Malle Rally 2020

Thought I'd mention this in case anyone's interested. As I've posted elsewhere I took part in this year's Malle Rally. Land's End to John O'Groats over 6 days, mainly on B-roads and single track. If you've got a spare 10 minutes google 'Malle London' and scroll down their website, past ads for clothes etc, to the bottom. On the left you'll see '1500'. Click on it and watch an amazing (short) and inspiring film of the Rally. I feature (looking like death coz it was day 6 and sleep had been hard to come by) but you won't know which is me of course.
If you want to know anything about it then ask.
I'm signing up for next year!

 

I did the trip on my Triumph Street twin. My brother and a friend rode their T120's (the new generation). If you've watched the film you'll see a huge range of bikes, from Harley, Buell, Royal Enfield, BMW, BSA, Ducati etc. The biggest single make was Triumph. Not many Japanese. There were 2 Thruxtons, a 1950's Trident (the oldest bike there) and even an unheard of Chinese 125! The last belonged to Chris (the chap with the teddy bear) and it was the only bike that didn't make the finish (both he and his bike spent the last 2 days in one of the back-up trucks) at the Castle of Mey (Queen mum's place..Charles gave us permission to use it!).
What you won't see are any adventure bikes (ok, one Dakar) or full luggage setups. The idea is to use an 'inappropriate motorcycle on an inappropriate route', but no-one really cares what you turn up on. There's full back-up, expert mechanics (including Callum Price from de Bolex motorcycles), all gear is transported for you, each camp is set up ahead of you, with bedding and a mobile shower unit, plus all food. If the bloody virus hadn't buggered things up we'd have gone in June, instead of a very cold September, and evening meals would have been in stately homes and castles, instead of marquees.

Yes, it's not cheap. I paid £2400. There are cheaper options if you do your own camping and ride home from Inverness instead of loading your bike onto a huge truck and jumping on a plane.
As for distances, the total mileage from Land's End to John O'G was a touch over 1500. I took a leisurely 2 days to ride down from Cheshire and in the spirit of the rally took the scenic route through Wales, avoiding motorways and main A-roads (except for getting over the Severn Bridge). My mileage was 2021 miles and I spent 9 days riding. I left home on a Saturday. On Monday my arse was distinctly uncomfortable but all pain had gone on Tuesday. No problems from then on. By the way, the three of us are in our 60's and we weren't the oldest.

As Tallpaul pointed out we rode around 250+ miles a day but because of the route it took a lot longer than we'd expected. 10+ hours riding a day, including checkpoint stops (our longest day was 12 hours..we got lost a lot). There was a set time to complete each stage but we didn't know what it was until the end, they didn't want to encourage racing on the road. We missed one checkpoint and had trouble finding a few others. We made a complete mess of the stage through the Lake District, in and out of Ambleside 3 times! Eventually we found the Rhynose and Hardknott passes, a real challenge in the pouring rain. We stayed upright but a few went down (no serious damage to riders or bikes). There was always the option of route B if you needed it.
There were some hairy moments, including thick mist while riding lost along slippery, narrow tracks over the Yorkshire moors; driving rain at times in Scotland, where I discovered my waterproof gear wasn't; both engine management light and fuel warning light coming on in the middle of nowhere..just keep going (the engine management light went on and off a lot. I ignored it. It eventually went away and hasn't returned, the bike ran fine).
Yes it was a challenge but absolutely well worth it. Riding through the incredible scenery of Britain, with a group of like-minded people, on some of the best roads I have ever ridden. What's not to like?

 

Sounds like you're more than ready for the Malle Rally. See you there in 2021!