SS1000 2/11/08 John Young

 

In 2007, I attended the WATOC annual meeting as a representative of the T.O.M.C.C.  I was so impressed with the passion shown by the various representatives of the other European Triumph clubs that I put it to the committee of the TR3OC that we should affiliate ourselves to the organisation.  Whilst the reaction of the TR3OC membership to the WATOC Challenge has been a big disappointment for me, nonetheless I planned to represent the club at the 2008 WATOC annual meeting, which this year, was being hosted by the Swedish Triumph club in the town of Kungalvs.  Kungalvs lies just to the north of Gothenburg.  I had always planned to travel there on a bike.  It’s a bike event, ergo I go on a bike.  A fairly simple rule, which unless there is absolutely no way around the issue, I attempt to strictly adhere to.  Any smart-arse reading this, will at this point refer back to Beezumph 17 and the fact I didn’t go on a bike.  I would however ask this question - How could I transport 14 Americans and their luggage on the back of a T160 ? J J J

 

During 2008, I had become aware of an organisation called the I.B.A. (Iron Butt Association – check out www.ironbutt.com or the “UK” arm www.ironbuttuk.org ) and the more I read stories of some of the rides that their members did, the more appealing the concept of joining became.  The one problem that I faced though was the entry requirements.  The only way to join the “club” is to do one of the qualifying rides, the minimum one being 1000 miles in 24 hours.  The ride itself would present no problems, having done these distances in this sort of timescale many times before.  The problem actually was finding the opportunity to do the ride and to then be in a position to have it validated.  Whilst Sonia can comfortably cover 600 miles in a day, probably pushing for those last 400 miles would not be enjoyable for her at the moment.  In addition, I prefer trips to actually have a purpose rather than just riding around in a big circle somewhere.  With Sonia now coming with me on most of the overseas trips, the opportunities were limited therefore.  But the location of the WATOC meeting was then announced.

 

A quick perusal of the trip with the RAC Route planner suggested that travelling via Calais, there was no way that you could travel from home to Kungalvs or vica-versa without having completed well over 1000 miles.  OK, game on ………

 

My original plan had been to use one of my proper bikes, in particular the Slippery Sam Replica.  The rather “unfortunate” incident on the way back from Valensole three weeks previously had put paid to that notion and whilst I have every confidence that any of my Meriden triples could do the job, the SSR is the only one that I know that I could comfortably ride for that length of time.  “Wimping” out therefore, I decided to use the Hinckley Daytona 955i.

 

The weekend before the ride, myself and Sonia were invited by Rocket III rider and IBA member, Pete West to join the UK IBA on a “ride to eat” outing which was being held only a few miles from our home.  There I got talking to other IBA folk and by the time I was riding back home, I had formulated yet another twist to my original idea.

 

In the beginning, I had planned to take a leisurely two day trip, over the Thursday and Friday up to Kungalvs (Gothenburg actually was where I would be staying), then attend the WATOC meeting on the Saturday and finally use the trip home to reel off a qualifying SS1000 ride.  However with a very slight change to the plan, I figured if I travelled the long way through the Netherlands and then the long way around to Copenhagen via Kolding, I could do a SS1600k (1600 kilometres in 24 hours, but the entire ride has to be in a kilometre based area i.e. Europe) on the way there.  I could then enjoy a nice overnight stay in Gothenburg, then attend the meeting on the Saturday and finally use the ride home to notch up my SS1000.  What a good plan !!

 

On the Wednesday night, I gave the Daytona a once over, sorted out my riding gear (including my new “claw” gloves) and packed the tank bag with all of the bits and pieces that I’d need for both the rides and the meeting.  I didn’t need a map as I’d ridden this part of Europe so many times before that the route I was taking was clearly lodged in my head.  With everything ready, I took the opportunity to have an early night.

 

The next morning, I was away from home by 7.20am.  I had booked a lunchtime shuttle and since I had decided to start my SS1600k ride at the petrol station at the Chunnel terminal on the French side, meant that I could have a fairly leisurely ride down to Folkestone, the only real requirement being to be on time for the train !!  I actually had the best part of an hour to kill at the terminal even after having a late breakfast and changing some currency.  One thing that had been noticeable though was exactly how cold the ride down had been.  Earlier in the week and for the first time for many years, snow had fallen across much of England and the country had been subject to extremely low temperatures for October.  I had been paying particular attention to this, since the weather forecasts had all made the point that the cold air had come across from Scandinavia – just where I was heading !!!  Mmmmm …..

