today - a foretaste of the weather to come.





But Pip was enjoying herself:



So all was well. Bear in mind the furthest she’d been in the sidecar before was a thirty mile round trip to Lechlade and Burford! What a girl!

And soon we managed to hit Devon:



We dropped in at Barnstaple to use the cashpoint:



Strangely, we got accosted by Christians giving out socks. No, really. It was Fathers’ Day, so they’d taken to the streets and were handing out socks to passers-by. “God so loved the world that he sent his only sock...” Nice people.

We also found this place - the Boston Tea Party cafe. Brilliant grub and another much-needed cuppa: http://www.bostonteaparty.co.uk/

We set off again, clacking down more backlanes that got tighter and steeper. Before long it was time for another rest:



Pip was still happy:



And so was I, even if we were completely (intentionally) lost:



What a bloody ridiculously gorgeous place Devon is:



We headed off to find the coast road to Tintagel, where we were staying our second night:





They seem to do hills properly around here. 650 isn’t really a lot of engine to be pulling two of us and luggage around slopes like this:



And drum brakes that are more for show than action are a little fear-inducing on descents like this:



So it was time for a bit of spannering overlooking the sea:





Not exactly a hardship.

More anon... Time for another cuppa.

 

[MMC]

After more clacking and winding (at least with a front brake that now gave a semblance of fear-assisted use), we reached Tintagel:



Not the roads for ragging down (even if a Ural could), just a bit of light bimbling:



I think Tintagel must be one of the most gorgeous places we’ve ever stayed. To get to the YHA, you find your way through the town and take a very, VERY steep hill down by one of the pubs. Then there’s a tiny sign that says “YHA” and an arrow. And this is what happens:















And, finally, having made it down the steep, windy track (glad I changed the tyres and fixed the brakes), we arrived:



The first person to greet us was Rob, the warden. He wanted to know all about the bike, and extreme UDF (that’s Ural Delay Factor) now set in as more people came out to chat. We got talking to a couple from Australia who usually rode an R65. He wondered how the hell a 650 could pull two people, a steel sidecar and all their stuff. After spending more time in first gear than fourth for the last day, so did I. Time to start thinking about a 750 I reckon.

So, the group of us all staying chatted, drank tea and watched the sun go down:







The following morning, amazingly, dawned clear:






More fiddling with the bike (Urals like a bit of fiddling now and then):



And some breakfast while I worked:



I know Urals are slow. Heavy. Don’t really stop so well. Get passed by milkfloats and need constant tinkering to run well. But that’s the attraction. It’s a bike you have to interact with. Or it stops working, bits fall off and things break. I love it.

 

[The Other PaulG]

What a great post - that sundowner shot is really special.

Looks like you had a really great time.

PG

 

[Ash]

Cracking stuff Mark,as Paul said " that sundowner shot is really special "

 

[seadog]

looks great fun mark!!

looks like i will be receiving a dnepr in december for a winter project


cheers
mike

 

[cartejo5]

Excellent report and great pic's - looks like a fabulous part of the world, i've always fancied an outfit and going to devon for that matter.......

 

[MMC]

Thanks chaps - much appreciated. There's more to come...

---------------


So we set off, reluctantly, from Tintagel. There are some places you just don’t want to leave. But things looked up, despite the now typical “MMC on holiday” weather. We actually OVERTOOK something on the Ural. Yes, really. And no, it wasn’t a cyclist (we got passed by one of those on a hill later).



I usually loathe caravans. Why spend your time dragging a wendy-house on wheels around the countryside? Mind you, you could equally well ask why drag a steel bath around on three wheels... But this one I rather liked:



Pip liked it too:



We carried on, heading for Penzance. That’s where the wedding was on Tuesday. A Druid wedding too. One of Pip's cousins was marrying a fisherman, a chap called Al who'd we'd met before and thought was a top bloke. The Cornish branch of the family is somewhat cooler than the rest of us. I was really looking forward to it.

On the way, we went through a village just east of the best-named place in the whole world, Praze-an-Beeble. Find me a better name for a village and I’ll buy you a cream tea.

And we found this:



And from the other side:



I’m guessing that’s an old Dneper chair and some sort of ancient BSA. An M20? No idea what happened to the Dneper... Perhaps the BSA ate it?

So we carried on. It started to rain in a desultory sort of way. Then get misty. And rain a bit more with a bit more determination. Then it really started raining like it meant it.




By this point, I looked like I'd taken an unscheduled dip in the Atlantic. Pip was OK in the sidecar and still smiling, but by the time we reached where we were staying in Porthcurno I was even more soaked.

Evidence? This is the pocket of my Rukka:




My leather trews just about dried out by the end of the week, thanks to the ministrations of the airing cupboard.


