Phil Weston
This is Phil Weston, a man who thinks nothing of setting off to Istanbul for the weekend, on his bike. His current long distance companion is a 120,000-mile Triumph Tiger. John Westlake joins the long-haul…
This month: There aren’t many people who ride as far as Phil, especially when you factor in the (lack of) time taken. The Iron Butt hero and his 120,000-mile Tiger 800 teach us a thing or two with epic journeys and 1000-mile days.
BEING ASKED WHAT he did last weekend is Philip Weston’s favourite question. ‘I like being able to say, “I went to Andorra”, and then the person might ask “how was the flight?” and I say “I don’t know – I rode there”.’ Vienna, Prague and Venice are well within his weekend riding range. ‘I rode to Istanbul once, but that took me two days to get there,’ he says. For anyone whose European geography is a touch shaky, riding to Istanbul involves crossing Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece plus a bit of Turkey. He rode to Moscow in two days too (‘had a look round Ukraine on the way back’). Phil is one of Britain’s most experienced long distance riders – at 67 he’s been riding huge miles since he got back into bikes 17 years ago and has become a master. ‘I’m the only person to ride 3000 miles in two days in the UK,’ he says as we drink tea before riding over the Mendips to Cheddar. I slurp noisily to cover the sound of my brain trying to work out if that’s actually possible – 1500 miles divided by 24 hours is what… a 50mph average? ‘62mph,’ says Phil. ‘I started at Gordano services (on the M5 near Bristol) at midnight, then went to Plymouth, Swansea, Dover, Perth, Dover, and back to Gordano – that was the first 1500 miles. I slept at Gordano for a couple of hours in the services then
I did the same lap again.’ Phil may look and sound like a normal, affable chap, but he is clearly quite, quite unhinged. The origin of these madcap high-mileage japes – in organised form at least – was the Iron Butt Rally, the first of which ran in 1984. Since then its popularity has grown and there are now Iron Butt outposts around the globe (Philip is president of the UK Iron Butt Association). ‘I’ve done four Iron Butt Rallies,’ he says. ‘You start on a Monday morning and finish a week on Friday – 11 days. You choose certain places on a list to visit depending how far you think you’ll be able to go, and take a picture of the rally flag in front of the landmark to prove you’ve been there. Points are awarded for each place visited and whoever gets the most points wins.’ It’s a measure of the quality of nutcase taking part that even though Philip rode over 1000 miles a day for 11 days in three of his Iron Butt Rally attempts he has yet to crack the top ten (his last attempt was scuppered by a rock in the road which broke both wheels). ‘The top guys plan better, train more and I’m a bit too old now,’ says Phil, misreading my perplexed expression. I explain that I’m not wondering why he didn’t win, but just why? Why ride massive miles? Why ride through the night when you could sleep in a perfectly comfortable bed? Why scoff a manky cereal bar as you fill up with fuel rather than enjoy a long lunch talking horseshit with your mates? Why blitz another motorway instead of spending an afternoon discovering B-roads? ‘I really like sitting on the bike and riding. Because of the mileages I do people say I don’t see anything of the countries I travel through, but I see lots of stuff. I’ve ridden over the top of the Alps and seen the mist down below in the valleys then dived down until it’s cloud above me, I’ve seen countless beautiful sunrises and sunsets all over the world. I’ve been to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado, I’ve ridden over the Mount Evans highway (the highest road in America at 14,000ft), I’ve done a 1000-mile ride round Sicily (three laps), I’ve done 1000 miles round the TT course (30 laps). I don’t care where I go, I just love sitting on the bike and riding.’ For a millisecond, I get it. It must be like having a superpower – being able to go further and cram more into life than us mortals. To be able to set off for the Motogp on a summer’s Friday night, but instead of heading to Silverstone, you go to Brno in the Czech Republic (which Phil did). Then I remember all the 500-mile days I’ve done and how desperately I’ve wanted them to end. With Phil still cheerfully trying to convince me of the joys of miles, we head out to the bikes for a blast across the Mendips to Cheddar for lunch (‘a hot one, with chips, sitting on chairs,’ I tell Phil just in case he’s got funny ideas about snacks on garage forecourts). But first I can’t help ogling Phil’s 120,000-mile Triumph Tiger 800. With all the gadgets, battle scars and stickers it looks like a Paris-dakar race bike prepared by the Caravan Club. The biggest modification is the auxiliary five-gallon fuel tank which was fabricated to Phil’s spec by a car race team. It’s filled with foam to stop sloshing and turned on by a tap where the reserve would have been in the old days. It gives Phil an easy 300 mile range, provided he remembers to turn it off when he fills up – ‘otherwise it’ll empty out through the main tank’s overflow pipe, which has happened.’ The closer you look, the more oddities you notice (with the bike, not Phil – he seems remarkably normal, given that he most definitely isn’t). Velcroed to the mounting plate for the extra fuel tank, for example, that under is the a small sidestand block so of the wood. bike’s ‘I put more tanks,’ upright says and Phil. I can get more in the fuel for And junctions, the two one sat on navs? map ‘One view is so zoomed I can see in where I’m going. The Spot unit is a GPS tracker that’s compulsory in the Iron Butt Rally – it allows rally organisers to see if you’re going ridiculously fast. There’s an emergency button that triggers a beacon to tell emergency services where to go if you get in trouble too. The Kriega bag is for my passport and cash and the little figure is Seamus. His arms waggle about if I go too fast and he’s someone to talk to on long night rides.’ All the kit has the feel of equipment that has evolved – many previous models and mounting systems have been ditched until Phil discovered exactly what works. The ancient Oxford tailpack is a case in point. Bungeed onto the shiny steel tank it looks a bit last-minute and, well, shonky. But it works perfectly: ‘It contains everything I need for hotels,’ says Phil. ‘One T-shirt, one
‘Why ride massive miles? Why scoff a manky cereal bar as you fill up with fuel rather than enjoy a long lunch talking horseshit with your mates?’
