The alarm sounds and it’s cloudy and roads dry, what’s that noise? Sounds like rain - torrential rain, Rats!! Txt from Dabz – I’ve decided to work on my new traillie today. Yeh, right! Ready to roll by 8.30, we want to be in Bath by 9am and the rain has stopped. Ghost gets the bikes out the garage. Just puts the second one out and rain starts again Not just rain but lightning, thunder, torrential rain and hailstones! Wonderful! Ok we will be running a bit late then. I watch WB forum & Facebook and they are all dropping out like flies – can’t say that I blame them mind, if I wasn’t one of the organisers I don’t think I’d be going! Eventually it slows down to a slightly lighter rain and Ghost & I head off through flooded roads, swerving round branches, gravel & mud to be the 1st bikes at the Red Lion.
10ish and we are up to 14 bikes, two of which will not be going as the Kwak has developed an aversion to rain and the other is going to follow her home. Someone sidles up to Ghost and suggests should we go or not as conditions are so bad and the forecast is bad too. We are both already damp and although it hadn’t occurred to us to abandon, now you mention it that sounds like a good idea. We can nip home, get dry, get the car and drive down with the cheque…
I get everyone’s attention and ask, ‘Hands up, those who want to cancel’ No hands just a bit of shuffling. ‘Hands up, those who want to go’ again no hands. Long pause and then some fool from the back says ‘I’m game, I’m already wet, let’s do it’ and next thing you know everyone is saying yes, yes, let’s go and it’s unanimous! Mad the lot of them!
Ghost had worked out a lovely twisty scenic route down the back roads and through the New Forest but with the conditions experienced by riders locally getting to the start and with it still raining, it was felt it could possibly be a little too interesting. The decision was made to head down the A36 to cross over the M27 then through the forest to Lymington. Pretty boring and virtually the whole Ghost’s daily commute to Fawley to work but never mind. Off we go and sure enough less than 10 miles out of Bath and the roads dry up and we spent the rest of the trip down the A36 thinking maybe we could have gone the scenic route. Still we pass our time playing with the traffic and drying out on the way down. A quick comfort break at the services at the A36/M27 interchange and a chance to re-secure a few loose bits on a bike or two and it’s on through the forest.
Sure enough about 10 miles from Lymington it starts to rain again and we cruise damply through the car park to head for the Lifeboat station. It’s at this point some bloke in a transit van tried to take Ghost out with a classic ‘Sorry mate, I didn’t see you’ Fortunately he has good tread on his boots as opposed to good brakes on the bike and managed to stop the old T110 in time.
On to the station and park right by the recycling bins (don’t say it) and then inside to drip gently on the floor, but hey, they are used to a bit of water! The Lifeboat team made us all very welcome laying on lovely hot tea and Bourbon biscuits in their mess room upstairs. Once we had refreshed ourselves it was downstairs to line up the oldest bikes - two Triumphs and a Norton - in front of the lifeboat for the cheque presentation. Although we had a low turnout of bikes on the day, we had a few pre-entries who had not turned up so we had a reasonable amount of money collected. We also had enough Bath Classic committee people at signing on to make the executive decision to up the figure to £300. Once the presentation was over and millions of photos had been taken along with some video and lots of p*ss taking it was back to chatting again about the station’s work and how they risk their lives rescuing people who are often ill equipped or ill prepared for the conditions they are going to encounter.
We had a couple of late arrivals turn up from Bath Classic, Reiner had been en-route from South Wales and had to stop due to torrential rain in Bristol and Eric had started off late for the same reason. Ro, Vivi and a couple of other WB’rs Bikers had come straight down instead of going to Bath and managed to avoid the rain until Lymington!
For the return trip, Ghost was determined he was not going to go back his daily commute of the A36 but was going to reverse the route he had originally planned to follow down. It was still raining steadily and looked like it was set in for the day so we decided we would forgo lunch and head back. Ro & Vivi and some others decided they would stay a while longer, while Snowy and a couple of others decided to make their own way back as they were not heading back to Bath, but about a dozen decided to follow us home.
The rain continued steadily all the way back, through the winding forest roads – well at least it kept the numbers of tourists down – up over Cranborne Chase where we couldn’t see much of the glorious views. Then back along the Wyle river valley towards Warminster over a couple of locations where mud had washed out from adjacent fields to sharpen up the concentration/off road skills!
A final quick stop at Warminster to say farewell and head off in various directions home on our very dirty steeds.
A great day out despite the weather and a very big thank you to all who contributed towards supporting the Lifeboat.
BB
Sorry no photos just yet as I'm doing this at work!
Have to admit that I didn't do any work on the TTR..instead opted for Sunday Roast and MotoGP at the H&C!
