Northern Irish roving
This month author, traveller and former Bike staffer Simon Weir takes the ferry to Northern Ireland, and there is whiskey involved…
If you’re a motorcyclist visiting Northern Ireland, you have to go to Ballymoney and visit both Joey’s Bar and the Joey Dunlop memorial, in the park just down the road. But there’s so much more to riding in Northern Ireland, and much of it is linked by great motorcycling roads.
Arguably the worst road of the day is the first one of this short ride. The B62 could be described charitably as ‘efficient’ because it makes a beeline from Ballymoney to the coast, long straights finally giving way to sweepers and then, finally, some glorious corners as the sea comes into view.
Rather than heading into Portstewart, home of the North West 200, it’s a good idea to head in the other direction, taking the A2 east along the shore to Bushmills. Fans of the eponymous Irish Whiskey can take a tour of the distillery (book online for £10 – best let the pillion do the tasting, though).
From Bushmills the route heads out on minor roads towards the Giant’s Causeway. It’s easy to find the way, just follow the brown signs. High summer can see a lot of tourist traffic here, but when the kids are back at school this can be a beautiful and relatively quiet run round to Dunseverick, rejoining the A2 for a few miles and then heading back towards the coast on the B15, signed to Ballintoy and the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge.
These two big-name tourist sites aren’t the only things to see along this stretch of coast, if you don’t mind a little walking from the bike. The ruins of Dunluce and Dunseverick castles are romantically atmospheric; Dunseverick Falls – as the river leaps over the cliff to the sea – and Ballintoy Harbour are all memorable.
But this is a glorious ride, not a glorious walk and the route continues on the B15 into Ballycastle, where there are a few good cafes. The A44 takes us to Armoy – famous for its armada of road racers who invade the Isle of Man for TT week – then the backroad towards Ballintoy to pick up the B147, all the time following the signs for the Dark Hedges.
This iconic lane, shrouded by the trees that give it such a distinctive appearance, is on the left rather than being directly on the route. It’s worth a stop for a picture before continuing on the B147, flowing along between less famous hedges as the road returns to Ballymoney.
‘When the kids are back at school this can be a beautiful and quiet run’
‘They keep it clean and fast, they are all making good moves’
After last month’s win at Knockhill we reckoned Franco’s Kawasaki ZX-6R needed a refresh, so mechanic Dave Hewson pulled the motor apart. He re-set the valve clearances, fitted a new cam chain and a load of new gears. Gearboxes get really hammered on race bikes, shifting at peak revs with a quickshifter soon wears the dogs and the gear edges, and a missed gear can cost you a race win, so you can’t take chances.
I got the job of running the bike in at Cadwell Park, and it was actually the first time I’d ridden it. Franco likes to have wider handlebars than me, and he has a pad on the back of the tank to push him back in the seat, so the set-up wasn’t ideal, but it was interesting. Dave said to rev it to ten thousand, but you can hardly get a 600 moving with those revs, so I ended up taking it to 12,000 and I was lapping at 1:42. That sounds OK, but Franco can get it round in a 1:32. OK, I might have been able to knock four seconds off that but if I’d crashed it before we went to Brands I wouldn’t have been popular with the team, but it still shows you how fast Franco is.
I’d been riding my own Triumph 675 Daytona that morning, and by comparison the Kawasaki feels heavy and slow to turn. Honestly, it’s not as good as I thought it’d be so all credit to Franco for making it go so well. It goes and stops lovely, but it’s harder to turn, so no wonder the Yamahas seem to have an advantage at the tighter tracks.
Obviously it was always going to be tough going to Brands Hatch after having such a good meeting at Knockhill and being back in contention for the championship. The lad was a bit more nervous than normal. Free practice went okay, but we were only 7th in FP1 and then 11th in FP2. For qualifying, we made a few changes to the gearing and other stuff. He was bobbing around 5-6th, then nailed it on the last lap and got second. We keep saying it, but it’s so important to qualify well and get up at the front end. And that’s how it worked in the race. The front row was Max Cook, Louis Valleley on Yamahas and Franco, they all got a decent start, were straight onto lap record pace and they were away, meanwhile behind them in the second group there’s a proper scrap, with some hard overtakes, going on. By the second lap you could throw a blanket over the top three, but there was a decent gap between third and fourth which ended up being eight seconds at the finish.
When you are racing for a championship you’ve got to ride with a bit of maturity. Max Cook is a former Red Bull Rookie and he’s raced in European championship Moto3. Louis has been in the Junior Superstock championship for longer than Franco. They keep it clean and fast, they are all making good moves but they know they don’t want to get dragged back into the group. Some of the other lads are really quick, in fact there’s some proper nutcases in that field, but they don’t have the maturity.
Those three were together right till the last couple of laps, then Louis got the lead and put the hammer down. Franco reckoned that it’d have been too risky to try and battle it out, so he took the points for third, two seconds back, then there’s an eight second gap to the rest of the pack. Next up we’ve got Thruxton (happening after Bike goes to press), which should suit the Kawasaki and Franco – he’s brave in fast corners. And then there’s Cadwell where we’ve tested, so we should have a good set-up.