DAY 9, Saturday 5 July

It’s another good breakfast at the Royal Oak, but absolutely nil mobile-phone reception, even from the top of the fire-escape where I found a smidgen yesterday for ‘ET to call home’, so my mobile Broadband I’ve been using to send off the daily reports in immobile, which with no Wi-Fi available accounts for your delay in reading our Day 8 adventures. Otherwise, I’ve been very impressed with the Vodafone service, that has worked faultlessly at all our other stops.

With the kind consent of Mine Host, we leave our luggage in the room, and Neil runs me up to RGM Motors on the FireBlade, through the buffeting winds we’ve had forecast, with later heavy rain, for the day – hummmm!!!!

Prefers Hondas, obviously!!

Roger provides the Black Box and coils, I carefully swap cables from old (burnt-out) unit to new, and hook everything up, then …………. bingo!!!! First kick, and she roars into life. Mucho back-slapping and shaking of hands, and as that’s been so quick, time for a tour of the RGM facilities. And what a surprise awaits us – it looks like an old steading, but inside, it’s stuffed full of fairly ‘historic’ machine tools, including a nice precision lathe made for the RAF in the 1940s. As well as stocking Norton spares, Roger and side-kick Lawrence turn out significant numbers of parts themselves, with Lynn running much of the office side of things, and providing very welcome cuppas in time-honoured manner – thanks Lynn!!

the RGM ‘treasure-house’ - cop all that engineering kit!!

But enough of this – the road beckons, so it’s back down into the village, once more on two bikes, to load all the pannier bags, tank-top etc, and we’re now off for real – only just outside RGM, the Norton cuts dead once more. It’s sudden and complete, no warning coughs, so obviously ignition.

We dive back into Haile Bank Farm, and unload once more, to get the saddle off and trace through the ignition units I located in the tool-box during the 99’s big rebuild in 2006. For some strange reason, the spade connectors supplied with the new Black Box are of the exposed, rather than insulated variety, and in the haste to get going, I’ve not bothered to bolt the coils into brackets now buried deep in a pannier having been ‘disposed of’ in Brodick, Arran during the jury-rigging of the 12v coils. So, we diagnose a short between the exposed terminals and the frame or tool-box, and set about replacing the OE terminals with Roger’s insulated ones, and she once again starts first kick, and we go through all the palaver of repacking all the luggage onto the old gal.

Object lesson really – if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, and I should have anticipated the potential problem and dealt with it first time around, either remounting the coils properly, or replacing the terminals from scratch. It doesn’t sound much, but this has introduced a further hour’s delay, and by now the threatened rain has started, so at least it obviates a stop to pull on the waterproofs that we do from the ‘comfort’ of Roger’s lean-to.

Roger has also proffered a ‘short-cut’ that eliminates some 8 miles and offers great views into the heart of the Lakes, taking us over Crossley Fell, but with the weather ever-deteriorating, I’m not sure this was a good idea. We end up riding in thick-ish mist, on a narrow twisting moorland with sod-all views, but maybe the next time?

The Norton’s clutch has been stiffening, and as we stop to refuel near Kendal in a brief interlude in the rain, about to leave the Lake District, I get the spanners out once more to tighten-down the clutch-centre nut – why this wasn’t designed with a more effective locking mechanism like a tab-washer, I’ll never know, as it’s almost impossible to guarantee tightening it sufficiently to hold under all conditions, and one is reliant on the magic of Mr Loctite, and sometimes that’s not enough.

By now the rain has resumed – our excursion to Beckermet has added over 100 miles to today’s journey if we go back to Plan A, via Skipton etc. As previously discussed, the other option of south on the A6 via Lancaster and Preston etc, is just too awful to contemplate, but the conditions are now so dire the value of riding into the Yorkshire Dales and later Derbyshire Dales is questionable anyway, so we start to think the un-thinkable – is the M6 worth considering? It’s a Saturday, so the HGV traffic will be less heavy than usual, and the required concentration level riding comparatively straight and level, compared with twisty rural roads, or greasy urban ones, will be less. Besides, we’ve nothing left to prove here; we’ve ridden literally hundreds of miles that meet the ‘demanding’ definition; we’ve made it Round The Top; we’re now out of Scotland anyway; and we’re on the last leg for home with 100 miles more to do than anticipated, so we will firmly reject any suggestion of ‘cheating’ by reverting to the roads normal, sensible people will take as their default in any case.

Ok, so the M6 it is, but the bike is not going very happily, seemingly somehow ‘restricted’ to about 60 mph and it’s only when I run out of fuel way earlier than expected that I put two and two together, and discover I’ve not switched the choke off!! I pull the reserve tap open, and we turn off the motorway at St Helens to top-up, before resuming progress southwards. Dooohhhhh!!!

