InvictaMoto's Red Pepé Blog

In the end real life got in the way so no MAG Demo or Rocket III Run to the Ace Café. I wheeled Pepé out of the garage and fitted up the TomTom with the amended route to AFC Wimbledon ready to rock. Luckily after the hottest and driest day of the year on Thursday  (temp up to 27°C) it was still dry and warm today. With the forecast showing dry all day I pulled the Joe Rocket jacket from the wardrobe and back to kevlar cargo pants. The road into Hythe was a mile long of traffic and so I went out through the country lanes to the motorway. It took a little longer as there were cyclists riding three a breast on a road barely wide enough for two cars to pass. A bip on the horn had them scattered but hurling abuse. Had they met a car coming head on they might have been calling 999/911. Once on the M20 I dialled up to an indicated 75mph that TomTom said was more like 70. TomTom was suggesting 90 minutes for the journey and it seemed to pass pretty easily. Even the M25 was relatively...

Should be another easy to get 5E for the 50-50 Challenge with this ride. I went last year to the corresponding game and the weather was quite good. Not raining at least. It's too far away at the moment, 8 days, for an accurate forecast. One of my nieces, Eleanor, works at the Met Office and that doesn't help!  I expect some old recluse with a pine cone can predict as well as they can!

What can I say about the ride from home to Southend. On Google Maps it shows a distance of 34 miles, as the crow flies. Once it works out the route that changes to more like 81 miles depending on the way you go. With the 1945 kick off as the last time I could get there, counting back and allowing for traffic,  I set off at 1615.  Traffic was relatively light on the M20 considering the hour, but as I got nearer  London it started to build. The swoop from M20 to M25 is quite a nice experience as long as there is clear road and Pepe managed it at the legal limit without any trauma. That’s when I was faced with a four lane wall of traffic all crawling along at walking pace. Even filtering through between the outside two lanes I lost over 20 minutes getting from the M20/M25 junction to the tunnel itself.  The last couple of miles had cars and trucks at a standstill, and it was the same for the tunnel itself. There was a brief respite from this when we started to ...