Category:
Other
Created: 11 September 2005
Words by Andrew&7
The Brighton run for the Ace Café Reunion and Burn Out started for me at about 9.30 as I started suiting up and generally getting ready. It’s a bit girly I know, but I wasn’t sure about the weather and if it turned out to be as hot and humid as Saturday, full leathers etc would be very bad. It seemed cooler, cold in fact, so on went the thicker gear and once the covers were off 7, it was away up to Hanger Lane and the Ace. Not many bikes around, odd that, but never mind.
The only person I could find as the marshals started getting people on the go was Vinnie, who I recognised from the Rally on Saturday, and who was captured so elegantly wearing a plastic bag on his head outside Westminster. So we agreed to head down together, primarily as I only know a handful of people and he knows loads. And I wanted to know what an MV Senna sounds like.
I managed to catch the OCC guys leading the ride out – the boss guy and his son who seems to narrate the program. I was disappointed that they weren’t riding any of their choppers, only standard Harleys. Oh well. Guess they don’t fit into overhead lockers on the flight.
So we set off at a canny clip, only to find that the Hanger Lane roundabout didn’t appear to have been closed off for us, so the normally bemused and hapless motorists had hundreds of bikes to deal with. A quick life-saver and judicious throttle soon gets us out of that melee and up A40 to the M25. On the M25 near Staines, Vinnie comes past (oh what a glorious noise – just like a Ferrari on a mission) indicating a fuel stop is necessary. Eh? Ok so off we go in search of motion lotion. To cut a long story short, a detour following a ‘local’ saw us lose about 30 minutes and arrive back on the M40 heading towards the M25!
It took some 2-3 hrs to get to Brighton, the traffic was atrocious (presumably as a result of the main convoy ahead) and frankly there are some bikers who really need to ride their bikes in traffic (so that’s always down here) a bit more. Not everyone is that confident, and always ride within your limits and what is safe, but if filtering is awkward, get the hell out of the way. Don’t sit there blocking the channel. Harleys and their ilk seem the worst offenders. We were tempted to resort to a bit of ‘Foxy treatment’ (should have been with us on Saturday Lol) but got through in decent time.
The only casualty I saw was a ‘Busa that had come a cropper on the M23, complete with pillion, weaving around at 80 and clipping a car that changed lanes (as they are entitled to, remember). Both rider and pillion weren’t wearing leathers but survived relatively unscathed I understand. Must have ridden the big monster like a surf board (dude)!
We found a sweet parking spot in front of the Burger King, our first stop, and then caught up with the Awol boys and girls in the pub by the Sea Life centre, then spent the rest of day wandering the sea front.
Triumph was there in force. On positive note I think they’re a credit to England, a fantastic and generous company. Their bikes may not (and probably never will be) cutting edge, but I always feel like buying one to say thanks for supporting the UK biking scene. Did the Jap manufactures put in an appearance? In the place where they sell the most sports bikes in the world? No, poor show.
As Vinnie and I wandered we bumped into Brooke (girl, you always seem positively giddy with the fact that you are a biker!! Are you on something, or is this normal? Either way, keep it up) Matt (sorry I can’t sort that handshake thing, I’m a bit of a square) and various others whose names escape me, but most had fluorescent vests on and / or were part of AWOL. So that was cool and by 7pm I was footsore and looking forward to getting on the ‘ped. And to look forward to sitting on a ZX7R for a couple of hrs shows how sore my feet were.
The trip back was led by AWOL, so I didn’t expect it to be a dull trip, and once we had scythed through the traffic from the sea front, filled up with petrol, watched a few doughnuts in the forecourt (lol), bump started a 400, off we went with the usual collection of two-up and standing wheelies up the M23.