 

Arriving at the Calais terminal, I rode off the train and around to the fuel station.  The receipt for my fuel purchase showed the time as 2.18 pm.  Having filled the tank, I accosted a rather startled Scotsman who, up until I approached him, had been minding his own business quietly filling up his car.  I briefly explained what I was doing and that I needed a start witness for possible verification of the ride.  Although after I had informed him of exactly where I was heading to over the next 24 hours and judging by the look he gave me, he clearly thought I was some sort of lunatic, he signed off my witness documentation and headed off in the warmth of his car.  I pulled on my helmet, fired up the bike, flicked up the side stand, snuck into first gear and pulled away from the forecourt.  The ride had begun.

 

For a while, I followed the route that I use so often - along the E40/A16 towards first Ostend and then onto Gent.  At Gent, I picked up the E17/A14 and up towards Antwerp.  After following the Antwerp ring road anticlockwise, the E19/A1 took me up to the Belgium/Dutch border just south of Breda.  I was just under two and a half hours and 243 km into the ride as I refilled the bike for the first time on the trip, at the last service area in Belgium at Minderhout.  I had been able to maintain a fast average speed up to this point.  I knew however, from past experiences, that the next leg of the journey as I negotiated Amsterdam, especially as it was approaching rush hour, was going to be a little torturous.

 

After crossing the border, I again followed my normal route up through the Netherlands towards Utrecht, using the E312/A58 and then E311/A27.  At Utrecht, normally if I was heading up towards Scandinavia, I would swing right and follow the E30/A1.  However in order to ride over 1600 kilometres between Calais and Gothenburg, I needed to make a slight detour.  

 

Turning off onto the E25/A2 to begin with and then following the E35/A2 took me up towards Amsterdam and increasingly heavy traffic.  Perhaps at this stage for people who are not frequent travellers in Europe, I need to explain the road numbering system.  Throughout Europe, each country has it’s own road numbering system, just as we do in Britain.  However, where we differ from the continent, is that Europe has also adopted an “E” numbering system to run parallel with it’s own.  For example the E40 in France is the A16, in Belgium it is the A18, A10 and A3.  In Germany, it’s amongst others the A4 and A45.  The E40 then continues to run east, passing through Poland and then the Ukraine, with an alternative national road number along its’s entire length.  The “E” numbered roads follow this pattern throughout Europe.  But back to the road trip.

 

At Amsterdam, I joined the A10 ring road and followed it anticlockwise until I was able to turn off and onto the E22/A7.  I would now follow this road for over 600 kilometres.

 

The road would take me across the Afsluitdijk that is the dyke that blocks off the inland sea in the north of Holland.  At the end of the dyke there is a petrol station and I felt that this was a good place to fill up and get that all important receipt!!  As I pulled into the service station, it was just turned 7.30pm.  By now it had been dark for a while and the further north (and then east) I was travelling, the colder it was becoming.  My trip showed 469km since leaving Calais, well over a quarter of the distance gone and I had only been on the road five and a quarter hours.  Since I was making such good progress, I was already starting to think of taking a decent break overnight.

 

The next leg of the journey would take me into Germany and onto Bremen.  From Bremen, I would just pick up my normal route into Scandinavia.  Place names that are so familiar to me sped by in the early evening. Sneek, Drachten, Groningen (where we had been with Craig and Carol Vetter only a few weeks previously) and then the last big town in the Netherlands, Winschoten.  I was now in Germany and the E22 had become the A28.

 

Between Oldenburg and Bremen I needed fuel again.  It was 21.40pm and I was 684 kilometres along the route.  I had worked hard to build up some rest time and so after filling up, I rode onto Bremen, headed for the city centre and took a room in the IBIS hotel for a nice break.  My trip reading was 764 km as I switched off the Daytona.  I knew that when I set out the next morning and once I was past Hamburg (which is only about 60 miles on from Bremen), any traffic congestion would dissipate and I could “stretch the legs” of the 955i.  I figured that the remaining 900 kilometres or so, I could easily cover in 8 hours and so I set my alarm for 3.30am, aiming to be on the road for 4.00am and giving me a good five hour sleep.

