Black Hands

Last month my OH and I decided it was about time we visited his sister and her fiance in Crewe. She moved there at the beginning of March and, short of an overnighter a couple of weeks later, we hadn't visited since. As her fiance works weekends and night shifts, the best weekend for them were either of the last two weekends. As we were both free this weekend just gone, it was decided to go then.

My OH wanted to take the Pan, as there's no point having a tourer and not touring. I was happy enough with that, as I wouldn't have any driving to do. As much as I enjoy driving, I hate motorway driving. Seeing as Crewe is 280 miles away, motorway driving is necessary. My only concern was I might fall asleep with nothing to do...

Our plan was to head into work and do a 3 hour day (which is the smallest permissible day - we have very flexi-time) and ride down from Edinburgh. We packed our bags the night before and got up sharp to get the bike packed and ourselves kitted up. The journey into work was painless enough as the roads are quiet at the time we left and familiar.

After our "day" at work we headed out of Edinburgh on the A701 towards Biggar. This is a lovely road - fairly quiet, a little twisty to let my OH play and the quickest way towards the southwest of Scotland from Edinburgh. We stopped at Biggar for lunch, where we discovered a church-run community centre which does good cheap soup, filled rolls etc. Duly refreshed, we headed south, towards the M74.

The remainder of the journey was mainly motorway, apart from about 10 miles between the end of the M74 (at the Scottish/English border) and the start of the M6. After about an hour of riding, my OH felt my helmet hitting his back...3 times. This is when he realised I had fallen asleep. As yo =u can imagine, falling asleep on the back of a motorbike is dangerous. He squeezed my leg to get my attention. That woke me up and I adjusted my position to stay awake. We pulled up at the next set of services to stretch our legs and for my OH to have a rest.

Our last stop was at Lancaster services - just for a stretch of legs and comfort stop. As this is (usually) an hourish from Crewe, my OH phoned his sister to let her know where we were and our eta. Unfortunately, we weren't aware of the broken down lorry blocking 1 carriageway of the motorway. This resulted in the final stage taking closer to 2 hours and my OH having to filter for most of that. At least we had that option on the bike.

On the Saturday evening, my OH took his sister's fiance for a run on the bike. He used to have a bike before he met my sister-in-law, but bought a car so when she visited he could take her places. He has been thinking about getting another bike and really liked the Pan, so might be a convert. It's a much better bike for couples than the sporty bikes he used to own.

As we had a long journey ahead of us on the Sunday, we headed off just before lunch. It was a bit windy, but (at that point) dry. Then we hit Cumbria and the heavens opened. Although we wear fabric gear, it's not totally waterproof - not much is at 60mph with driving rain. To make matters worse, we hadn't packed our waterproof gloves. Mine are fairly new and they got so wet the dye ran out of them and dyed my hands black....lovely.

My lovely black hands.

Once we were was wet as we could get without jumping straight into a swimming pool, the rain stopped. I love British weather!

The journey, I must admit, was not the most pleasant experience I have every had, but it hasn't put me off. We won't forget our waterproof gloves again and will be investing in all-in-one waterproof riding suits. They're not attractive, but I'd rather be dry. It was very cold being wet. At least we got there and home safely and gave bike a good run. I wonder where we'll head next?