TLD2010 Ride Report

Friday 18/06/10 – We make our way down to Lowestoft
Around 10 of us from the north, north east and north west met in squires cafe in Sherburn in elmet at 12 noon. We spent some time getting introduced, looking at bikes and fed and watered before betting on the number of months or years Gary was staying in Ireland given the amount of luggage on his Varadero.

We hit the road for a gentle cruise down at the A1 at about 1pm and almost immediately ground to a halt. Where the A1 passes under the M62 was a car park, however this is Friday afternoon and these conditions are not abnormal. Using some some rather questionable filtering tactics (I’m sure drainage gullies aren’t meant for this) we made our way forward to find the road shut due to an accident.

Some navigational confusion commenced on the side of the road.  Luckily Gary and I are from this area and I take the lead, back up the A1 and East bound on the M62.  Its not the ideal way round but I don’t fancy trying to take a group straight through the middle of Doncaster and ending up with the same number I went in with anyway.

Just before the first fuel stop on the A1 it became apparent that practically everyone who had my mobile number on client site had been trying to get hold of me. Whilst others were refuelling I got back to people and tried to sort the issue, the rest of the group had to carry on and 45 mins later I started to follow.

After leaving the A1 and heading east I got my head down and eventually caught the rest of the group up after 30 or 40 miles, they were on another leg stretch stop. The rest of the journey was uneventful until Lowestoft where we found out of the 5 of us that had gps units we had 3 possible destinations. Typically it was the last of the 3 that was correct.

We arrived at the ta centre to find a car park full of bikes and people milling around in the absence of guidance.  Taking the opportunity I checked the oil on the KTM, managing this simple task incorrectly and ended up over filling it despite the pool that ended up on the car park floor.

Guidance did arrive and we were informed the BBQ would be ready for action after the football and the bar was open.  Starving hungry the chippy round the corner was the more pleasing option to put me on until later. Curry source and chips lasted all of 5 mins and the bar was hit.

After 4 or 5 pints it was announced the BBQ was ready but we all looked blankly at each other thinking “I’m full of beer now”

Our bed for the night was the mess hall floor, good job I brought the thermorest. Shame I hadn’t brought something that would render me completely deaf for the night. Just to put it in perspective I sleep pretty well generally, we (apparently) had some earth quake thing here a little while ago, I only woke up because the Missus was beating me up asking what was going on, like I’m gonna know!

Saturday 19/06/10 – Off we go
After a night comprising of around 1hrs sleep the lights get turned on in the parade hall at 3am, Oh my God I feel like shit. I get my stuff packed up and go and find some caffine and end up with a cold bacon butty as well, but frankly I don’t care and eat it anyway.

I go out and pack the stuff back onto the bike and mount the camera equipment back up. Slowly everyone gets ready and get on their respective machines, we’re in a residential area and I don’t think anyone wants be first to break the silence and wake the entire area, let alone me who has a KTM that likes to imitate the soundtrack of a Chevy V8.

The group gets rolling for the point in the floor that marks the most Easterly point in England. Time is taken for photos and people do their final checks before departing in small groups.

We make our way out of Lowestoft and onto what is a relatively straight (read boring) set of roads. But hell at this time in the morning I’m not exactly complaining.

We get about 20 miles out of Lowestoft on a bit of dual carriageway and the skies are looking pretty dark and it starts to rain, slowly at first and then getting harder, the horizon in the direction we’re heading doesn’t look as though its going to get any better, great! I stop and get in my plastic rain suit expecting the worst and not really wanting to ride the entire run in wet cold gear, I know that’s going to happen as on a previous little off road trip I ended up so covered in mud I had to jet wash my gear and then chuck it in the washer, I haven’t had chance to reproof it.

