Bikers: sometimes words fail the caption writing dept…
Over five decades Bike has run many an adventure story. Tales of daring from around the globe. To celebrate 50 years of the magazine we thought we’d have our own adventure. Sort of…
A layby on the A47 0 miles: the start - it’s all downhill from here
An event to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this mighty organ needs to be suitably glamorous. So the Bike team meet at the Two Flags Café, in a layby beside the A47 at 9.30am for a ride to meet magazine founder Mark Williams and drink beer somewhere near the Welsh border. It’s raining. Former editor Dickie Fincher is first to the salubrious start venue, and is mid-way into a bacon butty and mug of tea. He was invited on the basis that his 1971 Norton Commando would provide historical context and breakdowns. Instead, and with no reasonable excuse, he’s on a 2019 BMW R1250RS, the fruits of his labour in the hair care business. The change of machine is accepted on the basis that he’s in fancy dress – how else to explain his ridiculous flared leathers. Paranoid art man Paul Lang appears on his pampered Ducati Monster. This despite the wet forecast and his stress about ‘a massive oil leak’ that a Ducati specialist (who’s now put Langy on ‘calls barred’) couldn’t find.
John Westlake has ignored the ‘bring your own bike’ rule and will take a points penalty, but as designated navigator he wants the satnav capability of a BMW R1250GS test bike. The sound of a Flymo and smell of two-stroke heralds the arrival of an Armitage and his smokey Yamaha TDR250. Contributor Adam Smallman has brought his Honda CB1300, but where’s Chippy? Our photographer has secretly bought a new bike. The sweepstake says it’s a Harley at 5:1, but 30 minutes late he arrives on a KTM 1090R. Good choice.
Even minus Dickie’s Norton this motley bike mix nicely reflects Bike’s eclectic content over 50 years. Now, which way do we go?
Exotic layby to North Kilworth 30.7 miles: we’ll be there by sunset… possibly
It would appear John’s ‘twisty and enjoyable’ route requires us to at no point be heading in even the vague direction of Hereford or the Welsh border. I can only assume he’s found the ‘pointlessly convoluted’ setting in his box of digital maps. South of Leicester we leave a B-road I know to be pleasing for a town-centre detour that involves dicing with queueing supermarket traffic, riding through a building site and the extended viewing of wheelie bins outside suburban housing. We then rejoin the road we were previously enjoying about 200 metres from where we left it.
I’m not complaining. For the most part the route is leafy, engaging, and as free from traffic as I imagine roads were in 1971. It’s great to be riding with a group of like-minded idiots and part of such an eclectic mix of machinery. I sneak to the front of our metal snake, tucking in behind John to allow everyone to enjoy the TDR’S lingering scent. It even stops raining. A lift of already bubbly group spirits is signified by the amusing moving of mirrors and flicking of killswitches at every junction. More specifically, the moving and flicking of Langy’s mirrors and killswitch. We take frantic gesticulation as his approval of our relentless comedy genius.
After two or three navigational malfunctions, plus wideeyed manoeuvres after failing to see the terrible indicators combined with the GS’S brake lights, we swing breezily into North Kilworth to discover the modest form of Ben Lindley. He’s ridden down from York on his Triumph Speed Triple, meaning our merry band now has pretty much every engine type – twins, triples and fours, vees and inlines, two-stroke and four-stroke. Young Ben is the only one who’s had to wrap his ‘immaculate’ bike’s electrics in gaffer tape to prevent the bothersome ingress of water, though. Mike Armitage
North Kilworth to Warwick 27 miles: injecting much needed youth
The everyday quiet of North Kilworth’s charming Esso fuel station is broken by seven clapped-out munters… and their bikes. At first I don’t believe this is the right bunch of riders: no operation involving Bike’s unprofessionals has ever looked so orderly. Ex-editor Westlake leads a tidy line into the station from the seat of a sparkling R1250GS, Wilson is there in his ostentatious fluro yellow lid and behind him the six-foot-plus of Bike contributor Smallman. The combined noise of boxer, V-twin, inline and two-stroke breaks across the forecourt like a wave of grumbling old men. And only 40 minutes later than planned. Miraculous.
Despite some last-minute electrical waterproofing by way of industrial tape and a 2.5-hour slog down the M1 from York, I manage to arrive on time. At 31 I’m the
youngest here, my function being to lower the average age to an acceptable level: my comrades all look like they could have started a magazine fifty years ago. Greetings are barked through helmet letterboxes, the plan relayed (such as it is), and we get cracking west into glorious riding country. As journalists in groups, we’re forever riding the same kind of bikes together: group tests, sportsbike showdowns, or even single bike launches. But today is different. The ride over to Warwick is awesome because we’re riding a completely discordant bunch of motorcycles. I’m grinning my face off as the Speedie launches itself over humps following Armitage, who is carrying wild corner speed and wringing the neck of his gutless twin-cylinder TDR to keep ahead. And at every junction we’re ready to pounce on fusspot Paul Lang to flatten the mouse-ear mirrors on his M900 Monster. No need to get all shirty, Langy. It’s just a bit of fun. Ben Lindley
Warwick to Pershore 33 miles: wiping out four bikes in one go
Lunch finished, the Heart of England sees our unlikely clot work its way deeper into the lanes and byways of Warwickshire. And I do mean just the stringy, barely metalled veiny routes, carefully dodging the arteries. Jonners’ cyborg travel software manages to bypass almost any corners above the RS’S first gear which makes the trip feel like a series of sunken alpine hairpins, with more gravel and no view of anything ahead. Or any Alps. A good way to keep a varied group of ratters together, I guess.
