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It’s a story that has to be told just to demonstrate our dedication to the sport, or our utter stupidity – you decide.

I stepped outside my front door at six oclock Sunday morning to be greeted with a strange sight. There was something not quite right about the trees in my road, they seemed to be more horizontal than normal, and those that weren’t had snapped off branches laying in the road. Hmmm, with hind sight maybe this was a sign. Still, undaunted I jumped on the bike and headed off up the road toward the motorway, unaware that Ian was sitting at home eagerly awaiting my phone call to say that I had decided to take Emma’s car instead. Doh! The reason Ian was so "up and awake" was that he mistakenly put his clock forward instead of Back for GMT and as a result had been up since four oclock. This was probably a sign as well.

As I pulled out onto the motorway heading west, I knew straight away that this was going to be a difficult journey. It was a westerly wind which I later found out was gusting up to eighty miles an hour, so riding at eighty miles and hour into an eighty mile an hour headwind equals very sore neck muscles.
For those of you who have ridden a motorcycle you will know just how hard it is riding into a head wind or a cross wind, and for those of you who have ridden a bike without a fairing or screen will know it’s even harder and it doesn’t take very long before your forearms resemble Pop eye’s and your neck looks like Mike Tyson’s. And we had 200 miles of it!

Twenty five minutes later and I arrived at our meeting point, Clacket Lane service area and Ian arrived about three minutes behind me. A quick cup of Coffee and a moan about the weather later and we were off on what was to be a journey neither of us wish to do ever again.

The bottom section of the M25 means we are still battling against the gusting headwind. I take the lead and Ian tries to tuck in behind me, but the buffeting we are both experiencing makes it impossible. We both try and get as low as we can on our bikes and at this point Ian is regretting not taking his Honda instead. It has to be pointed out at this point that Ian has just obtained an old Suzuki 550 to use as a winter bike which has just an upright seating position as mine, although it has got a small handlebar fairing, with headwind as strong as this it’s having little or no effect.

By the time we got to the Staines reservoir my arms were already 2 inches longer and my neck was 3 inches wider and it was at this part of the journey that we got our only respite. It’s here the M25 turns north and together with high ground on both sides we got some much needed shelter. On to the M40 heading north west which means we now have a cross wind to contend with as well. Your legs are quite important at this point as you now have to hang on with them as well as your arms just to stay on the bike. My fuel gauge is now already on the wrong side of “Full” so we stop to get petrol and take a much needed break.

The cold has many strange effects one of which is the necessity to pee a lot, which ordinarily is not a problem but when you have to take off layers of clothes it is a real pain, still it does give you more time off of the bike to allow the lactic acid on your arms time to subside.

Off again and with the thought that we had just covered half distance firmly in our minds Ian takes the lead and tries to pick the pace up, only to be beaten back by ever present buffeting. I must say at this point that he did look quite a sight, he had his tank bag on the bike with a clear plastic cover that blew up to twice it’s normal size when at speed, which had the effect of looking like a huge bubble resting on his petrol tank poking out under his arms.

The M40 leads onto the M42 just south of Birmingham and it is at this point that we were nearly there, - or so I thought. The end of the M42 is a town called Bromsgrove, and from here to the venue at Ludlow doesn’t look very far on the map. However, I had seriously under estimated the type of road, the distance and therefore the time it would take cover it. Arriving in Kidderminster, which was the next town en route and we were already 5 minutes late for the start of the meeting. It was at this point that the journey took a turn for the worse. It started raining, but it didn’t just rain it absolutely fell down – horizontally if that isn’t a contradiction in terms. The next hour was a nightmare, trying to read a map on a rain covered map holder while dodging fallen trees, people standing in the road waving their arms in the air and lunatic drivers trying to kill you, when all the time battling against the wind and rain is not to be recommended. Travelling up the motorway we were unaware of just how much damage was being done by the wind, it was only winding through the country lanes dodging fallen trees and fences that we realised the devastation being caused and re-enforced my thoughts that maybe this was a bad idea.

And so with only a couple of miles to go our journey was nearly over, - or so we thought. We reached the final junction which leads into Ludlow only to be confronted with a ‘Road Closed’ sign. The diversion led us along a really narrow county road for what seemed like ages stuck behind slow traffic until eventually we arrived in Ludlow. I printed the map we were using to suite the route we would be taking, not thinking that we would need more of the map it didn’t show the part of the town the diversion had lead us to, we were now completely lost. This we didn’t need. We were cold, wet, tired and hungry not to mention over an hour late for the meeting. We rode around a bit until we saw a castle and a sign to the station and with a bit of good luck (the only luck we’d had all day) we stumbled blindly upon the venue.

At last somewhere warm and dry, wrong again, the venue being used for the AGM was a school and because this was half term they had turned the heating off. Could this get any worse? Well, yes is the short answer. The whole point of us attending the AGM was to form a sub-committee of the large scale section for large scale bikes. This was rejected almost immediately during the part of the meeting which we missed which made our whole journey pointless. Some days you just wonder why you bother getting out of bed at all. However, it was a good PR exercise, we got to meet up with Barry, Steve and Derrick and it meant we could have a much needed rest before we pulled on our soggy boots and gloves and rode all the way back home again.

An account of the AGM will appear on this site shortly probably written by Ian because I’m trying to forget the whole experience.

