1200 Miles And A Week On The Road
by
Felix Oliver
The family went off to the out-laws for two weeks, leaving me home, and I saw that Paul was doing his camp at Sedbergh on the 4th-6th, and the following weekend Julie, Gail and Norm were doing a camping weekend on the 11th-13th, so I flashed out a few emails saying that I was planning to get to both.
 I had an exhaust pipe arriving via eBay, which arrived on Wednesday, back from work late that night so didn’t get it fitted.
Thursday evening I had to get it sorted out, again I got back at about 9ish as I had to collect a few bits for the next day, cooked my supper and changed the exhaust and the oil, finishing at about midnight. Up again at 5.30am to get to work on Friday morning,
 The plan was to leave Friday night, whiz up to Paul’s camp, arriving late or early as it would have been after 300 miles, spend the
day with the camp and do the run, then whiz off to the out-laws in Inverness, doing the same on the way down at the Ulleskelf camp as well
 Friday night got home at about 8ish cooked my supper, packed up and was ready at about 10.30pm. I thought that six hours run would be a bit much so thought I would leave early, set the three alarm clocks and the phone to 4am.
 At 7.30am I woke. Blast, ho-hum, so set off after a wee bit of breakfast, filled up with petrol at Tesco and joined the A14 at Bury
St Edmunds. By the time I had got to Cambridge the battery warning light was winking, but the lights seemed bright and so I thought that I would carry on.
 A few miles on the oil warning light was winking, so pulled off the road and had a look – plenty of oil.
   While I was crawling around the bike some other biker stopped to ask if I was OK, which was very nice of him. Well, Mr Nash
can always take me home again, so I carried on, got to the Cambridge service station and bought some oil and water for the battery, which I put a drop or two in after unpacking the bike.
 Back on the A14, oil light had stopped winking, joined the A1 heading north, bike was getting a bit noisy and at one roundabout sounded like a tractor. One exhaust nut had fallen off.
 At the next petrol stop I had to wait an age to pay as their computers had gone down, so
I pushed the bike out of the way and borrowed one of the nuts form the top box andput it on the exhaust stud. That’s better.
 After the next roundabout I opened it up and I only saw the rev needle after it descended from 13000 rpm. Something must have happened because the battery warning light stayed off for the rest of the journey,
 I left the A1 at the A684 and stopped for a spot of lunch. It’s a lovely road, not too slow and not much traffic. Going round a right hand corner which was a bit sharp – and I may have been going a wee bit fast, I was lightly braking as I went round it – I felt the front wheel go. One of those moments that everyone dreads. Is this it then? The first dismounting at speed? Is it going to hurt?
What am I going to hit? I let the brake go and the bike righted itself and got round the corner, phew.
 Found the campsite at 2ish and Paul and gang were out so I left a note. I figured that I would get to Inverness at about 7ish so I
decided to push on. Lovely campsite with a nice river running by, shame that I had missed the camp. Had a look at my tyre and right hand side was bald. Oh.
 Back on the road and to the motorway, joined the M74 north and A9 up to Inverness arriving at 7ish where I was given a hearty
super by my wife washed down with a glass of cider. Hit the spot.
 I had a week of doing nothing. Great.
 Again I had planned to leave on Friday morning but due to the fact that the wheel was at the local bike shop, having a new tyre fitted, I got away on the Saturday morning with father-in-law saying that the east was having terrible weather so keep on the west. That suited me fine as I planned to go down the A82 past Loch Ness to Fort William though the Glencoe Valley, Glasgow, and join the A76 to Gretna Green then M6 home.
 I caught up to the rain north of Cambridge, which was heavy torrential type. The bike started to splutter a bit in the wet but carried on, arriving at home about midnight, bit dazed and wet as my suit had leaked at that spot. First time that’s happened.