UK Touring

[Neil955i]

Just emailed my old riding buddy to lament how this one wasn't a feature of the touring landscape back in the 80's & 90's when we were at the peak of our touring prowess.  It's a 1,425-mile route on the very best roads the UK has to offer.  Do watch the embedded video.

https://mallelondon.com/rally/

Still very tempted mind – and you can sign up now for 2021...

[john grinsel]

Ain't cheap---what kind of riders have their bikes delivered home?  Trailer Bikers?  To me they are not fun to ride with.

[Neil955i]

Ain't cheap---what kind of riders have their bikes delivered home?  Trailer Bikers?  To me they are not fun to ride with.

No, £3+K not cheap by any reckoning, but nearly halve it by riding home?

I paid similar 25 years ago when touring the SW states in the US?...


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[Stig / Major Tom]

That looks pretty cool. Expensive - but those guys look like it's no problem....cheaper than another boat.

Don't think pack-riding would work with my 'poking along' noticing things & stopping for pix.
They look like they were having a blast, though.

Back in my late teens I 'toured' the USA on my thumb (w/backpack & guitar). Stopped twice to get a job.
Crossed 3 times from Mass to Calif.

 Dumb-lucked into spending April>Oct in a 2nd floor apt. 3 blocks from Golden Gate Park on Haight St. (see Haight-Ashbury in hx books)
Fellow down around the Big Sur picked me up in the coolest car (*blue & white 1957 Ford hardtop convertible) and took me into San Francisco.
The year was 1967. "The Summer of Love" in San Francisco. I was given room & board there,  by a chess hustler to be his cook....if you can imagine. His girlfriend was a sweetheart - worked as a stripper. They were really nice people - but, after 6 months --  I'd met a girl down in LA, and needed to get back there  (we married just before Xmas).

Ah, don't get me started. NO pix - no one had a camera in those days.
(have some wedding pix but that's all)
Stig

*

[Iahawk]

riding the length of the island...seeing all that beautiful scenery?...looks fantastic. Relax and have a few beers each night..sounds like my kind of riding!

and Stig...the interesting stories continue...living in Haight-Asbury in the summer of 67?? Seriously?  Man, to be fly on the wall back then..and see all that unfolding.

[Neil955i]

Thanks Stig for the Memories of ‘67.  I too was a teenager back then, but still at High School and it would be the following year before I got my first motorcycle. I may be biased, but I still think the late 60’s were a golden age for music. Saw Led Zepplin live in dingey Birmingham club in ‘68!


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[Stig / Major Tom]

Thanks Stig for the Memories of ‘67.  I too was a teenager back then, but still at High School and it would be the following year before I got my first motorcycle. I may be biased, but I still think the late 60’s were a golden age for music. Saw Led Zepplin live in dingey Birmingham club in ‘68!


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OK - a little history? and a funny story re. Led Zepp:
I extended my tour in Vietnam to get the 'early out' option when returning to The World. (returning with less than 60 days left to do after your tour - they just released you back to your Levis & wives)
Sitting on my bunker one morning late in my tour, I heard the  dam_edest racket coming from over at the Lurp bunker. I asked my buddy, "are the Lurps doing human sacrifices now?"

He laughed, "No Doc, that's the new Led Zeppelin tape man!"
I'm a folk music guy - attended concerts by Baez, Donovan, Ravi Shankar, Tom Rush, PP & Mary, Judy Collins, L Cohen, etc. I'd never heard anything like this!

The Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol boys were playing the Immigrant Song on their giant Teac tape system - and loud enough to move sand bags. (Lurps are pretty scary guys - they love to go out and get dropped in Indian Country at dusk by choppers, heavily armed but in teams of 4 or 5, and find the enemy. Gets real exciting when they get 'found' instead. They carried the famous Lurp rations - freeze dried meals - weighed nothing. Add water, put the pouch in your shirt - body heat turns it into pretty good meal in 1/2 hr)
So - that was my introduction to Led Zeppelin and that crazy song - and have never forgotten the circumstances.

Stig
 

[Neil955i]

Thanks again Tom for another interesting reminisce. I guess I must have a broad taste as of all the artists you mention the only ones I wouldn’t have rushed to see would be PP&M!  Getting to love Cohen more as I get older. Have you heard him reading his autobiography? Riveting stuff.


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[Viper254]

It's a cool rally but the stages are quite generic - I've done quite a lot of that on a different trip in 2017 and 2018 - first attempt on a a Suzuki Address 110, second attempt on a Kymco Like 200i.

The UK has some fantastic riding; the difficulty is always trying to find a quiet route into South Wales and circumventing London on the way back down if you're moving clockwise around the UK.

I grew up in Cornwall so know those stages extremely well.

[Neil955i]

It's a cool rally but the stages are quite generic - I've done quite a lot of that on a different trip in 2017 and 2018 - first attempt on a a Suzuki Address 110, second attempt on a Kymco Like 200i.

The UK has some fantastic riding; the difficulty is always trying to find a quiet route into South Wales and circumventing London on the way back down if you're moving clockwise around the UK.

I grew up in Cornwall so know those stages extremely well.

For S Wales, when I lived in West Midlands I used to hack down the A49 and use Monmouth as an access point for the Heads of the Valley road. Avoided the M5 like the plague!