And indeed I'm most grateful to John for picking me up at a quite uncivilized hour! (By the way, his excellent shed contains two more Yamaha thumpers, which must be feeling lonely now the little SR 250 has gone away.)
Day 1: Woke at around 6am on the Inverness sleeper and watched with interest as the snow line descended towards the railway... Snow-covered mountains surrounded the station at Aviemore, but at Inverness the weather was clear. As John has said, he met me at the station, and after an excellent breakfast at his lovely loch-side house I departed at about 11am. My immediate impression was how small the SR250 is - I felt very cramped. I've never ridden a cruiser style bike before, and to be honest it made me feel like a beginner, all wobbly at slow speeds. Pictures of that style of bike make it look as though the seating position is very comfortable, but I felt too low down and the big handlebars (not ape-hangers, but tending in that direction) seemed to push me backwards. However, after a while I got used to it, and found that I could move back on to the higher part of the seat, which straightened my legs but made gear-changing a bit tricky.
Off we went down the A82, a very fine road, though the harsh winter has caused a lot of frost damage and potholes. The bike hummed along very well at about 50-55mph, though popping and banging on the over-run. I stopped and had a look, but couldn't find anything much wrong - an air leak somewhere in the exhaust, I think. As the morning went on it got warmer, and our progress faster. The A82 becomes wider and straighter as one goes south, and it eventually takes you through the magnificent Great Glen and down towards the Clyde. Since the bike was going well and the weather was fine, I carried on along the (horrible) M8 and down the (equally horrible) M74 in heavy traffic. At 50 mph the engine was doing 5000 rpm and felt comfortable - much faster and the bike seemed to be straining. Oh - I forgot to mention the brakes - what brakes, one might ask. I had forgotten how feeble a single-sided front drum brake is, and I began to wonder if a switch to disc is possible. Emergency stop? Not a hope... Still, it doesn't half improve your driver awareness...
And so the day passed, and we found ourselves in Carlisle, having covered 250 miles without any significant difficulty. I found a B&B with a handy yard to keep the bike in, and celebrated with a solitary glass or two.
Day 2, and the bike was reluctant to start and sounded rough, so I set off down the A6 rather than risking the motorway. Again I couldn't find anything much wrong, so decided to go for broke and take the M6. Soon I experienced one of the highlights of the trip when we overtook an old chap in a battered red Micra - this was the only overtake that we achieved in the whole journey, if you discount pedestrians and bicycles. But the upside of this is that we were averaging between 90 and 100 miles to the gallon - hooray!
There is nothing to be said about navigating the heart of England by motorway, so I won't. But soon after Birmingham I decided to take a detour through the Cotswolds, where I used to live. At Stow-on-the-Wold is a very nice YHA hostel, right in the town centre. There's a yard to park the bike and any number of excellent places to eat and drink. So that's where we stopped, having covered another 250-odd miles at 90 miles to the gallon. I was utterly knackered, I may say, and was asleep by 9pm.
And finally, the third day, today. The old fellow in his black-and-yellow jacket on a bike too small for him must have been an amusing sight, I reckon, like a fat wasp buzzing along. We had a very fine time in the Cotswold sunshine until reaching Bath, where I discovered a serious leak from the fuel tap. Of course I'd just filled the bike up, so I had to buy two petrol cans to drain the tank before removing the tap. It's one of those horrible vacuum-controlled taps, and was on its last legs - however, a bit of bodgery got it working again, and it lasted all the way home to Gosport. 'I thought you said it was little bike,' Annie said. 'It looks quite big to me.' Not exactly welcoming, I thought.
I was chuffed. The fat wasp and the little bike had done 647 miles at 90.5 mpg and averaged close to 45 mph. It must have been a shock for the poor little bike after a long lay-off, but it had done rather well and I was pleased with it. OK, I need to fiddle with the handlebars and seat to improve the comfort, and maybe look at a disc brake (has there ever been an SR250 with a disc? Seems possible). But it's a grand little bike, and just the ticket for want I want to do! Thank you, John!
Nothing very serious went wrong, so unfortunately I had no excuse to contact any of the Thumper Club members who had so kindly offered help in emergency - thank you all very much, gentlemen! I hope to meet you one day.
Happy riding to all, Martin
