I detected play in my back wheel bearings.
One mechanic went on about bearings being speed rated. A second couldn't look at the job for three weeks. Eventually Dean, a despatch rider, motorcycle trainer and mechanic held the spacer that goes in between the bearings with pliers and ground half a millimetre of it on his bench grinder - no more play. Ten miles later, having bagged the cannons at Southwold, I got a slow puncture and had to keep re-inflating the tyre. Mind not on the job I missed a landmark near Bradwell on Sea and had to turn back. In the dark I got lost in a maze of unclassified roads and only found St Peter's on the Wall when it was too late to find somewhere to stay and decided to ride to the next landmark.
In the early hours I reached Cooling in Kent but there was no way I was going into a graveyard to take pictures. Instead I had two hours sleep in a pear orchard. In the morning the tyre had about 2psi - limped to nearest garage. Some more landmarks and a sleep on the promenade at Eastbourne.
At Verrall's Motorcycles, Handcross, I was given a fifty year old red tube to use in an emergency and sent to Bolney where a nice man took pity on me and fitted my spare tube for free. Next morning spent at a welder's in Cranleigh having the saddle post welded - it was tearing away from the frame plate.
Then the fun really started - a monsoon in Gloucester. In two sets of waterproofs I rode through ten stretches of road a foot under water, silencers blowing bubbles. In Moreton I thought I would be swept away in a raging torrent. The Wellington Museum was flooded, but I was invited in and given tea.
More of the same on the way to Calne - stranded cars, massive queues, police and fire-fighters wading about. My friend Richard turned back when he saw a police vehicle towing a rubber rescue dinghy.
Despite going through very deep water most of my gear remained dry.
At the Calne bike day I met three other Cossack club members and decided to stay put for a few days.
Back on the road and a breakdown just over the Severn Bridge. With an RAC van behind me I discovered that the points had destroyed themselves and the advance/retard mechanism was covered in red rusty slime. A clean up and new points and I was on my way again.
Richard and I did the Welsh landmarks, took a trip up Snowden and changed the oil in my outfit.
I took a day off to walk in the Clwydian Range. Then up to the Wirral for three lighthouses and Bolton for a packhorse bridge. Rode from Manchester to Bridlington and back in day, before heading south for steam and vintage rally at Kemble Airfield near Cirencester. On the way I slept on a narrow boat on the canal after I met a couple at Nantwich.
At Kemble a group of vintage tractor enthusiasts got me drunk in the Ogri Motorcycle Club's bar. Fitted two new tyres delivered by my partner on her way south to visit her brother.
Five miles out of Minehead my throttle cable broke - spare fitted. Then I got another puncture and had to use the old red inner tube and a bottle jack borrowed from some builders. The tube was split on the inside - I began to think there was something wrong with the wheel.
Land's End wasn't worth the visit.
Only two more landmarks in the south to do and the prospect of the North and Scotland before me I got another puncture near St Austell on a fast left hander. With the assistance of a retired Baptist minister and a piece of wood borrowed from a farmhouse I got the wheel off and patched and fitted the tube I'd taken out at Minehead.
Not ten miles later, between St Austell and Liskeard, again on a bad left-hander, the rear tyre went flat again. Convinced there was something wrong with the rear wheel and with my new tyre all but ruined I rang the RAC and asked to be recovered - exactly four weeks and 3,501 miles into my trip. It took ten hours and four different trucks to get me home.
As for doing the Round Britain Rally all in one go - it's impossible - or is it?
(Maybe we will see about that!!!! GF)
I won't be attempting it again because I've packed in teaching - I won't have the holidays or the money. My outfit is brilliant - I can't blame it for getting punctures or for not being a submarine.
Dave Ramsden
|