 

I pulled out of the car park at 4.06am on the Friday morning.  Well refreshed after a good sleep, the only little hurdle that I knew that I needed to overcome now, was the last few hours of darkness and the biting cold that early morning in late Autumn sometimes brings in Europe.  At Hamburg, I bade farewell, at least for a few days, to my old friend the “E22” and headed directly north on the E45/A7.  Having filled up again just north of Hamburg, by 6.30am, I was ready for some breakfast and pulled into the service area at Huttner Berge Ost, just to the north of Kiel.  The trip on the bike read 981km. 

 

This stop served several purposes.  For one thing, I needed food.  I hadn’t eaten since the fuel stop at the Afsluitdijk the previous evening.  Secondly, I had been riding through some very cold, very wet mist for the last 50 or so miles and a quick stop, with dawn breaking as it was, would give the mist time to clear before I’d be back on the road.  Even though the temperature had been not much above freezing, I’d been very comfortable riding along – especially my hands.  The previous week, I’d purchased myself a pair of two fingered gloves.  Whilst being impractical for giving errant car drivers either the one finger or two fingered salute, they were at least, combined with under gloves, keeping my hands lovely and warm.

 

I stopped for just under half hour, but even after that short a period of time, with the sun now having risen, the mist had gone and the air temperature quickly rose.  Crossing into Denmark, the road dual numbering system seems to end for a while, with the main roads just seemingly using the “E” numbers.  The E45 continued to take me north until I reached Kolding, where I swung right and onto the E20.  I would follow this road for the remaining 600 or so kilometres up to Gothenburg.

 

I crossed the first of the three bridges that join the three main islands of Denmark to each other and then to Sweden.  As I crossed from Jutland to Fyn, I potentially encountered the only problem that I would have with the validation of the ride.  No sooner had I crossed onto the Island of Fyn, the low fuel warning light came on – a little earlier than normal.  Looking back this was not surprising, since as the traffic had eased, so the speed I travelled at had increased, in a more or less proportional manner !!  One problem that the Daytona has is that at anything like normal speeds it’s very economical.  If you start twisting that right hand grip a little more aggressively, fuel consumption falls away dramatically – and that is what had happened here.  I knew however from previous trips along this route that at Junction 57 (the very next junction as it happened), there was a service area just off the motorway - two or three years ago on our way up to a rally in Sweden, myself and Sonia had taken shelter at this fuel station from a rain storm that had threatened to wash us away.  I quickly found the station (an automatic one), filled the bike up and then realised that I couldn’t understand the instructions (in Danish) as to how to obtain a receipt !!!  I figured that if I just recorded both the amount of fuel and the time, then rode for a few more miles and filled up again (this time making sure I got a receipt) that this course of action, coupled with the receipt that I had somewhat fortuitously kept from my breakfast a couple of hours earlier, should suffice for the validation process (at least I hoped it would !!) -  and so that’s what I did.  Forty miles further on at Nyborg, just before the bridge from Fyn to Sjaeland, I squeezed just under a gallon into the tank – and got a receipt …...

 

The two bridges from firstly Fyn to Sjaeland and then from Sjaeland to Sweden are spectacular feats of engineering.  Both are toll bridges – the second beginning as a tunnel - but worth ever penny of the cost of the toll just for the experience of riding across such huge creations.

 

Having entered Sweden, the road dual numbering returned, the E20 motorway also being known as the E06.  It was 11.00am as I filled up the bike for what I suspected was the last time before Gothenburg, at a service area just to the north of Malmo.  The trip read 1429km.

 

All that then remained was to reel off the final few miles (kilometres) to Gothenburg.  I rode through a couple of rainstorms, both of them heavy, but both mercifully short, but by now, in the main, I was riding in bright (albeit still chilly) sunshine.  The trip clicked over (does a digital speedo “click” ? ) the 1600 km mark around 12.45pm and by the time I had reached the hotel it was reading 1662 km, almost exactly what the RAC Route planner had suggested the distance was – I had always suspected that the speedometer on the Daytona was fairly accurate.  The only slight fright that I had was that it had taken me nearly an hour, once I was in Gothenburg to actually find the hotel.  As a precaution, as soon as I dropped off the E20 and into the city, I had filled the bike up and got a “back-up” credit card voucher.  Nevertheless, with my “checking in” invoice showing a time of 13.54, I had actually still got an entire 24 minutes to spare !!!  I asked one of the receptionists at the hotel to be my “end of ride” witness, which she duly agreed to.  After parking the bike up, I went up to my room and enjoyed a nice long soak in the bath.  I spent the remainder of the afternoon/evening just “chilling out” (actually literally – the temperature dropped overnight to -4c).