Mark Bennett

	B E N W E L L ' S - A G M - A D V E N T U R E
	It’s a story that has to be told just to demonstrate our dedication to the sport, or our utter stupidity – you decide. I stepped outside my front door at six oclock Sunday morning to be greeted with a strange sight. There was something not quite right about the trees in my road, they seemed to be more horizontal than normal, and those that weren’t had snapped off branches laying in the road. Hmmm, with hind sight maybe this was a sign. Still, undaunted I jumped on the bike and headed off up the road toward the motorway, unaware that Ian was sitting at home eagerly awaiting my phone call to say that I had decided to take Emma’s car instead. Doh! The reason Ian was so "up and awake" was that he mistakenly put his clock forward instead of Back for GMT and as a result had been up since four oclock. This was probably a sign as well. As I pulled out onto the motorway heading west, I knew straight away that this was going to be a difficult journey. It was a westerly wind which I later found out was gusting up to eighty miles an hour, so riding at eighty miles and hour into an eighty mile an hour headwind equals very sore neck muscles. For those of you who have ridden a motorcycle you will know just how hard it is riding into a head wind or a cross wind, and for those of you who have ridden a bike without a fairing or screen will know it’s even harder and it doesn’t take very long before your forearms resemble Pop eye’s and your neck looks like Mike Tyson’s. And we had 200 miles of it! Twenty five minutes later and I arrived at our meeting point, Clacket Lane service area and Ian arrived about three minutes behind me. A quick cup of Coffee and a moan about the weather later and we were off on what was to be a journey neither of us wish to do ever again. The bottom section of the M25 means we are still battling against the gusting headwind. I take the lead and Ian tries to tuck in behind me, but the buffeting we are both experiencing makes it impossible. We both try and get as low as we can on our bikes and at this point Ian is regretting not taking his Honda instead. It has to be pointed out at this point that Ian has just obtained an old Suzuki 550 to use as a winter bike which has just an upright seating position as mine, although it has got a small handlebar fairing, with headwind as strong as this it’s having little or no effect. By the time we got to the Staines reservoir my arms were already 2 inches longer and my neck was 3 inches wider and it was at this part of the journey that we got our only respite. It’s here the M25 turns north and together with high ground on both sides we got some much needed shelter. On to the M40 heading north west which means we now have a cross wind to contend with as well. Your legs are quite important at this point as you now have to hang on with them as well as your arms just to stay on the bike. My fuel gauge is now already on the wrong side of “Full” so we stop to get petrol and take a much needed break. The cold has many strange effects one of which is the necessity to pee a lot, which ordinarily is not a problem but when you have to take off layers of clothes it is a real pain, still it does give you more time off of the bike to allow the lactic acid on your arms time to subside. Off again and with the thought that we had just covered half distance firmly in our minds Ian takes the lead and tries to pick the pace up, only to be beaten back by ever present buffeting. I must say at this point that he did look quite a sight, he had his tank bag on the bike with a clear plastic cover that blew up to twice it’s normal size when at speed, which had the effect of looking like a huge bubble resting on his petrol tank poking out under his arms. The M40 leads onto the M42 just south of Birmingham and it is at this point that we were nearly there, - or so I thought. The end of the M42 is a town called Bromsgrove, and from here to the venue at Ludlow doesn’t look very far on the map. However, I had seriously under estimated the type of road, the distance and therefore the time it would take cover it. Arriving in Kidderminster, which was the next town en route and we were already 5 minutes late for the start of the meeting. It was at this point that the journey took a turn for the worse. It started raining, but it didn’t just rain it absolutely fell down – horizontally if that isn’t a contradiction in terms. The next hour was a nightmare, trying to read a map on a rain covered map holder while dodging fallen trees, people standing in the road waving their arms in the air and lunatic drivers trying to kill you, when all the time battling against the wind and rain is not to be recommended. Travelling up the motorway we were unaware of just how much damage was being done by the wind, it was only winding through the country lanes dodging fallen trees and fences that we realised the devastation being caused and re-enforced my thoughts that maybe this was a bad idea. And so with only a couple of miles to go our journey was nearly over, - or so we thought. We reached the final junction which leads into Ludlow only to be confronted with a ‘Road Closed’ sign. The diversion led us along a really narrow county road for what seemed like ages stuck behind slow traffic until eventually we arrived in Ludlow. I printed the map we were using to suite the route we would be taking, not thinking that we would need more of the map it didn’t show the part of the town the diversion had lead us to, we were now completely lost. This we didn’t need. We were cold, wet, tired and hungry not to mention over an hour late for the meeting. We rode around a bit until we saw a castle and a sign to the station and with a bit of good luck (the only luck we’d had all day) we stumbled blindly upon the venue. At last somewhere warm and dry, wrong again, the venue being used for the AGM was a school and because this was half term they had turned the heating off. Could this get any worse? Well, yes is the short answer. The whole point of us attending the AGM was to form a sub-committee of the large scale section for large scale bikes. This was rejected almost immediately during the part of the meeting which we missed which made our whole journey pointless. Some days you just wonder why you bother getting out of bed at all. However, it was a good PR exercise, we got to meet up with Barry, Steve and Derrick and it meant we could have a much needed rest before we pulled on our soggy boots and gloves and rode all the way back home again. An account of the AGM will appear on this site shortly probably written by Ian because I’m trying to forget the whole experience. Mark Bennett

B E N W E L L ' S - A G M - A D V E N T U R E