As if by magic the sight of my rain suit seems to scare the bad weather off so within 20 miles I’m stopped at the side of the road removing it and stuffing it back into the panniers, typical. Just before the A1 we stop for fuel, I top up anyway but don’t need any, I thought I’d be clever and get an extended range tank fitted to the KTM, what I’m not clever enough to figure out is that I’m riding with others that will still need to stop every 160 – 200 miles. Doh! Whilst stopped I decide to get a coffee and try and recheck my oil, yep its way overfilled and Gary is getting lung full’s of the oil fumes coming off it when I accelerate, maybe that’s whats making his coffee taste bad?

We pull out of the garage and its 1/2 a mile before a roundabout that we have to use as a U turn to get back to the route, I’m approaching the roundabout and realise my waist band of the camelbak is undone and flapping around wildly, I can’t be bothered stopping again and grab the two ends of the clip which means I’m coasting without any hands on the bars which despite only owning this bike less than a week isn’t normally a problem. However, something in the road upsets the bike and the bars start to move left and right gathering momentum and getting increasingly violent, bugger the waist band, grab the bars. The roundabout approaches and I get round and have another more successful attempt further down the road.

We are making our way towards Mansfield on the A617 and suddenly things looks more interesting, there are bends in the road, I’m back in familiar and satisfying territory again. Despite the equipment stuffed in the panniers and the rear rack the only difference apparent in the KTM’s handling is a slight lack of bite on the brakes, this can only mean one thing, let it off its leash. The more we head into the Peak district the more interesting the roads become and eventually we end up at the reason we’ve taken this detour in the first place, Jelly’s Cafe.

A large breakfast is ordered and consumed probably faster than it was cooked and through we think we have plenty of time the cup of tea is dispatched equally quickly. I go and deliver a load in the gents and its time to crack on. I screw up the routing almost immediately on some single track but the GPS seems to know where its going so I just enjoy it and wait for the junction in the next village to get us back on the right road.

We’re deep into the Peak district now and so I’m enjoying the twists and turns and ups and downs and although I keep trying to check on my riding companion, there’s so many corners its difficult.

About 1 mile before we hit the A6 I realise I haven’t seen his headlight for quite a few corners and slow down, then I stop, I wait, nothing. Shit has he taken a wrong turning? I hang around a bit longer expecting the headlight any second but it doesn’t come. Where the f*ck is he? I decide to turn around and back track to try and find him. I get about 2 miles back and find him parked up on the side of the road, “we just had a pit stop, come on we got a boat to catch”, he then informs me that he’d decided not to bother with the previous corner and gone straight on instead. He’s ok but the bike needs some attention it order to get going again.

I make my way up the road looking for somewhere safe to turn around and park up behind him.

We inspect the damage and it consists of some pretty battle scars on the right hand pannier, cracked fairing and scrapes on the hand guards, luckily the crash bars had taken most of the impact but this was not without issue as one side had popped it’s mount on the headstock. The crash bars were either slightly bent or just difficult to put on it that order and we found that only by swearing at it lots did it go back into position. Good job really, I hadn’t brought a big hammer.

Back on the road it was clear that Gary’s confidence had taken some damage too and I was starting to get worried we were falling behind with only 1 hour of time remaining spare for fuel stops, punctures and navigational errors before the ferry actually sailed. Gary was leading through Buxton but his satnav was having difficulty understanding the information I’d prepared for my Garmin and we ended heading out on the wrong road. I got in front and we turned around and got back on the correct route, now heading for the cat and fiddle. Having read the biking press for a number of years I was understandably excited about the legend of a road we were about to face.

What I found was a ruined road, obviously a shadow of its former self being resurfaced and now watched over by gantry’s of average speed camera’s, specially rear facing, just for bikes. That wasn’t all, it was full of drivers that either plainly couldn’t drive or didn’t understand the concept of “average” speed crawling along at 25mph. In my opinion there are some far better roads out there to ride, its disappointing as I expected something so good.