As the only one other than Jonners who has bothered to download the route, and with my Beemer as the bike most likely to make it there without terminal failure, I’m allocated the sweeper position. Up to this point it’s been a game of point, squirt, and wondering why we are frequently going a different way to the satnav which allegedly has the same waypoints; shrug and generally waft along in the knowledge that we’re heading West-ish. After lunch and some few short moments after crossing the M40, it becomes clear a navigational error has delivered us to open flowing roads rather than the usual cattle trail. My position gives me a wonderful few downhill corners’ worth of watching our eclectic gaggle metronomically peeling into series of bends. It turns out everyone takes a similar line at a similar pace despite very dissimilar bikes, and the seamless sweep of riders is rather a joy to behold. Odd that it’s the same bunch of hedge-holing imbeciles who’ve burned through all those insurance excesses over the years. I toddle along at the back, judging and unjudgeable… rather like it was when I generated a claim or two back in the day. We’re all so much more sensible these days, it appears.
‘Riding through a building site and extended viewing of wheelie bins’
A photo shoot interrupts the reverie. As a rider who famously managed to singlehandedly crash four bikes at once whilst at the peak of my powers, the more recent members of the team show me the respect I deserve and watch in awe rather than join me on the road. Hopefully they will have picked up a few key points during the short but important, and clearly memorable, session.
We press on, needing to get to a pub where Oxley and Williams are aiming to connect with us. But let’s not be too hasty; it’s clear that the small but remarkably excitable town of Alcester knew all about Bike’s 50th and hasn’t held back on getting itself thoroughly bunted. We are very humbled by the adulation and realise this is not the sort of place who wants their efforts rewarding with a ‘Team Bike to the Bol’ rendition of 10 bikes pipping off the limiter before shoddily snaking up the main street, rear rubber ablaze. So we get an ice cream instead. And so we ride on, topped off with a flake apiece and foolish as ever. Dickie Fincher
Pershore to Much Marcle 30 miles: aggressive hedges
As I lead out of Pershore aboard the blingtabulous BM, we stop to take photos crossing the M5, marvelling at the traffic whirring efficiently along a smooth flat road going in the right direction. Then, after confusion caused by a road closure and a detour that probably no-one else notices, we head towards Bromsberrow.
Oh dear. Not only is the road very narrow and covered in grit and grass, but the hedges sprout aggressively, slapping shoulders and threatening to grab a handlebar on left-handers. From the poop deck of the good ship GS I can almost hear the grumbling from the lower ranks on their oversprung Ducatis and leaking Triumphs.
I’m happy on the BM though, peering over hedgerows and enjoying Mike’s TDR darting gleefully about in the BM’S mirrors while everyone else tries to keep up. I’m struck by the difference 30 years make – when I joined Bike in 1991, group rides with the team were generally a short preliminary activity undertaken before I was taken to hospital and the motorcycle was sent back to the importer in small boxes.
For 15 years I kept a gruesomely dented Yamaha V-max tank cover (found over 70m from the bike itself by one of my remarkably patient colleagues) and hung it in my
‘Our unlikely clot works its way deeper into the lanes and byways of Warwickshire…’
garage to remind me that whatever the red mist said, my skills were somewhat lower than Eddy Lawson’s.
Back in the Malverns I round a corner and find the road blocked by a stream. Langy pulls alongside on his Ducati monkeybike and says something which I don’t hear because his head is level with my saddle. His little frowny face suggests he is not relishing a water crossing. As Road Captain it is my duty to instil confidence in the troops, so I gun the BMW, safe in the knowledge that traction control will take care of any aquatic slipperiness. Or indeed not – the fricking thing goes sideways and it’s sheer luck I stay upright. It’s fair to say there’s a good deal of relief all-round rolling into Much Marcle to meet Bike’s founding editor. John Westlake
Much Marcle to The Plough 10 miles: founding father in the place
As I was to ingratiate myself with East Midlands’ premier crew, it made no sense to ride all the way to Little Dewchurch when I live just 45 minutes away so I elect to rendezvous at Much Marcle – home to Westons Cider and a garage housed in a WW1 aircraft hanger. Coming from London, Mr Oxley has the same idea but we arrive way before the others who are either lost, slower than their alleged reputations, or busy posing for Chippy’s camera. This enables first beers of the day at the Walwyn Arms and much fat chewing, e.g. the state of the bikey world (could do better), my racing neighbour Chaz Davies (heroic) and property prices (mad). Cometh the latecomers and more beer is taken before finally zipping off along Mr Tom-tom’s prescribed route comprising mainly twisty, single track lanes replete with visibility-blotting hedges, potholes and loose gravel a’plenty – not ideal for confident 50-60mph laddish bravura, but I’m damned if I’m going to relinquish my third-in-line rank and Oxley is behind me on a scooter, fer chrissakes.
Arriving at the Plough, a superfriendly traditional public house, the Real Men start erecting tents to much derision from Mat and I who’d both wisely booked pub B&B, but I manage to drop my BM for the first time ever doing a tight turn on the slippy grass. NB: the K75 is not a trail bike.
That evening, excellent pub grub and Wye Valley Brewery’s finest libations trigger much jollity and tall storytelling including my youthful folly trying to impress a girl by passengering her dad’s grass-track sidecar (a browntrousered failure) and crashing a Yamaha XS-2 while under the influence of certain hallucinogens (the two-wheeled trip indeed). Late on a birthday cake emerges to celebrate Bike’s 50 years of daring to be different which makes this old man embarrassingly proud, so thanks to all, and especially all you readers, for that. Mark Williams