Having inadvertently provided an indoor swimming pool for gnats, I climbed off the bike, soaked in a hot bath (accompanied by a large glass of whisky) and then crashed out on the sofa:



I was knackered. Fortunately, the next day looked a little brighter.

To be continued...

 

[ghost]

some lovely photos there

 

[Pumpy]

I'm enjoying your report very much. Thanks for taking the time to share your journey with us, Mark.

Hope Pip kept smiling throughout the week and can't wait to get back into that steel bath on three wheels...

 

[Keith Chapman]

Now you know your pockets are waterproof, well they must be the water did not leak out.

 

[MMC]

Now you know your pockets are waterproof, well they must be the water did not leak out.

That's handy. Gives me somewhere to keep the fish. If I had any.

 

[JohnnyBoxer]

I like this, looking forward to the next instalment

 

[MMC]

I like this, looking forward to the next instalment

Your wish...

 

[MMC]

The wedding that wasn't.


On Tuesday morning I woke up with a somewhat sore head - rather too much Sour Mash the night before. Once the little men stopped bashing the inside of my head with tyre-irons I raised the blind and looked outside.

We were up, dressed and down on the beach before you could say “feck me, it’s actually sunny!”



Pip went paddling and I sat on a rock and enjoyed the lack of Uralish ‘clack, clack, clack’.



Turned out nice.



We’d met up with Pip’s sister and her partner the previous evening, and today we were going to a wedding with them - the Druid one. There was one problem though... the lethal timekeeping of Pip’s sister (who we’ve known be a whole day late for things) and the lethal memory of Pip’s cousin. Who told us the wrong time for her own wedding.

Better, the wedding was at the Men-an-Tol at Penwith - a group of standing stones on the top of a moor. A gorgeous setting. I was really looking forward to it, having never been to a Druid wedding.

This combination meant that we arrived about an hour late for the wedding, to find everyone walking back down the path from the stones. Fortunately, we tend to be a pretty relaxed sort of family, so Aunt Penny offered us some of the honey cake she’d baked for the ceremony and we headed up to see the stones:



There’s always one prat. It’s usually me:



So, stones seen and cake eaten, we joined the rest of the family at the reception. This was held at a very fine pub in Newlyn called The Dolphin.

Here’s our new addition to the family, Al. Absolutely brilliant chap and tells a story like no-one else I know. If you’ve got fish for supper tonight, he probably caught it from his trawler.



A veil (and Alka-Seltzer) is probably best drawn over the rest of the day. The beer, bands, company and craic were good indeed.

The next day we spent chatting to family, drinking coffee at Aunt Penny’s and comparing our hangovers on the Richter scale. That’s Aunt Penny on the right. Aunt Judy on the left, and Pip in the middle. Absolutely Top lasses.



That evening, after another fine supper, Aunt Judy decided she fancied a ride home in style - so this was duly arranged. The rain was back. This didn’t bother her one bit:

 

[MMC]

A day of stops and starts.

Wednesday was the sort of sunny that we don’t get often in the UK. It was “let’s have breakfast outside without an umbrella or an overcoat and galloshes” sunny. So we did.



Then we went exploring.

We headed over to Penzance. I like Penzance. There were pasties at Penzance. If I hadn’t wolfed mine in about three bites there’d be a picture of pasties. But instead, here’s me and the Ural on Penzance seafront:



We dropped in on Aunt Penny again (another fine lunch) before we set off to play on the roads:



And WHAT roads:




We were clacka-clackking along the road that links Penzance with St Ives when we spotted something. As we usually do (progress not being the main thing when Uralling), we stopped:



And looked:






This was the old tin mine at Cripplesease. What a great name. And what a stunner of a place.

It was incredible to see industry right in the middle of some of the most beautiful countryside in Cornwall:






And what a place. 40 men worked here in 1829, producing more than £6,000 of tin a year. That’s about £300k in today’s money.

The pumping house housed a sodding great beast of an engine: 15-inch cylinder with 7.5-feet stroke running at 2.7 strokes per minute. OK, it could have used a sundial for a rev counter, but it was drawing water out from more than 163 fathoms down.

It was never a big earner and closed in 1865 when tin became too uneconomic to mine in the UK. Hardly surprising when the miners were tunneling through solid granite. It must have been a bitch of a life - paid sod all, most of the profit going to the local Lord and little time for much else.



We headed on to St Ives, by the coast. They like to make you really welcome in the UK:





So perhaps that’s why people park in slightly odd places:



These guys were hauling in the mackerel:



They weren’t the only fish-fans - the gulls were after a cut:



Here’s the lighthouse at the end of Smeaton’s Pier:



Built by the redoubtable John Smeaton. What a chap. He was the brains behind the Eddystone Lighthouse, some of the UK’s first canals and modern cement. Bright bloke.

