Five go mad in Wales (or make that four)

The expedition members taking part in this trip were Mark Tucker ( organiser ), Ivan & Debbie Cullum and myself Simon Sweet riding respectively Triumph Tiger 955i, Trophy 1200 and Honda Pan European ST1300. We were also meeting member Nathan Harrow and his BMW 1200GS at our destination of Rhayader in mid Wales, who was arriving on the way back from the Scotland trip.

Ivan, Debbie and myself left from St. Austell on Friday June 9 th joining Mark at Piers café, Otterham Station whereby we took the "pretty way" along the A39 through Barnstaple, Minehead and Bridgewater. Although scenic you cannot make as much progress as the motorway especially when you are stuck behind French juggernauts at 30 mph. and solid white lines. I was a little puzzled by Marks' hand signal to the driver as he eventually passed him. Perhaps it only appears in the French edition of Roadcraft. We must all do our little bit for Anglo French relations.

We took the new Severn crossing into Wales each taking a different booth at the tolls. Mark was first through, I held back to wait for Ivan and that was the last we saw of Mark. Apparently he kept headlights in his mirrors for quite a while until a Blackbird went past at warp factor nine and he realised it wasn't us. We did of course get reunited at our destination later that evening. Mark and Nathan were camping whilst we were more civilised and stayed at Bryncoed Guest House.

Originally Nathan was going to join us on tour but having fraternised with the natives instead decided to do his own thing, hence four .

On Saturday the group set off for the town of Betws-y-coed in the north. Returning in the evening we called into a tea shop for refreshment and to get some feeling back into our nether regions. There were no closing times displayed but as we were having our cream tea the proprietor started dropping hints such as taking in the signboard from the road, putting his car in the garage, taking down the flags and shutting one of the double front gates to the drive. Anybody had a "lockin" before at a tea room?

On the Sunday we headed west to Carmarthen and visited the historic settlement of Marks and Spencer and did a tour of the towns' car parks and then on to the seaside resort of Tenby.

Rather than have the luxury of a final nights camping and associated domestics, nocturnal gymnastics, car alarms, children playing and assorted bird song Mark decided to rough it at the guest house with us. As the establishment was "animal friendly" we all fitted in fine.

All the roads we used over the weekend were excellent bikers' roads, with good surfaces, and potholes were non existent. Bends, although you couldn't see the exit on approach due to high hedges were all marked with chevron boards, "slow/araf" on the road and very often loads of "shellmex" anti skid surfacing. Speed limits seemed more realistic with more use of 40 limits on the outskirts of town instead of a blanket 30. There was however a downside as we heard there had been five motorcyclists killed in the area in the past week!

We returned on Monday the 12 th . Checking my tripmeter before returning it showed 666 miles from the start in St. Austell, whoooo - spooky or what?

This was my first long trip on the Pan and I was pleased with the way it performed. I returned from Wales without refuelling getting on average 55 to the gallon with a six gallon fuel tank, and clocked up 920 miles in total.

I believe we all got something out of the weekend; I frightened myself three times on bends (not bad for all the ones we did) and will endeavour to perfect my counter steering. Ivan and Mark proved once again Triumph luggage is not watertight, Scottoilers are good for oiling jackets and engines and Debbie decided that a gel seat might be on the shopping list before next time. Mark also did some research into wind energy on a diet of Brains bitter, ginger beer and scotch eggs.

Here's to the next one. Simon