We rode through Macclesfield and onto the M6 for one junction, then M56 and onto the A55, it was time to claw back some time. The vast majority of the A55 was, well as you can imagine, pretty boring, the only thing that gave any entertainment was the constant undertaking when people sit in the outside lane thinking there might be something to overtake in 5 miles time. Nearly got caught out once though, a white van decided he was going to bother moving back after all it just happened to be at the same time I was passing him.

After spending what seemed like hours of having the throttle in one position we were nearly at the port, only 8 miles, looks like we’ll make it then. Arrived at the port and made our way to where all the bikes were, there were some that had missed the earlier ferry and now had to wait a couple of hours for the last one. We got our tickets sorted and made our way to the lanes. A couple of trucks were let on before us and then we got the nod, we got onto the ramp of the ferry waiting whilst they lowered the ramp they were using for the bikes and drove up to park. We were joined by 3 more equally late, one of the ferry crew lashed the bikes down whilst they were shutting the rear door and we got underway almost immediately. We’d driven up the ramp at 13:26 and the ferry left at 13:30, that’s cutting it fine even for me.

Once we’d found the fair chunk of seating that the rest of the TLD team were occupying we found a seat ourselves and just chilled for a moment. Others were finding somewhere to get their head down, even the floor, some were getting fed, we just had a couple of cups of coffee and chatted. I’m not particularly good at just hanging around, I get bored easily and whilst I knew the ride at the other side would be just as hard, three hours into the crossing I just wanted to get started.

As we were entering the port at Dublin, the weather outside seemed to be a lot better than England and we debated whether or not to shed some layers before heading off. I was doubtful the temperature would be that different as the wind seemed to be pretty cold still, what a mistake that was to be. The time finally came to make out way back to the bikes, I got the camera equipment setup again and we waited to get let off. I was under the impression from the forum where it was organised that we would be let off first, but no, practically everything on the ferry got off before they finally lowered the ramp for us.

We worked or way through the port and I was expecting at any time to hit the queue to get through customs or some other form of check, but no, nothing, we drove straight out into the heart of Dublin, that’s when the queuing began. It seems that every man and his dog goes shopping in Dublin on a Saturday, and its now 17:30pm and they all want to go home. Before we can go far though I need some petrol and find the nearest station. I fill up and as I’ve set the bike to read km/h and we’re now working in euros have no idea how its been doing, I hand over the debit card yet again and we get cracking.

The roads are quite tight and it was a struggle to make progress filtering, there’s only so much you can do with two aluminium panniers stuck to your bike. Gary struggled even more due to him carrying the entire contents of a four bedroom house on the back of his Varadero. And yes the mistake earlier was its warm here, the fan’s working overtime on the bike cooling it down and in the progress blowing the hot radiator air over my left leg, so I’m cooking instead.

We get split up for a bit due to some traffic lights but not for long, heading towards the outskirts I end up at the front of the lights with some guy in a Lotus Elise next to me who fancies his chances. The lights go amber and I dump the clutch, only to find I haven’t shifted forward enough to counter all the weight on the back and pull an impressive but unintentional wheelie and completely screw up my start. Elise 1 – KTM 0. How depressing.

We eventually got out of the madness of the city and ended up on N7 dual carriageway, the pace picked up and we started making progress across Ireland. Endless dual carriageways are not my thing and I was glad when it faded away to standard “A” type roads.

Not long after we got onto the A roads we took a wrong turning at a “round a bout” and noticing a few others from the run we decided to stop for 5 mins. I think the wrong turn was actually my junk food radar kicking in, there was a Mc Donalds behind the garage. I should have got something but little did I know it would the only one I would see in a week and around 1000 miles touring southern Ireland.

A quick leak and some time spend changing the memory card in the onboard camera system and we were ready to roll again. It’s about 19:30 we’re just on the outskirts of Roscrea and we still have a fair distance to see off.

