by
Chris Baines
Saturday morning and I manage to wake up early. I can never manage to get to work on time but somehow,
when I’m hung-over and have nowhere to go, I go and wake up at 8.10.
Still, switch the telly on, what’ve we got. Loud cartoons, rubbish music and politicians talking about parking spaces, or something just as trivial that doesn’t matter to me. Slowly I come round to the idea, but I still don’t like it, that I may as well get out of bed. My bed is, of course, my second most favourite place to be, you understand.
Right, I’m up and I’m dressed but I still don’t know what I’m doing. Quick flick through the paper, magazines, and telly once more, to see if anything has changed in the world of Spongebob and Blair, (those 2 have always seemed like the same person, you never see them in the same room together), but nothing. Oh, hang about, Worrall Thompson waffling something about a chilli festival. I like chilli, me. He says it’s somewhere called West Eem?!? In East Sussex. Map out. Not a clue, nothing even close.
So with that consigned to the archives of my mind, I carry on with a side project, making way down the side of the garage for some allotment space. Apparently things are not in my favour there either, as I was being a bit loud about everything, and was kindly asked by my neighbours to “shut the hell up unless I want to be on the other end of the strimmer”. I could think of no other way to quietly cut back shrubbery so abandoned that idea too. I guess I was the only one to have woken up at the arse crack of dawn that morning then.
With that also abandoned I mentioned my earlier attempts at a ride-out to my mother who goes on to inform me that the place in question is spelt “Westham” but pronounced “West Eem”. Sounds like crap to me but hey, I’ve been wrong before and it’s still somewhere to go on a sunny Saturday in July. So I write down some directions on a post-it note and sellotape them to my petrol tank. Do some minor prep checks on the bike, tyre pressures, oil – both are black and one of them’s slippy so we’re good to go. I’m going to need fuel though, but not yet.
So I throw on my leather jacket and motocross boots, pull on my ever so plush Arai and the battered GT750 is wheeled out into the road. Got my wallet and money, which is always a bonus, and my phone is in my pocket. It has a decent camera on it for pictures and I see a phone as essential riding kit as the amount of phone boxes is dwindling and the ones that remain always seem to have been beaten up by yoofs.
And so I head off, south to Basingstoke. It wouldn’t be my normal choice of place to visit but it’s where the Alton road starts and that is one gorgeous stretch of tarmac. A nice blend of quick straights, challenging corners and fast sweeping bends and before you know it you’re in the quiet leafy suburbs of Alton. Now this is a nice place but I’m not here long as the gruelling A31 is calling.
The good thing, the only good thing about this road to Guildford is that, for me, it only goes to Guildford, via a short stint on the A3. It’s an uphill ride that appears to be uphill whichever direction you’re travelling in. It’s the sort of scenario that may have appeared in the mind of Douglas Adams. It does, however, end, and like most bad things something altogether great follows it.
The A281 is an immense serpent which should be taken slowly in order to be savoured. It snakes its way through some gorgeous countryside and little antiquated villages which have probably never changed since the war. There are plenty of attractions and distractions sign-posted from the road for those who are a little less “destination conscious” and want to take their time. Attractions such as the country’s smallest village or the largest undercover market. Also, various farms and shops selling everything from beeswax and honey to wines and ciders of varying strengths, which would no doubt have many a keen drinker on their backs within the half gallon.
Toward the end of this glorious road, you see a signpost for the “Devil’s Dyke”. It was intriguing enough at the time to warrant the thought of a visit but concluded that I’d visit it on the way back.
So with that in mind, it’s straight onto the A23 for three junctions south and as I really don’t like the roads around Brighton it’s a quick blatt east along the A27. A fairly uneventful road really, which passed by reasonably quickly thanks to the absence of all but one speed, sorry “safety camera”. At the end of the A27 is Westham, so I pulled off and made my way into the town. The thing is, though, I’m not seeing any thing remotely chilli related.
You’d have thought if it was worth a mention on the telly it would have been signposted. Okay, park up, walk into a pub, ask them. People in pubs know everything that goes on around them, I find and they sure knew what was going on around them. They also knew that there was no chilli festival in their town and that the man before them had just made the biggest numpty of himself in front of complete strangers over 100 miles from home. Suitably embarrassed by the whole affair, I decide once again to give up. I’m starting to need petrol by this point so with the bike freshly charged up I head toward Hastings.
When I was a kid, my parents took us on a caravan holiday down to Norman’s Bay in Hastings so I went down for a look to see how the place was. Unchanged is how it was, I half expected my two younger sisters to be chasing each other down the beachfront. After another breather, back on the faithful steed and time to make my way homeward, but not until after one more stop.
I had never been to Eastbourne before this trip, and I’ll tell anyone else, it’s a great place to visit. True South coast splendour, it could have been the 30s, the 40s or 50 years from now – it is a truly timeless place. A massive seafront and a very nice pier where I had a very nice haddock and chips for only £3. (I have a thing about cod, everyone bangs on about how stocks are dwindling but they all still eat it, why not go for haddock instead. It tastes the same; and all we have to do is not eat cod for two years and we’ll have more than we know what to do with! Rant over.)
Eastbourne Pier
So that’s dinner taken care of and we’re off
for the final time. Coast road I think, up one side and down the other
of Beachy Head, and along to Portsmouth via Brighton and Bognor. M27
onto M3 and back into Basingstoke again, before finally trundling the
bike back into the garage for a well deserved rest.
All in all, 248 miles despatched on a beautiful summer’s day. But more reassuringly, it was all done comfortably and on a 15-year-old, unfaired touring bike which I use every day to travel to and from work, and is my only transport. But then, I wouldn’t be in the club if I didn’t truly trust it, would I?
