Skip to main content

AMRR 2018

What kind of plum walks around the parking at the rendezvous looking for Rockets and forgets his own. Me?

At least my brother took one of his BMW and got Pepé in too




I was up early for a weekend. Alarm set for 0735 and on the road at 0830. The plan to stop for fuel and meet my brother.

Traffic was a little heavier than expected and I arrived at the Esso at Cobham on the A2 about 0920. Filled up and then had a coffee and pain chocolat.

Whilst waiting for Neill I had a chat with fellow Meldrew Ian who was in his truck and saw me pass him.

From Cobham it was a boring hour up the M25 and then M11 to the RDV at Cambridge Services.

A chat and then a wander around. It was very hot again. By the time I got there my legs and personals were a little hot too.

At least I had my bandana... I just need to grow a longer fuller beard to be a real biker.



There were around 300 bikes and as it worked out we were in the second row of the last column to leave.

I had a look for other Rockets and some decent classics.








Once we had heard the roll call of those that have passed in the last year, we fired up. And left. We left in rows like entering the ark... Two by two until it came to us.

It took ages to get out and onto the A14. Once again Cambridgeshire Police riders were superb. They closed junctions and between the bike cops and foot cops smoothed our way into Cambridge city and out to the Cemetery.


Parked and then hurried to the shade of the memorial wall. The service takes about 30 minutes and although somber the memorial site is peaceful and beautifully kept.

The rows of crosses of the 3812 men and women killed and have a known burial are a reminder of the role that the US played in WW2 in the air from the bomber groups.

The 5217 names of the missing are engraved on the memorial wall. One of those is Major Alton Miller AAF.




Once over we set off back home. We had a football match from Russia at Neill's place.

England playing Sweden in Moscow in the World Cup.

Amazingly you can be biker and a football fan despite the puerile comments on biker related social media sites.

England won 2-0.

After the game I was off home. With us riding about 70mph in both directions I had hoped to get home without another pit stop.

As I approached Ashford the "miles to empty" was showing 22 miles. Not trusting it I stopped at Tesco. I squeezed 18.54 litres into the allegedly 24 litre tank.....

Another 5E for the 50/50 Challenge.






posted from Bloggeroid

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bikers Loft 3

The last day. After leading yesterday's run to Ypres, I decided to take a back seat, or a different place in the line of 8 bikes. And so after a repeat of the previous day's self cook breakfast we packed the bikes and headed off. Aiming for Nieuwpoort aan Zee as the first stop. The plan to follow a canal all the way there to where it meets the sea at a huge marina. I was bringing up the rear of the column and saw a sign like this one. "No Motor vehicles" After only one short section of the towpath/road. We tried to alert those ahead but Cal and I were the only two not heading past this sign. We chose to turn left across a lift bridge onto the other bank, where Nieuwpoort was signposted 15kms away. As we headed along we sounded our horns and waved at the "first wave" to no avail. Some miles further on their side came to an end. By then we were way ahead despite dropping the speed to 40. We carried onto t...

Screen fitted

Today I was working from home after the trains were cancelled and I came home from the station!  I did a bit of work, you can only do what is in front of you on the helpdesk software, and so  I had a late lunch and decided to have a look at the screen fittings. In the end, it was a 90 minute lunch and it is fitted. The four brackets have to be done one at a time, offering up the screen each time before tightening them in place. In the end it looks pretty central.  No time to test it today. That will have to wait until the weekend. Fitted! The instructions are pretty rubbish, and look like an eighth generation photocopy of the original drawing. Still, the photo on Skidmarx website was marginally better. My positioning looks a little different but it seems rigid. Only a test ride will tell if it is okay.

Bikers Loft 2

We were up reasonably after a latish night and the self cook dinner! Breakfast is included in the room rate and is also self service as well as self cook. I'm not used to eating breakfast and so opted for the continental style rather than the bacon and eggs style!  The rooms are pretty basic. I shared with Trevor and we had two single beds. A little re-jigging of the room ensured that there was a man-gap between the beds! Early suggestions for the Saturday ride out had been to the Wire of Death. An electric fence that was built by the German occupation army in 1915 from the coast at Knokke to the German border, and just inside the Belgian frontier. It was to stop Belgians escaping into neutral Netherlands.  Over the course of the war it claimed over a 1000 lives. Read more.  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_of_Death I can't tell you any more as we didn't go!! In the end we decided on Ypres, only  30 miles aw...