The pier was built by his old foreman on the Eddystone Light, Thomas Richardson.

Amazing workmanship - this was built in the C18:



It’s still very much a working pier, with nets drying and chains piled:



I knew how they felt. It’s slower by Ural:



Mind your pasties at St Ives - this little bastard swooped and had Pip’s icecream away:



And that wasn’t the only local excitement:




We called in via here on the way back to Porthcurno and found a few bottles of local beer. That was a very good idea.



That meant I was set for a good supper:

 

[MMC]

Later that evening, we needed to go down to the beach. That’s because we were remembering a very, very dear friend who’s birthday was on this day last year. I played for her party in the hospice. We wanted to say ‘Happy Birthday Ali’ as best we could. Her partner, Andrew, was sending up a lantern and raising a glass on White Horse Hill at Uffington. Their daughter, Jo, doing the same in Michigan. We were sending ours out over the Atlantic at Porthcurno.

It was a beautiful evening:



So we lit our lantern:



And watched it fly:



And we remembered a remarkable woman who we still miss, and think about, every day.





See you there one day, Ali. And if we know you, there’ll be a bottle open.



So then we sat and watched the lights by the Minnack Theatre and talked about Ali until it was dark, we were drunk and we’d waved her off properly.

 

[MMC]

Lands End to, er, Bampton Oxon in one Urally hit

OK, explain this to me.

Here is Friday afternoon:



Here is Saturday morning:



Did I upset some ancient Cornish god of rain by eating my pastie facing the wrong way? Why, whenever there’s serious mileage to do in Cornwall do I get rained on?

So today we’re doing Land’s End to Bampton (the proper Oxfordshire one, centre of the known universe and where they film Downton Abbey) via Dartmoor to meet up with Ali’s husband and family at a pub. And it’s raining.

Hey ho. What’s the worst that can happen? Pip’s going to have her own covered swimming pool. What girl wouldn’t be glad of that, huh?

Bike packed, we head up-country:



Here’s the mileage at the start:



Well, the kilometridge doesn’t sound as good, does it?

Clutch out, and off:



We give it some beans, and, by 1200 and a couple of fuel stops later we’re in sunny (ha ha ha ha excuse me while I die laughing) Devon:



The weather on Dartmoor doesn’t really liven things up much:




But then, miracle of miracles, the Pasty God smiles and things start to clear:



There are livestock. All over the bloody place:



There are signs up saying “Drive Moor Carefully”. God, I hate council punnage. It really should be illegal.

And we press on:



There’s a pint of Otter and a pub lunch in the offing - not to mention our pal Andrew.

The sheep, though, aren’t impressed with the Ural:



No taste, some ovines.

And soon... actually, no, not soon. After an absolute ruddy age of riding we make it to the highest pub in the south of England (at 1,425*feet above sealevel), the Warren House Inn. It’s a relatively new building for Dartmoor at 1850. Either way, the beer’s very, very good. Sadly, no rooms, so just a sip or two for me.



People came out to admire Anastasia:



And there was Andrew - top bloke all-round:



Andrew’s brother-in-law (used to ride an R1100RT but we won’t hold it against him).



It was good to see everyone, get outside of a damn fine lunch and a sip or two then, amazingly...



IT WAS SUNNY!!!

Even the coos looked pleased:





Ish.


We stopped at Moretonhampstead for a bit of running maintenance. New plugs:


Adjust the clutch:



Tweak the front brake up a bit:



And off we went, picking up greenery as we rode:



Pip likes to make the place look homely.


We gave the bike serious beans from Exeter to Salisbury, and even saw some constructions contemporary with Ural design:



And then even more beans, up through Tidworth, where, amongst others, the 1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery are based, and on through Swindon, Faringdon and finally, home.

With a couple of stops for refreshment and petrol, the final total:



Not a bad day’s Uralling, all in all.

So what did I learn on my first ‘proper’ Ural expedition?

A 650, two-up with luggage is ridiculously underpowered on Cornish hills. I need a 750.
It’s deeply and profoundly therapeutic to spend time fiddling and fettling the bike at the end of the day after a long ride. Fnarr.
Ural brakes are mostly for show, even well-adjusted ones.
Ural seats are all-day comfy.
Tea is essential for (2) above.
Pip can pack for a week in one, relatively small case.
Pip is an absolute star. She grinned the whole time, loved Uralling and is asking ‘where are we going next?!” Oh yes, I got a good one. She’s the best.

 

[Ash]

cracking read and pictures.

 

[Duchess]

Great report Mark

Pip really is a lovely looking lady. Oooh BTW how did she fair in the voting?

 

[Norrie]

Crack'n wee RR MMC thanks for post'n

Norrie