The fourth corner

Ahamay

The Joker
IBA Member
#1
I have a proposition for you i said to jonnyp at John Young's RTE back in January how do you fancy a four corners?
Yes he said errr ok when? I said We settled on the 1st June start at Lowestoft , Lands end, St Davids, JoG.
With a reciept timed at 0306 am at the start of a warm day we headed south west via Cambridge, Bedford, Milton Keynes, Oxford, refuel at Swindon the M4, M5, A30
the objective being to avoid M11 M25 too far south to go west.
By the time the the thundering herd was awake and trying to clog the great British road system we were near Exeter refuel at Penzance then a car park ticket at Lands end (£1.00 for motorcycles)timed at 1210pm turn around and back to Bristol then west over the Severn bridge and a reciept at Magor services M4 to prove the route and shake hands with the unemployed:rolleyes: then onto St Davids with a receipt timed at 6.17pm we turned north east across Wales so far so good:)

We had a superb rides across Wales very little traffic on good fast roads we got on the M56 at Chester head East to the M6 turn North simples as the little Mere cat in that well known insurance commercial says BUT my sat nav had other ideas off at J 12 through Runcorn, Widnes, and St Helens WTFo_O in approximately ten miles i have never seen so many sets of traffic lights i lost count at twelve and was starting to lose the will to live by the time we started to see signs for the M6, enough whinging already, arrived at the Travalodge burton services M6 northbound at 1233 am big snoring heap up shower fuel and on the go at 6.24 am Jon was looking decidedly rough the pair of us looked like we had woke up in a skip.

Sunday 2nd June dark overcast and threatening a complete change from yesterday the odd shower then it settled into constant rain from around Carlisle M6/M74 to Glasgow then east to the A9 the only practical route as time was getting close, Scottish highway agency is duelling the A9 between Perth and Inverness due to finish in 2025 o_O at the moment you have a mix of single and duel carriageway and miles of roadworks at 30 mph all covered by average speed scamera's and mobile scamera vans for 112 miles it must be the worst road anywhere in the UK mainland, a quick fuel stop at Dalwhinnie 11.16 am about twenty miles south of Inverness (where the four and twenty virgins came from) google is your friend!

A9 North of Inverness FREEDOM no camera's or road works an opportunity to make progress and the rain stopped:D we had until 3.06 pm to get to JoG so no pressure the A9/A99 is a mix of fast sections steep hills hairpin bends and villages and very little traffic up to Wick the remaining thirty odd miles is fast roads houses and bungalow's scattered along the road some were brand new and unoccupied so if you fancy living thirty miles up the arse of nowhere there could be some bargains to be had.
John o Groats finally receipt timed at 2.23 pm forty odd minutes to spare a bit close if there had been a collision on that last section A9/A99 the road would have been closed any detour would have been up to one hundred miles (look at the map) so a bit less time at the stops would have been beneficial, back to the Seaview hotel which is 1/4 of a mile from JoG sat in the bar with a pint just happy to be off the bike sorted the paperwork a couple more beers and in bed by 7.30 pm awoke at 7.00 am.

We had a room in the bunkhouse across the road from the hotel £45.00 including breakfast good value, i was warned by Jon about his snoring it can pull the wallpaper off the wall was the description i got from another source that paled into insignificance com pared to the farting or was it me waking my self up:rolleyes:

Overall a good ride in good company with no problems mechanical apart from the the Tire pressure sensors stopped working the bike was behaving it's self averaged 50 mpg, according to the book the GS uses 1 litre of oil per one thousand miles for a total of two thousand miles door to door it used 1/4 litre of oil not much wrong with the engine.

Thanks Jon
John Morning
June 2019
 
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Jonnyp

IBA Member
#2
Well... I can’t add much to that apart from... just how much I enjoyed the ride, what a great chap you are John to travel with and of course... the farting.....for that, I can only apologise. I blame the celebratory beer(s) and the Scapa Flow whiskey.

.....it’s odd really.... no one else has ever mention my farting.........;)
 

GSears

Dambuster... Bouncing panniers...
Premier Member
IBA Member
#3
Inspirational, brilliant read:D.

40 minutes:eek:, loads of time ;)

Now I've got to sort my next ride.......
 

Jonnyp

IBA Member
#5
Actually.. there is something I can add to this..

What John has omitted to tell you all is the trek he had at the start and end of this ride. I hope you don’t mind the addition here John…

From our homes to Lowestoft is around the same distance, my ride on Friday evening took me through the lesser populated southern fens on back roads north of Cambridge and Newmarket missing the A14 totally. The only traffic I encountered, was at the five ways roundabout on the A11..Over to Thetford and on to Norwich and then the A146 in to Lowestoft…. John however had to cope with the M25, on a Friday afternoon….. If I remember John, you diverted up the M11?? and back to Colchester to avoid the exodus .. it took him longer than me to get there…

On the way home on Monday after riding down from JOG (JOG to Edinburgh in the naffing rain.. if Glen Coe is not the wettest place on earth….we took the scenic way home), we waved our goodbyes on the A1 just south of Peterborough at 23.30 where I peel off on to back roads… 10 mins to home, a shower and bed before midnight… John on the other hand, has the A14, M11 and the M25 to go… Oh no... wait… the M25 was closed all the way round to the bridge and so John, has to go to the north circular and out on the A13 arriving home at 2.30...

Epic John…..I say this in the nicest possible way… I just hope, I can do the same at your age, my friend…

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