 

The next day, was the WATOC meeting.  The actual place where the meeting was to be held was about 15 miles north of Gothenburg at Kunglavs.  By the time I had eaten breakfast and checked out, it was past 9.00am.  The side roads though were still white over from the heavy frost and so I somewhat gingerly picked my way back to the E20 to cover the last few miles.  The thought did occur to me, as the bike tyres were struggling for proper grip that when I set out on the return journey home later, I was probably going to have a very cold first few hundred miles ……

 

I suppose and somewhat not surprisingly, I was the only one (read idiot !!) of the representatives from the TOMCC Sweden, TOC Netherlands, Club Triton France, TOMCC Denmark, TOMCC UK and TOMCC Germany to turn up on a bike, the rest haven either driven or flown in.  Even so, I actually still felt a bit of a fraud with me representing the TR3OC but turning up on a Hinckley bike. 

 

With the meeting not due to commence until after lunch and having taken in my second breakfast of the day, I went for a walk down into the town almost immediately bumping into Andre Chardin of the French Club.  I then spent the remainder of the morning with Andre, mainly drinking coffee in one of the cafes in the town and putting the world to rights as only “grumpy old men” can do !!  I had last seen Andre a few weeks earlier as me and Sonia had left the Verdon rally in temperatures somewhat higher than they were now.

 

After lunch (a fish stew - some sort of local dish and very tasty), the WATOC meeting began and fortunately again was conducted entirely in English !!  It is always interesting to hear how the other Triumph clubs are doing and their approach to the same sort of problems that the TR3OC has to deal with.  Getting the large part of the membership to actually do things still seems to be a major issue throughout the clubs.  Each one has a hard core of members that are “do-ers” and each club also seem to have a hard core of members who seem to prefer to live their biking lives through the exploits of others.  The internet has clearly contributed to this.  There are now so many chat rooms and “virtual” bike clubs that seemingly actually owning a bike and then having the temerity to ride it, seems to be no longer a requirement of being a biker !!!! JJJ

 

In my recent “Chairmans Bit” for Triple Echo and also in a letter to Nacelle, the TOMCC magazine, I included a poem that I had come across that aptly sums up the problem that many clubs (and not just bike clubs) suffer from.  It’s worth reproducing here.

 

DO YOU JUST BELONG ?

 

Are you an active member

The kind that would be missed.

Or are you just contented,

That your name is on the list

 

Do you attend the meetings

And mingle with the lot

Or do you just stay away

And criticise and knock

 

Do you take an active part

To help the show along

Or are you satisfied to be

The kind that just belong

 

Do you ever go and visit

Or call on a member who is sick

Or leave the work to just a few

And then call them a clique

 

Think this over fellow member

You know the right from wrong

Be an active member

And do not just belong

 

Amongst the various topics on the agenda were the dates of the 2009 rallies.  Myself and Sonia have attended fewer rallies in 2008 than we have done for a while.  Looking back over the year, clearly the trips to the USA and Russia and then the involvement in the organisation of the Beezumph Rally played havoc with our European trips JJ !!!  We promise to do better next year …….

 

By about 5.00 pm the meeting was beginning to draw to a close.  Next years annual meeting is going to be held in Germany – a hell of a lot closer to home for me !!  After the photocall of the attendees, I started to prepare to leave.

 

As I had ridden into Kungalvs I had noticed a Shell service station on the outskirts of the town.  Although this was again an automatic station I took advice from one of the Swedish guys as to how exactly I obtained a receipt. With one of the Dutch delegates acting as my start witness and having squeezed a gallon or so into the tank (and got the bloody receipt), I set off southwards.

 

The plan for the ride home was to do a SS1000. (1000 miles in 24 hours).  In the main, I would follow the same route across Europe that I had taken coming up with two notable changes.  Since the 221 miles from Folkestone to home would take me comfortably past the 1000 mile mark for the journey was the reason that I could take the direct route back to Calais.  Riding directly back to Calais meant that I would take the ferry from Rodby (in the south of the isle of Sjaeland) to Puttgarden thus cutting out the loop via Kolding and would not need to ride the long way through the Netherlands either, simply being able to ride directly across the country.

 

The first 150 miles down to the service station just to the north of Malmo was unbelievably cold.  Given that the air temperature was already minus 4/5, the addition of whatever the wind chill factor is at 70 - 80 mph, meant that the hot chocolate that I had once the bike was filled up was a very welcoming blessing.

