HONDA CMX 1100 REBEL
AS WINTER TIGHTENS ITS GRIP ON THE LAND, I FIND THE MOTIVATION TO GET OUT ON THE BIKE FOR LONG RUNS (I’M NOT TALKING LOCAL) STARTS TO GET A LITTLE MORE DIFFICULT TO FIND. WHEN YOU LOOK AT A WEATHER APP, AND SEE THAT EIGHT DEGREES’S THE BEST YOU’RE GOING TO GET, AND YOU’RE FACING A SIX-PLUS HOUR, 300-PLUS MILE TREK, IT DOES, I ADMIT, MAKE ME THINK I SHOULD TAKE THE VAN.
This is a bike magazine, though, and us biker types’re made from sturdy stuff. Back in the middle of last month I had to go to The Bike Specialist in Sheffield to photograph a glorious (new) Norton street-scrambler, built by Down & Out Motorcycles, that James, the main man there, had just bought (it’ll be in BSH next issue), and so I set off the day before to stay with friends in Staffordshire (so that I didn’t have to do the whole six-plus hours in one day), calling in for a coffee and a chip butty at the Victoria Bikers’ Pub in Coalville (they do a good chip butty there, they really do) on the way. The next morning, once the frost’d melted off the CMX1100 (poor thing, it’s not used to being left outside at night), I set off across the Peaks for Sheffield, going up the A515 to Ashbourne, and then up past Dovedale towards Buxton. Although I haven’t ridden the 515 for a few years, it was part of my old stomping grounds when we were based at The Towers, and it didn’t take that long to get back in the swing of
things, something helped no end by the solidity of the Rebel’s chassis, and the wonderfully precise fuelling of the motor. Okay, so there was still frost on the road in the sheltered spots to keep you awake, and I have to admit that the thought of doing the notoriously shit-covered, and tree-lined A5012 from Newhaven down to Cromford did fill me with a little trepidation. It was, as expected, filthy, with muck carried on to the road by the quarry wagons that use it, and it’s one of the roads that, all those years ago, taught me to stay well away from the front brake and just use the back gently, and I was relieved to see the mill-pond in the exquisitely scenic village of Cromford appear (especially give the circumstances detailed in the Editorial this month). Left at the lights, up to the age-old biker haunt at Matlock Bath for a coffee and (yet another) chip butty to try and recompose meself before heading on towards Chatsworth and on to Sheffield.
Due to the trauma on the Cromford road I was running about an hour-anda-half late, and had planned to stop at Chatsworth and take a few pics, but had to content meself with just going a little slower past the big house, and the herds of roaming deer in the grounds, before pressing on to the metropolis of Sheffield.
Shoot done, and the masses of ultra-desirable uber-sports bikes ogled at, at the Bike Specialists, it was time to head south once again. I assumed I’d be getting to the M1 and heading down to grab the A14, but the sat-nav, which I was using just to find the motorway from the city centre, took me along the A57 down to Newark and on to the A1 instead – a much more pleasant run than just hours and hours of seemingly endless motorway. The last couple were done after dark, with a properly dirty visor, but the big Honda’s LED headlight, despite being seriously crap-covered, did its job perfectly (as did me Keis heated waistcoat), and I arrived home, abandoned the poor old Rebel at the back of the house, and went in to lie (and fall asleep) in the bath for an hour to get the warmth back in me old bones… s’pose I’d better go and clean it now, and put it back in the Toy Cupboard.