And I still never went back to the Devil’s Dyke. Next time I reckon. Maybe I could get a few more people together and we could make a real day of it in Brighton or anywhere else for that matter.
when I’m hung-over and have nowhere to go, I go and wake up at 8.10.
Still, switch the telly on, what’ve we got. Loud cartoons, rubbish music and politicians talking about parking spaces, or something just as trivial that doesn’t matter to me. Slowly I come round to the idea, but I still don’t like it, that I may as well get out of bed. My bed is, of course, my second most favourite place to be, you understand.
Right, I’m up and I’m dressed but I still don’t know what I’m doing. Quick flick through the paper, magazines, and telly once more, to see if anything has changed in the world of Spongebob and Blair, (those 2 have always seemed like the same person, you never see them in the same room together), but nothing. Oh, hang about, Worrall Thompson waffling something about a chilli festival. I like chilli, me. He says it’s somewhere called West Eem?!? In East Sussex. Map out. Not a clue, nothing even close.
So with that consigned to the archives of my mind, I carry on with a side project, making way down the side of the garage for some allotment space. Apparently things are not in my favour there either, as I was being a bit loud about everything, and was kindly asked by my neighbours to “shut the hell up unless I want to be on the other end of the strimmer”. I could think of no other way to quietly cut back shrubbery so abandoned that idea too. I guess I was the only one to have woken up at the arse crack of dawn that morning then.
With that also abandoned I mentioned my earlier attempts at a ride-out to my mother who goes on to inform me that the place in question is spelt “Westham” but pronounced “West Eem”. Sounds like crap to me but hey, I’ve been wrong before and it’s still somewhere to go on a sunny Saturday in July. So I write down some directions on a post-it note and sellotape them to my petrol tank. Do some minor prep checks on the bike, tyre pressures, oil – both are black and one of them’s slippy so we’re good to go. I’m going to need fuel though, but not yet.
So I throw on my leather jacket and motocross boots, pull on my ever so plush Arai and the battered GT750 is wheeled out into the road. Got my wallet and money, which is always a bonus, and my phone is in my pocket. It has a decent camera on it for pictures and I see a phone as essential riding kit as the amount of phone boxes is dwindling and the ones that remain always seem to have been beaten up by yoofs.
And so I head off, south to Basingstoke. It wouldn’t be my normal choice of place to visit but it’s where the Alton road starts and that is one gorgeous stretch of tarmac. A nice blend of quick straights, challenging corners and fast sweeping bends and before you know it you’re in the quiet leafy suburbs of Alton. Now this is a nice place but I’m not here long as the gruelling A31 is calling.
The good thing, the only good thing about this road to Guildford is that, for me, it only goes to Guildford, via a short stint on the A3. It’s an uphill ride that appears to be uphill whichever direction you’re travelling in. It’s the sort of scenario that may have appeared in the mind of Douglas Adams. It does, however, end, and like most bad things something altogether great follows it.
The A281 is an immense serpent which should be taken slowly in order to be savoured. It snakes its way through some gorgeous countryside and little antiquated villages which have probably never changed since the war. There are plenty of attractions and distractions sign-posted from the road for those who are a little less “destination conscious” and want to take their time. Attractions such as the country’s smallest village or the largest undercover market. Also, various farms and shops selling everything from beeswax and honey to wines and ciders of varying strengths, which would no doubt have many a keen drinker on their backs within the half gallon.
Toward the end of this glorious road, you see a signpost for the “Devil’s Dyke”. It was intriguing enough at the time to warrant the thought of a visit but concluded that I’d visit it on the way back.
So with that in mind, it’s straight onto the A23 for three junctions south and as I really don’t like the roads around Brighton it’s a quick blatt east along the A27. A fairly uneventful road really, which passed by reasonably quickly thanks to the absence of all but one speed, sorry “safety camera”. At the end of the A27 is Westham, so I pulled off and made my way into the town. The thing is, though, I’m not seeing any thing remotely chilli related.
You’d have thought if it was worth a mention on the telly it would have been signposted. Okay, park up, walk into a pub, ask them. People in pubs know everything that goes on around them, I find and they sure knew what was going on around them. They also knew that there was no chilli festival in their town and that the man before them had just made the biggest numpty of himself in front of complete strangers over 100 miles from home. Suitably embarrassed by the whole affair, I decide once again to give up. I’m starting to need petrol by this point so with the bike freshly charged up I head toward Hastings.
When I was a kid, my parents took us on a caravan holiday down to Norman’s Bay in Hastings so I went down for a look to see how the place was. Unchanged is how it was, I half expected my two younger sisters to be chasing each other down the beachfront. After another breather, back on the faithful steed and time to make my way homeward, but not until after one more stop.
I had never been to Eastbourne before this trip, and I’ll tell anyone else, it’s a great place to visit. True South coast splendour, it could have been the 30s, the 40s or 50 years from now – it is a truly timeless place. A massive seafront and a very nice pier where I had a very nice haddock and chips for only £3. (I have a thing about cod, everyone bangs on about how stocks are dwindling but they all still eat it, why not go for haddock instead. It tastes the same; and all we have to do is not eat cod for two years and we’ll have more than we know what to do with! Rant over.)
Eastbourne Pier
All in all, 248 miles despatched on a beautiful summer’s day. But more reassuringly, it was all done comfortably and on a 15-year-old, unfaired touring bike which I use every day to travel to and from work, and is my only transport. But then, I wouldn’t be in the club if I didn’t truly trust it, would I?
And I still never went back to the Devil’s Dyke. Next time I reckon. Maybe I could get a few more people together and we could make a real day of it in Brighton or anywhere else for that matter.