 

I continued along the E20 and again crossed the bridge (Oresundsbron) linking Sweden to Denmark.  However once over the bridge and having ridden past the southern end of Copenhagen, rather than continue to follow the E20 westwards (and after topping the bike up again - I knew that fuel stations would become few and far between for a couple of hundred miles or so), I turned left onto the E47/E55 and headed due south making for the ferry terminal at Rodby.  It was just before 11.00pm when I bought my ticket for the short sea crossing to Puttgarden.  My tripometer (I had now switched the digital readout back to miles) read 303 miles.

 

One of the benefits of using the ferry service is that is gave me the opportunity to have a break and a decent meal (or as decent as ferry food ever is of course), but by just past midnight, the ferry had docked and I was riding away from the boat and back into the dark of the night.  At least the temperature had risen considerably some 350 mile further south of my start point and it was now quite pleasant, if sometimes damp, riding conditions.  For a while I was riding along the E47/A1 before rejoining my old friend from a day or so earlier, the E22.

 

Having again topped up the bike at Neustadt, I was soon south of Hamburg.  It was now approaching 2.00am and I had ridden over 400 miles since leaving Kungalvs some 8 hours earlier.  One of the features of the German motorway system is the frequency of motels at service areas and since I was now well ahead of schedule, I took the opportunity to take a room and have a couple of hours sleep in a bed.

 

Once again, after barely a couple of hours sleep I felt well refreshed.  I am very lucky that I do not tend to either get or in fact need much sleep probably having no more on average than maybe 5 hours per night and so by 4.45am, I was back on the bike and rejoining the E22.  From the motel, my route home took me first onto Bremen before leaving the E22/A1 and taking the E37/A1 towards Osnabruck.  I was now riding along roads that were so familiar to me that all I really had to concentrate on was my actual riding.  From Osnabruck, I picked up the E30/A30, the road that would take me back into the Netherlands.

 

By 7.20am I was at the German/Dutch border.  Having again ridden through some cold early morning mist, I decided to take a break and have a light breakfast.  A bigger meal could wait until later in the day.  As I pulled up at the service area (formerly the customs buildings), I checked my trip reading.  It showed 581 miles.  The route planner suggested that the total distance home using the route that I was taking was just a shade under 1100 miles.  Actually I already knew that I had only 500 miles to ride even before I did the mental calculation – remember these are roads and routes that I travel on three maybe four times a year.  The German/Dutch border crossing at Bad Bentheim is one of those places that I just know is 500 miles from home !!

 

After breakfast, it was just simply a case of following the E30/A1 as far as Utrecht before heading south, using exactly the same route that I had used two days earlier.  I needed a fuel stop at Apeldoorn and then again at Gent before arriving back at the Channel tunnel terminal at Calais.  It was 12.10pm when I checked in at the booths and my trip read 881 miles.  By a stroke of luck I arrived just as a train was loading.  Ignoring, as usual, my allotted time, I was on the train within 15 minutes and by 12.29am I was back on the UK side (remember that I had just gained an hour in the switch from C.E.T., Central European Time to G.M.T, Greenwich Mean Time) so in reality it was actually an hour later.  Not that this was too much of an issue.  I had almost four and a half hours to cover the remaining 221 miles to home.

 

Following first the M20, then the M26 and then onto the M25, I filled up at Clacketts Lane Service Area.  This seems to be a popular “fill-up” location for UK IBA members.  Following the M25 clockwise, I left it eventually joining first the M40, then the M42 and finally the M6 Toll Road.  My end of ride point was the Tollbooths at the north end of the Toll road.  The ticket showed the time to be 15.53 pm GMT (16.53 CET).  I still had over a full hour to spare and that included all of the breaks that I had taken.  The last job was to get my “End of Ride” witness and with that task completed, I rode the last 5 miles home.  Job done !!!  All I needed to do now was to collect all of the paperwork together and send it off for validation.  That will be done over the next couple of weeks.

 

Looking back over the two rides, I still can’t help but feel I’ve cheated.  Doing them on a modern bike is fairly straight forward.  Remember that I had hotel breaks of nearly six hours going up and two hours coming back (as well as the ferry crossing and the tunnel crossing on the SS1000 run).  Given that I’m the Chairman of the TR3OC then I should really use proper triples to do these rides on.  I have a plan to put that right by the end of January 2009 – Watch this space …….