DAY 2, Saturday June 28th

I’m at Neil’s house in Shirley bang-on schedule at 8.30, and the bacon-butty is awaiting!! Our departure is slightly delayed as I have to revert to the standard exhaust mounting, as one of the two Commando rubber-mounts has sheered, but fortunately I’ve foreseen the possibility, and packed the correct bolts.

preparing to leave Shirley

We’re eventually off at 10, negotiating the by-now normal Saturday shoppers’ traffic around the periphery of Birmingham – things don’t really improve much until we get to Lichfield, and we start to get into the southern extremities of the Pennines. Again, the ‘open’ road is a constant clutter of un-necessary speed-limits and cameras, so more caution is required to interpret all this than to concentrate on the actual road and traffic conditions – drives me crazy!!

Come Ashbourne and we’re starting to get ‘north’ – Derbyshire for me marks the start of the wonderful northern scenery, green valleys, distant views, peaks and humps that make for great views and superb Norton riding conditions. The old 99 is holding its end up well under the speed-conditions we’re forced to operate within, handles beautifully despite the well-loaded pannier bags (tools, spares, cameras, lap-top, phone, sat-nav, intercom, and all with their charger-units of course!!) and the tank-bag containing my modest wardrobe, and the big Grimeca four-leading shoe brake does its job superbly, loads of stopping power whenever required, but excellent feel too.

However, it’s here the first sign of trouble emerges; just as we turn off one road onto another, the Norton coughs to a standstill – it has all the hallmarks of fuel-starvation, and sure enough, a quick examination reveals the fuel filter on the carburettor blocked with tiny silvery particles, quite obviously from the tank-sealant!! Damn and blast!!

We make a welcome lunch-stop in Hathersage, but from now until our arrival at Sherburn-in-Elmet in the Vale of York at about 4 o’clock after the urban mighmare sprawl of Barnsley, Pontefract, Knottingley and Castleford, every 50 miles or so we’re forced to stop and clean it out;. Eventually it’s so clogged with the minutest particles I’m forced to dispose of the filter to allow fuel into the carb at all, so we’re now facing the rest of the journey with the almost inevitable prospect of having to clean out the carb once or twice a day, certainly until hopefully the many more miles in front of us will have flushed the problem away – we’ll have to see what Day 3, Sunday 29th June, and the 225 mile leg across the Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland Moors, thought the Borders and over the Forth to Alloa brings with it.

lunch-stop at Hathersage