One of my brothers lives 200 miles away in Sheffield and was organising a trip to the Grand National at Aintree this weekend so I took the opportunity to go visit him on the bike.
According to google the ride up would be exactly 200 miles and would take just under six hours (avoiding motorways obviously). It turned out to be 225 miles and took a little over seven hours.
Ignoring the delayed start due to "Dad can you drive me to college" and a variety of other interruptions, all went well until I reached Reading looking for the Oxford road. All signposts in England now assume that you want to use a motorway so I endured several miles down the M4 before reaching the A34 to Oxford. Oxford itself is just far enough that I fancied a pitstop and made the mistake of thinking I'll just ride into Oxford and stop. Don't waste your time - Oxford hates you and you'll just drive round long enough to decide to leave.
Stopped further up in a layby in the Cotswolds, much more relaxing watching the lambs anyway
Pressed on up through Banbury and along the B4100/A452 towards Warwick encountering a marvellous road sign along the way telling me that Warwick was straight ahead, some village (can't remember the name) was off to the right, the first left turn was for Jaguar and Land Rover and the second left turn was Aston Martin - serious car making country starts here!
In Warwick I stopped for fuel and this shot of narrowboats parked up along the canal.
My directions from this point stopped naming places and simply listed a series of road numbers: A4177, A452, A446, A38, A52, A51, A515. They represent about 80 miles of very pleasant non-motorway leading through the heart of the Black Country, skirting round Birmingham, Lichfield, Burton-on-Trent - beer capital of the world and Derby before turning northwest to Ashbourne at the bottom of the Peak District.
Upto Bakewell and onto more minor, wonderfully bendy, roads complete with stunning views, interesting crosswinds and sheep.
Sheep on the road even. At one point a ewe and her lambs escaped and all traffic was halted both ways for several minutes while a farmer and a lorry driver recaptured them. Further up what must have been half a flock just roaming freely across the road and the open fields on either side.
Time to get a move on unfortunately, the sun was going down and the temperature was dropping fast. It'd been around 16 degrees all day but now, brrrr, back to the peaks in summer I think!
The ride back down on Sunday skipped the peaks - snow big time - expected high of 8 degrees so A61 to Derby, A38 to Brum then A34 through Stratford - WHITEOUT over the Cotswolds - yes, actually blizzard conditions, one handed riding (the other acting as visor wiper). Only six and a half hours down but still well over 200 miles.
And yes the stock saddle on the Bonneville is good for 200+ mile trips.
Sheffield - Grand National
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