More great stories and pictures from #ride5000miles members
Sally Weighill says #ride5000miles has made her a much better rider
When Sally Weighill stumbled across the #ride5000miles campaign, she was relatively new to motorcycling. Having only recently passed her Direct Access test, Sally, 54, from Grantham, joined a number of online forums to gain more knowledge about biking and spotted R5K when liking MCN’s page on Facebook.
In the 18 months that followed, she has owned three bikes, visited new places and travelled an impressive 30,000 miles, already achieving 6000 this year alone on her Kawasaki Z1000SX. Sally said: “The MCN #ride5000miles campaign is the best biking group out there. You don’t get any of the aggro or nastiness that you get on some other pages.
“My children have grown up and they are doing their own thing and I thought ‘what am I going to do now?’ I grew up on a farm and we had a few bikes we used to ride around on.
“One day, I decided that I would do my bike test. I did it within a month and haven’t looked back. My riding has improved dramatically over that time and I’ve gone from simply passing my test to being a confident rider.” Sally cites some of this added confidence to the R5K campaign and other members of the group. “Corners were my big issue when I started riding, however I have learnt that having decent tyres makes a massive difference. “At the start, I was also thinking about how to operate all of the controls, but now I’ve done so much more riding, it feels like second nature.
“I’ve also ridden with loads of other people, including fellow R5K member Chris Hood. He is amazing and he showed me some really lovely roads in Yorkshire. “People post where they’ve been and the places look fantastic. I just head out and try them for myself. I love the experience of exploring new routes. You also meet new people who know the roads well and your riding improves no end.”
Sally’s next big biking step is to undertake a European motorcycling mission. After getting a taste for longer tours last year when she rode up to Scotland for a week, she is planning a foreign for later this year.