The M6 is comparatively lightly trafficked, and there are indeed way fewer HGVs that usually help to fill the carriageway. It’s actually not too bad a ride; even the wind, whilst very strong, is reasonably constant rather than gusting, which makes it easier to compensate for, but we’ve planned to get off as soon as we’re clear of the conurbations, which means Junction 15 on the southern outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent,

We’re then on the A34, which is a half-decent road for motorcycles, nice sweeping bends with the odd switch-back, but blighted by speed-limits over most of its way. South of Stone, we switch to the A38 for Rugeley, a less than lovely town now thankfully by-passed under the enormous temple-like cooling-towers of the power-station, and eventually re-join our outbound route at Lichfield.

By now, we’re separated for the very first time, as Neil sends me off ahead of him to make a phonecall to announce our ETA in Shirley to Janet. Somehow, he doesn’t pass me (we think it’s down to taking different routes through Lichfield), so my 5 minute wait for him t’other side of the town is literally a waste of time, but I decide not to wait any longer, and find my way back on the right route to Tanworth Lane, and thankfully Neil is already there, preparing the oil-trays for the 99.

Janet is very pleased to see us both safely back, and I’m made very welcome to stop for a meal and a bed for the night, but as it’s still only 5 p.m., I opt for a cuppa and biscuit and an hour’s break before starting out on the 70 miles back to Childrey, on what should be a delightful Grand Finale with the canter on familiar, bike-friendly roads over the Cotswolds, but it is not to be.

The bike is playing up with a hesitant misfire from time to time, and the clutch is again giving problems, this time slipping rather than dragging!!! And the weather is simply dreadful, heavy drizzle and buffering high winds, the trees shaking as if to up-root themselves in places.

However, I manage to fight through the obstacles, though I am not confident the Norton will actually get me home until I round the bend into Childrey itself. I lean her against the garage-side, and here’s Val to greet me! I’m delighted to see her, to be back at Yew Tree House, Childrey and the Vale of White Horse. The Highlands and Islands have been wonderfully scenic, world-class in my humop, and I’ve seen a fair amount of the world in my time, but I recognise how very, very fortunate I am to live where I do – East, West, Home Best!! Well, certainly at the end of a somewhat gruelling 9-day jaunt, it has to be said!!

I’ve managed just under 300 miles in the day, the furthest I’ve even done on the 99 in our entire 42-year relationship, so not all bad, but the number of problems we’ve experienced have been depressingly worrying, despite the thousands of pounds I spent on the rebuild, and the multiple up-grades I incorporated. I’ve recently acquired a much later and larger-capacity Norton, a 1975 Commando 850 MkII, which will hopefully still offer some of the undoubted delights of the 99, the light-weight, low centre-of-gravity, torque and exemplary handling; this last the 99 has without the slightest doubt dished up day-after-day. And it has proved remarkably comfortable over the many miles we’ve ridden, just over 1800 ‘as advertised’ from Childrey to Childrey, less the approx 150 on the back of the Recovery Van, of course.

I’ll post a ‘formal’ wrap-up and synopsis, with mileages, fuel consumption and all that anorak-y stuff, and hopefully an update on the Gutjwa Appeal Fund and where that stands, though a final total will have to await Val’s and my visit to Dorset and Neil and Ally Shoosmith, guardians of the Norton Owners Club spares scheme who kindly agreed to be the dumping ground for the 30-50 envelopes with donations we received on Norton day, what seems like a year ago, but was in fact only a week ago as I write this report – we’re certainly into the £3k bracket, but disappointingly well short of the £5k we’d hoped for.

So, please do log on in another day or so for the Retrospective that Neil and I will have cobbled together by then. Neil has been the most brilliant travelling companion, infinitely patient through the Norton’s multiple woes, solicitudinous without ever approaching patronising, ever helpful, ever cheerful, well organised, safe and sensible, and totally reliable. All of which I knew from our previous riding-together experiences, dating way back to the late 1960’s and early 70’s, when he several times rode shotgun on the self-same 99, doing the navigating on various 500 and 600 mile in 24 hours National Rallies, and five years ago riding the ever-reliable (boring!!!) FireBlade alongside my BMW K100RS (equally boringly reliable!) on our three-day jolly up to Aberdeen and back.

Thank you all for your financial and moral support – hope you’ve enjoyed ‘riding’ with us, sharing the vicissitudes of riding a 1950s lump of British iron and aluminium through Britain’s most beautiful and spectacular scenery. Anyone who thought it would hardly prove much of a challenge really will hopefully by now have realised just how much hard work it has actually been, partly down to the problems of nursing the ol’ gal through to the end, but partially also down to the sheer nature of the terrain and the roads that are all that can economically be constructed to traverse it. Maybe you should try it yourself some day? You will not, I promise you, be disappointed!!