Much as I love riding, there’s not a trace
of masochist in my DNA. As soon as it starts getting uncomfortable or stressful
or painful, I don’t want to know.
Simon Weir’s 1000-mile ride seemed like
some sort of typographical error. In the same way that the buzz you get after one
pint is a better feeling than the tree-shagging, cone-nicking, kebab-puking
nonsense that descends after 10 pints, surely 100 miles is closer to the
optimum distance for a day’s ride. It certainly is for me.
In this case Simon wasn’t doing 1000 miles
for fun – it was a mix of fund-raising and research (the kind of research
carried out by deranged Americans who operate on their own brains), but it’s quite
close to the sort of thing he does do for fun. He’s not trying to impress
anyone – he just likes riding long distances. I’m not trying to impress anyone
either – I just like riding short distances.
Take Thursday April 26. I had some luggage
and clothing to test. I had some secondhand bikes to look at. I had a Kawasaki
Versys 1000 I was very keen to ride for the first time. Everybody else was out
on proper big trips, so there was nobody here to tell me to hold the fort. So
off I went, with a minimal plan and no timetable – it’ll take as long as it
takes.
I had a vague route in my head, starting
and finishing at home in Northampton, aiming to use a mix of familiar and
unfamiliar roads. The route itself is unimportant, but I was pretty pleased
with how it turned out. I took the A508 south out of Northampton then crossed
over to the A5 using the minor road through Stoke Bruerne, home of a canal
museum and some hugely popular weekend food pubs. I turned left on the A5 to
the Super Sausage – a brilliant biker café – just before Potterspury, south of
Towcester.
After a rain-dodging stop here for a late breakfast
I carried on down the A5 to the junction with the A422, and on to Buckingham. The
422 isn’t as dull and straight as it looks on the map.
Just before Buckingham town centre, I
turned left on to the A413 towards Aylesbury. There’s a particularly excellent
four miles from Winslow to Whitchurch – it reminded me of parts of the TT
course I’d been riding the previous week. I turned right at Whitchurch on to
the minor road signed for Oving and Quainton. It’s twisty pretty much all the
way to the A41, although the surface isn’t always great.
You take the A41 west through the
neo-Renaissance oddity of Waddesdon and in a few minutes you’re at On Yer Bike,
or Ducati Aylesbury – one shop, two names.
There was no burger van today, but there
are always other reasons to visit OYB. I checked out the boots in the excellent
clothing department and daydreamed about getting one of the original air-cooled
MTS1000 Multistradas. They had two: a 2004 bike with matching top box and
panniers and Termignoni exhausts for £3999 and a lower-mileage, more standard
2003 one for £3499.
Then I took a bit more A41 as far as Bicester,
where the erratically signed ring road will do its best to stop you picking up
the A4421 and 421 towards Buckingham. The A4421 is really good. A lot of it has
those curious 50 limits but everybody seemed to be treating it as a general
guideline, not a rule.
Then after a few slightly confused minutes
in Buckingham I found the sign for the A413 to Maids Moreton and up to the A43
just north of Silverstone. This bit of A413 feels oddly French – something to
do with the trees at the roadside – and oddly unfamiliar given how close I’ve
lived to it for a couple of decades. A real find.
Then I was back on the A5, this time just
north of Towcester, and it was time for a cup of coffee at Jack’s Hill Café. I
know: a great biker-friendly café just south of Towcester, and another one just
north of Towcester. And the area is oddly well provided with burger vans too.
It’s as if there’s a parallel community of A-road users who shun the nearby M1
and M40 and their frantic, sweaty, expensive service stations, and instead enjoy
the more civilised pleasures of food cooked to order by real humans who are
happy to chat.
Then I took some twisty backroads in the
rain and returned to Northampton. Total mileage, more by luck than judgement,
was just a smidge over 100 miles.
I didn’t nearly fall asleep. I didn’t
hallucinate. I didn’t stand on petrol station forecourts snorting coffee and
guzzling cereal bars. I didn’t get into any rows with soldiers. I didn’t raise
a penny for charity, but then again I didn’t use more than about £20 worth of
petrol.
It was a textbook showery April day. I was
wearing proper waterproof kit head to toe, but that doesn’t make riding in the
rain fun. My relaxed schedule meant I was able to sit out the worst of the
weather in the cafes, doing a bit of work and catching up on some phone calls,
and then enjoy the drier spells out on the road. I also didn’t need to consult
a map and didn’t need to switch on my sat nav.
More fundamentally, I was engaging with the
places around me, happy being where I am, not wishing the ride away by willing
myself to the end. I was enjoying seeing the birds of prey and the rainbows,
admiring the architecture, and on a couple of occasions turning around and
riding a particularly good stretch again, just for the hell of it.
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