Finally: The Night Ride

Just when you thought it was safe to relax, along comes the final (unplanned) blog post.

This is probably of more interest to the biker readership, so if you’re not of the two wheel persuasion be prepared to be bored.

But before I run through why, and how I rode the 350 miles through the night, here are e few photographs to get you up to speed.

Brian C Kinsella was always going to be the weak link on this ride, as he is on every ride. I reassure concerned parties that the C stands for careful, a word which was frequently used by Rachel, preceded by ‘be’, and now seems to be adopted by other family members and some close friends.

Having fuelled up in St Malo it would’ve been great to make my first stop when, or if, I needed more petrol, which turned out to be 275 miles into the ride at Forton motorway services just south of Lancaster. But like I said, I am the weak link, The Panzer certainly isn’t!

The ferry was a little late docking, 6.45pm, and as all the bikes were on the raised deck we were last to disembark and join the very slow queue to get through passport control. It made me yet again value the convenience of the tunnel, where everything is done before embarking, therefore it’s a straight ride off the train once it arrives in either France or England. So it was 7.30pm by the time I got out onto the relative freedom of the M27 towards Southampton, and it was already dark.

I really had to get some miles in to make Sunday’s ride up to Carlisle an easy one and pondered my options as the miles ticked by. Heading north up the A34 towards Oxford my thoughts tended to hedge towards doing the full ride home. 

There were a lot of things to consider:

It was relatively warm at this time, certainly into the low double figures, but the further I ventured north the temperature inevitably dropped. That wasn’t my main concern, with not as much information available to be seen as I would like, the cruise control set at 75mph seemed a little on the high side for a dual carriageway that had a few reasonable curves thrown in. I decided to dump the cruise and take more control of my speed, riding by ‘feel’ rather than a speed that would normally be very comfortable.

The hazard lights flashing on the articulated vehicle in the lay-by in the distance immediately rang alarm bells! The Panzer may be built like a tank, but I wasn’t relishing us having to deal with the remains of a shredded tyre in the carriageway! Fortunately it wasn’t road debris, but it is exactly the reason why I’m cautious about night time riding.

Oxford came and went and I pondered ‘should I stay or should I go’. What turned me off about finding a place to stay was security of the bike and a reluctance to pay a rip off price for some grotty service area hotel. I decided to soldier on even if it was at a slower pace.

Due to the M40 being closed south of Birmingham there was two miles of stationary traffic across all three lanes. As is becoming my trademark, I ‘filtered’ to the front whereupon I managed to take pole position for the diversion on the A roads across to Coventry and then eventually onto the M6.

The weak link finally gave in at Hilton services north of Birmingham. I’d been riding for three hours and was cold, the temperature was now into single figures and after some warm food and drink I added another pair of jeans, making three layers on my bottom half, and another top making six layers on my torso. I pulled out my ‘winter’ gloves for the first time and by flicking the heated grips between toasty and warm my hands were comfortable for all of the journey. My feet were also looked after by the heat from the BMW’s two ‘pots’, so probably for the first time ever as a motorcyclist it wasn’t my extremities that were struggling to stay warm! 

This was down to me not taking full winter clothing, we knew that the three week holiday was going to be warm and, for the most part, it was in the mid twenties. Even though my very capacious panniers brought ridicule from Nige and Ernie (Nige is actually envious), I was still limited for space, especially considering my four pairs of motorcycle gloves and five pairs of footwear! So clothing with a summer ‘bent’ was chosen and I left my full winter gear at home.

The next stop was Forton for two reasons, I just couldn’t stay warm and also needed a top up of fuel for the last leg of just one hour. I sat on the radiator in the cafe with a hot chocolate until some feeling returned. The temperature outside had dropped to 5c making life a little uncomfortable, but the ride was now in the bag.

I arrived home at 2.20am, seven hours after hitting the road at Portsmouth, the total trip mileage was 3,185 miles.

At 5am in bed with a hottie, that’s hot water bottle unfortunately, many parts of my anatomy were still cold, by 7am I woke with a warm feeling, no I hadn’t wet myself, I was just warm again.

I thought about the ride up.

The BMW is just so good for something like that, I had the weather protection which Reg doesn’t offer, it would’ve been so much more difficult on him, but Reg and the Harley will get an airing very soon.

The other thing about the ride was that I wouldn’t have dreamed of dragging any of my other bike buddies on such a journey, it just wouldn’t have worked. It’s not the sort of ride to enjoy, and riding with mates should be enjoyment. 

Riding on my own can be just whatever I decide and sometimes it doesn’t fall into the ‘enjoyment’ category.

I thank Ernie, Jenny, Nige and Sue for putting up with me for three weeks, we had a great time in perfect weather, the scenery we saw and places we stayed made for another excellent motorcycle trip. 

Thank you bike buddies!