Great weekends riding............
WARNING...... HUGE WALL OF TEXT
I set off from lands end on a brand new re-bore on my GT big block kit and didn't enjoy the ride to Exeter along the A30 doing less than 45mph, The other indecipherables, Chris B, Chris C, Karl and Jonny in the van stayed with me all the way, respect and thanks to them for not getting fed up and sodding off with out me. We got to Warwick at around 7:30 I think.
Next day we were joined by Nige as he couldn't get the Friday off work, so off we went in the pouring rain heading for Jedburgh. As we headed for Lincoln there were some lads in a layby with a huge banner greeting everyone taking part taking photo's. nice one lads
Just up the road we had our first real incident, Karl came round an island overtaking a car and noticed we had pulled into a services, he headed for the services with too much front brake applied and ended up loosing the front which resulted in his front brake lever snapping in two.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPg8Uqmmygg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
While at that services a guy came over and gave me some waterproof spats as it was obvious from how I was walking that my waterproofs had let water in, it turned out he was one of the Lincoln lambretta guys. thanks again, they helped... a little. Soon after leaving there the rain got so bad that we decided to pull into another services and wait for it to settle down a bit. When we got going again over an hour later the A1 was flooded coursing a huge tail back. I have rode in some bad rain but the weather on Saturday was by far the wettest I have ever got.
Later that day we left Scotts Corner and I ended up not taking the exit which meant I had to find a way back on to the route and ended up ridding from there to where I ran out of petrol 9 miles from Jedburgh on my own. I had no idea if my comrades were in front or behind me, I had no phone signal, I was soaking wet, freezing cold and wondering if this was the place I would meet my maker if I ended up stranded all night in such a desolate spot. After about 30 minutes Chris B arrived shaking his head saying "Nige has had enough" I said to him " what do you mean he's had enough" Chris just replied "he's had enough". A few seconds later Johnny in the van arrived and it became clear that Chris B had actually said "Nige has had an off". When we stripped the gearbox down the next morning it became clear that Nige had come off because his sliding dog had snapped and the bits had locked up his gearbox. he was ok though, he just had a knock to his shoulder but his Series 2 had a smashed headset and a few dents that it didn't have before.
We had booked the hotel that had gone into receivership so we had no rooms in Jedburgh and by the time we got there it was late, to late to get any rooms. Thankfully Jane managed to sort us all out after a few frantic phones calls around the others doing LeJog. Thanks again for giving up your drinking time to help us out. Four of us ended up in a very nice castle with the Modra lads which had a bar that was prepared to stay open all night LOL.
Next day we set about fixing Nige's gearbox while Karl performed a more permanent bodge on his brake lever. We had a spare box and layshaft but had no balls and spring, again after phoning around we managed to get some, thanks again. While the others set off for Fort William we built up the gearbox and then set off a couple of hours later only to find that his back wheel had locked up again ffs. So the scooter and Nige ended up back in the van which really pissed Nige off because he had only come to get the chance to ride in the higlands.
The ride to Fort William was great, the scenery was amazing and to top it off we didn't have any more incidents,
just a few of the pics from that leg....
Next day we had found out why Nige's wheel was still locking up and fixed it so off we went heading for John O'Groats. Again it rained hard from Loch Ness to past Inverness which soaked me to the skin yet again. Nige was happy because he finally got to ride on some Scottish roads and I was starting to open the GT kit up a little bit more as it had over 800 miles on it by now.
At one point the Fog was so bad that you couldn't see 100 yards ahead so I took the opportunity to sod off and stretch the GT's legs a little just so I could get to the finish before Jon Ashford who had taken great delight in ripping the piss out of me on each evening about how slow I was going lol
All in all a great four days with great company which ended up in a Wetherspoon's in WIck where we were the last people to get thrown out quite a while after closing time lol.
Loads happened over the four days but ive tried to sum it up and make as brief as I can. I videoed much of the trip but ill post the videos when I get round to uploading them.
Roll on Davos
PS...so far I have raised over my target of £500 for cancer research.
If you haven't already giving to one of the others please help us raise more for this worthwhile charity.
http://www.justgiving.com/Eden-Bakewell
by weeks » Wed May 28, 2014 3:33 pm 
and even more amazed you rode the chopper on the last leg 
