Round Britain on 30-year-old café racers
Friends Lee Marsh, Andrew Wort and Olly Wiltshire are planning to ride 4000 miles around the coast of the UK. That’s a challenging enough ride over two weeks on a big modern bike, but they’ll be riding 1980s Kawasaki KH125s, all of them (the bikes, that is) rebuilt as café racers!
“I did the same trip for charity seven years ago,” says Lee, “but that was on a Bandit 1200, and this time I wanted a bit more of a challenge. Andrew and I both had KHs – he rebuilt his as a café racer, and wanted to do something with it, so I suggested this.”
Five of the little Kawasaki air-cooled two-strokes have been used to build up three good ones, with April devoted to running them in and some shakedown mileage.
“We’ve changed them quite bit,” says Lee. “We’ve removed the oil pumps and made them pre-mix – as that’s one less thing to go wrong – converted them to 12V without a battery, and fitted electronic ignition. We wanted them to be as trouble-free as possible.”
Initial mileage indicates a cruising speed of 45-50mph, which they reckon will be enough for the mostly A and B roads they’ll be riding, with 130-150 miles per tank giving two-hour stints before refuelling.
That should be enough for the 300 miles a day they need to cover to make the entire UK circuit in two weeks. They’ll be camping to keep costs down, but a back-up vehicle will be carrying the luggage.
“We’re hoping to raise £10,000,” adds Lee, “split between the Stroke Association and Sands, the stillbirth and neo-natal death charity, which supports anyone affected by the death of a baby. All donations are welcome and can be made on Justgiving. I’d like to thank our sponsors so far – Ashley and James Coach building, TND Lymington Ltd and the Lymington Masonic Hall.”
The three KHs will set off from Lymington, Hampshire on June 24, riding anti-clockwise round the coast and hopefully arriving back two weeks later. “The bikes will make it,” says Lee Marsh, “the question is whether we can!” If they do, there’s another challenge planned – Joe Traykov, part of the support team, is from Macedonia, so a KH125 cafe racer ride to Eastern Europe is on the cards for next year.
www.bigbikecharityhike.com, https://www. justgiving.com/fundraising/caferacerchallenge