pair of trousers, flip-flops and toothbrush. All you need. Two bungees and it’s off with no wasted time.’ There’s also a one gallon Igloo water container in there with a feeder hose poking out to keep Phil hydrated in hot climes. ‘Panniers slow your filtering and a tank bag wastes time at fuel stops – this is all you need.’ His standard Triumph top box houses spares, tools and heated kit for when it gets nippy. Looking at the stickers, I notice one saying ‘Fazer Phil’, which seems an odd addition to a Triumph. But lids and gloves are on so I save the question. Time to do some Mendips. Phil leads and rides just as you’d expect – efficient, smooth, economical. The surprise comes after ten minutes or so when he evidently decides his Michelin Pilot 3s are finding more grip on the slimy-looking roads than he first expected and the pace picks up, the tall Triumph carving rapidly along the B3134. Out of slow corners that 800 triple engine is a beast, hauling away from the Fireblade unless I go down to first and cane it. After riding down the Cheddar Gorge, which would be a great road but for suicidal tourist cars and sheep, we roll into Cheddar itself and find a café just as the rain starts again. So what’s with the Fazer sticker? ‘I did over 100,000 miles on my old Fazer (a first generation model) but I retired it because it was having electrical issues. Also, I’d run the chain too loose once and it smashed a hole in the back of the cases. I’d fixed it with plastic metal but could never really trust it again. ‘The Fazer was a much better bike for long distance than this Triumph. It handled better and used less fuel even though it was 1000cc. I really couldn’t find anything else as good as the Fazer. At the minute I’m looking at a Tracer 900 or perhaps an MT-10 but that’s got a stupid little tank and doesn’t do many mpg.’ Despite the Tiger never letting him down in 120,000 miles, Phil’s begrudgingly impressed rather than smitten. ‘It’s just had a new starter motor, the exhaust cracked and was replaced, and the gear selector spring failed but apart from that it’s been reliable. When my dealer has done the valve clearances they only had to adjust a couple. But I don’t bother about valves too much. Seems to me they charge a load of money to take it apart and then do nothing. On the Fazer I had the valves checked at 20,000 miles and they were fine so I didn’t bother having them done again and it ran fine at 100,000 miles.’ In reality an event like the Iron Butt isn’t a test for modern bikes – any could do it (though hardly anyone enters on Harleys). It’s the riders who take the beating, and that’s mostly through sleep deprivation. Not surprisingly, Phil knows plenty about it. ‘If you sleep for an hour, you don’t go into a deep sleep but if you do more than an hour, you have to do four or five, otherwise you’ll wake up from a deep sleep and feel rough as hell. ‘I know I’m worse just before sunrise so I ride until 3am, stop for two or three hours, have an hour’s nap and then the sun comes up and I feel awake and I’m away. I can’t do that every day, but certainly one night is fine. I can average five hours sleep for two weeks without too many problems. On one Iron Butt Rally I had six hours sleep on Monday night, four hours on Tuesday, two hours on Wednesday and I rode through the night on Thursday because it finished at 8am on Friday morning. I felt fine – I slept for 12 hours that night though.’ Lunch over, it’s time to leave. I’m heading to London – a three hour ride in drizzle – and Phil’s eyes light up at the thought of all those motorway miles. But I suspect he’d rather not accompany a low mileage faffer like me. ‘It’s true,’ he admits. ‘I don’t like riding with other people because they’re always stopping. I don’t like stopping.’
‘I’m London… heading but to I suspect Phil would rather not accompany a low mileage faffer like me’