DAY 8, Friday 4 July - Arran to Mallam

Or Arran to Beckermet, Cumbria, as it eventuates. My Emergency Roadside Assistance cover delivers a van to the door of our hotel / B&B just as we’re finishing the best breakfast we’ve had, fabulous local organic eggs and great bacon. It’s been an expensive stop, but we’ve made use of the electric radiator to dry out all of our rain-sodden kit from the previous day, though it’s meant sleeping in a sauna!

A Scottish Staple! See bottom left

A hard-pressed Angus Lambey is not delighted to see us at first, but he softens after a while, and in the end agrees my previous diagnosis, breaking-down coils. The bike’s are 2 x 6 volt coils in series, and of course he has no 6v ones, but we try a single 12v one, and sure enough, she starts on the RH pot – swapping the high-tension lead results in starting on the LH one!!! Bingo!!!

Attempts to jury-rig two plug-leads off the one coil fail, as the engine instantly cuts dead, so we further rig a second 12v coil, this time in parallel, and yes!!!! – she fires on both pots!! Hand-shakes all round, and it’s time to pack all the luggage back on, and ride to the nearby harbour, where disaster strikes as the engine suddenly cuts out completely!!

I’m no electrical expert, but even I should have suspected driving 2 x 12v coils would be putting extra demands on the electronic ignition unit, and it is clearly way hotter than it should run, so it’s almost certainly burnt-out.

Frantic phonecalls to RGM Motors in Cumbria reveal the necessary parts are in stock, and Roger kindly agrees to provide me with the necessary on a Saturday morning though he’s officially closed at weekends (I am so unaware of time now, I’m not even conscious it’s Saturday we’ll be with him!!), so the Recovery Service is once again pressed into action, Beckermet near Whitehaven the new destination, with collection as we get off the ferry in Ardrossan, having pushed the Norton aboard.

Brodick Harbour – back to the mainland for the last time.

Roger has also proffered his local pub, The Royal Oak, as providing rooms - we’re in luck, and a very cheerful sounding Emma takes our reservation, and assures me they not only do food in the evening, but “we do excellent food”!

Hopefully, we’ll have fallen on our feet, though we’re really sorry to not be making the planned stop at Mallam in the wild Yorkshire Dales. They accept our last-minute cancellation without taking the offered part-payment, bless ’em, though we will almost be passing their door, as on inspecting the map on our crossing to Ardrossan, we decide we can’t bear the thought of the drive through Lancaster and Preston - just too depressing.

So, we’re going to resume the original planned route once we leave Beckermet on the western coastal extremity of Cumbria via Kendal, with Skipton as our destination and the start of the fight through the dense urban sprawl that spans almost the entire country, from the Mersey estuary and Liverpool though the Manchester conurbation into the Leeds / Bradford area, right out to the head of the Humber. Our cunning plan is to follow the very western edge of the Yorkshire urban sprawl via Hebden Bridge to Halifax, then Huddersfield, before switching across to Glossop on the extreme eastern edge of the Manchester mass eventually to escape onto country roads once more, with Buxton and Uttoxeter in Derbyshire and Staffordshire as aiming-points, and an eventual rejoining of our out-bound route at Lichfield, thence back to Shirley.

We float in to Ardrossan, and within 30 minute, Wayne Judge arrives with the recovery flat-bed. He proves to be an absolute star; great loader, safe driver, charming guy, interesting conversationalist, and when I offer him a wee ‘thank-you’ for what he’s done. it’s back into the Gutjwa Appeal Fund, bless ’im. It’s not what we wanted, of course, but if ever making the best of things come to mind, this is it!! Meanwhile, Neil on the clock-work ’Blade continues to follow the Norton!!!

We drop the bike off at RGM Motors, then it\s back to the Royal Oak in Beckermet, under the shoulder of Sellafield, the nuclear re-processing plant, and a very pretty village it proves to be, as do the waitresses! A shower and as one of ’em says, “you scrub-up quite well” – we also meet up with Roger and Lynn of RGM, who we’ll be seeing more of tomorrow, as we sort the Norton’s ignition electrics problems out.

Every cloud has its silver lining, they say, and ours has been a very pleasant overnight stay, and my opportunity to meet the Powers That Be at RGM Motors, the last of the three main Norton spares people in the UK I’ve not met personally.

Roger of RGM fame, his 650SS Norton, and The Royal Oak, Beckermet