Its just before 8pm and we’re 32kms from Limerick on a perfectly smooth piece of new dual carriageway.  The sun is still in the 2 o’clock position but starting to make it a bit more difficult to see, I’m getting the impression I’m going to be really glad I bought a dark tint insert.

Its now 9:15pm, I haven’t a clue where we are, somewhere on the N21 the suns getting a lot lower and seems to be accelerating its descent.  We’re having to pick up the pace more now, time is getting tight.  Should have thought of this earlier, I was trying to avoid picking up any steep on the spot speeding fines we are told they have, however I’m beginning not to care anymore.

We work our way over the top of some hills and down the other side, the only relief I’m getting from the sun is the sporadic patches of trees down the side of the road.  The view in front is fantastic, but as the land stretches out in front, realisation sets in how far we have still to go.

Around 9:30pm we hit Tralee and Blannerville, looks a nice little place, shame we don’t have time to stop.  We’re only 30 miles from Dingle and I can taste the beers already, 30 miles isn’t far is it?  We were about to take on the last section on real Irish roads, twisty as hell and getting to the point where they were potholes filled with bit of tarmac.

It was agreed earlier in the day that if I found myself wanting to crack on that Gary and I would split up and make our own way.  After his earlier off, corners and speed were a bit of a sore point but watching the sun getting closer to the sea only made me open the throttle further, I don’t like to lose.

Gary was still in sight until I took a wrong turn followed by a slight detour down some farm lane with grass running up the middle of it.  Little did I know at the time, it actually was a road.  I got back on the real route and at that point assumed Gary must now be in front of me, so I got back on the throttle to try and catch up.

I pass through Dingle at 10:15pm as a man on a serious mission,  I’ve had to actually stop earlier up the road because it was getting to the point where the insert on my visor was too dark to see very much.  This was despite several attempts at riding with the visor open, where all I successfully achieved was eyes full of bugs.  I didn’t have time to do anything with the insert other than sit on it and hope it was still there at the finish.

How is it possible that 30miles can take sooo long, it seemed like every mile was actually twice as long, I’d been watching the Garmin counting down the miles, but I’m sure as soon as I looked away it added 10 more back on.

I arrived at Guarran Point at 22:29pm after 660miles and 17.5hrs including 3hrs on the boat and 45mins breakfast and 45mins putting a Varadero back together.  Including fuel stops a total of 12hrs riding which equals a respectable 55mph average, which is good because thats what the Garmin claimed.

Glad to get off the bike I shared the view with Hotgloves and his brother and waited around for Gary, and waited and waited some more.  In the meantime Paul-S arrived on his Africa Twin and decided to have an off road play on the point.  Ordinarily I would have joined him, but frankly I just couldn’t be arsed, that would keep till tomorrow.

Another team of three turned up at the point, Farky on his newly run in TA700, Sue on her TA650 and Martin on his altogether too shiny BMW 1200 GS.  More photo’s taken and I eventually gave up and phoned Gary, just to make sure he wasn’t broken down on the side of the road somewhere.  The phone call pleased him no end as it killed the SatNav app running on his iphone but he was alive, still going and only 5 mins away.

About 15mins later he landed with some story of a damsel in distress which delayed him, yeah ok mate, lets get some food and beers.  We got to the bunkhouse, the car park full of bikes, got inside and sat down.  It was now around 11pm and we’re getting some Irish stew served up.  It was hoovered up, we found what we thought was our bunks and dumped our gear and headed off in search of the local pub.  On the way down the road we met some others warning us that the bar would shut shortly, nooooo!  We got in and ordered a pint each, it was the best beer I’ve had in ages, so good another 2 or 3 followed it all in about 30mins.  What a great end.

We walked back up to the bunk house and sat round chatting with others for a bit before everyone called it a night.  We went upstairs to our bunk room and found it had been commandeered by the extra ladies on the trip.  Oh well, thank god for thermorests, blown up on the living room floor, sleeping bag out and a comma soon commenced.