Motorcycle Views

Wild Motorcycle Tales

Here's a great story from Hippy Vince. Got your own story? Send it to me.

24 Hours

It was all quite a simple plan really. I have two friends, for the sake of this we'll call Nikki and Sam. It was Nikki's 21st birthday, and we were going to drive (them in the car, me on the KLR) from below sea level in Norfolk, 300 miles to the highest town in England, Nikki's hometown, Princetown in Devon, for her party. Unbeknownst to her, Sam was also going to propose to her, but back to the point.

We set off at around one in the morning. For around half an hour we drove down familiar, flat Norfolk roads, making good time. The only traffic besides us, the occasional lorry on a late night haul. We covered about 30 miles before we hit the first problem of the trip.

Coming off a roundabout, I pulled the clutch in to change up a gear, only for the clutch lever to flop helplessly in my hand. I flashed my lights and pulled to the side of the road. This couldn't have just happened but it did.

Sam turned his car around and came back to see what the problem was. Where the clutch cable connects to the engine, the end had snapped off. For a good ten minutes we tried and tried to tie the cable round, but to no avail.

A police car stopped to see what had happened, and drove off after I told them I didn't have breakdown coverage. So I formed a plan. I'd try to ride the poor clutchless bike back home while Sam carried on up to Devon, and see if I could pinch a clutch cable off one of my other bikes. With some convincing, Sam agreed and I set off on my return journey.

Setting off was hard with the front wheel lifting every time I dropped her into first. Stopping was even harder, crunching between first and second until I found neutral. I tried to drive in sixth gear as much as possible, only changing down if I really needed to.

Annoyingly, every lorry I met on the way back pulled over to let me pass, seemingly thinking that the biker behind them was getting annoyed with their 40 mph pace.

Eventually I got back home, and after 15 minutes to remove the exhaust annoyingly in the way of the cable, the cable was off, and although ill-fitting, bodged onto the KLR. Filled with joy I hopped back onto the KLR and set off again, this time on my own.

The KLR and I rode happily for hours from Norfolk to Cambridge and onto our first motorway, the M11. Happy to be making good progress and overtaking the late night lorries, we drove on until we were near the beginning of the M25 and stopped for petrol and a break for the KLR and a cigarette and an energy drink for me.

I spoke to Sam on the phone. They'd taken a different route and got lost due to diversions trying to get onto the M5. At this point I couldn't even have imagined what lay ahead of me.

We set off again and got onto the M25. I drove for hours and hours and the calm nighttime turned into a hectic morning with the sun completely blinding me as it rose on the Motorway. 100 miles passed. Surely I should've seen the exit by now?

I drove and drove praying to see the sign for the M5. Eventually I admitted to myself that I was completely lost on London's ring road. The KLR was unhappy too, a faint but noticeable ticking noise developing. I decided to stop again, and call Sam to see if he could find me some directions. But, coming off the motorway into a service station, with a lorry in the left lane ahead of me and a car in my lane ahead of me, I once again felt a lever flop to the handlebar, but this time it wasn't the clutch.

I had no choice. I twisted open the throttle and shot between the two vehicles, gritting my teeth. With the car ahead braking to slow down from 70, there was no chance of me not hitting into the back of him on the rear drum brake alone. Luckily I got through and, heart racing, I pulled to the side of the road to see what had happened.

The brake caliper was dangling by the brake line. The bolts had vibrated completely out and were nowhere to be seen. I pushed (don't ask why, by now I'd been awake for almost 24 hours and driving for at least 9) my poor KLR up to the service station's car park and phoned Sam.

He had no idea what to do either. His only suggestion was to ask people with vans or trailers to take me and my bike. It was a typically horrible service station and infested with ants but unfortunately I had to spend a large amount of time inside charging my phone. Eventually, hours later, my dad (god bless him) agreed to drive all the way down to bring me two bolts, brake fluid, and engine oil for my bike.

I passed the time talking to the bikers I saw driving in, who almost always stopped to see what the problem was. Even those on the most expensive bikes would scour over their bikes seeing if they had any bolts the same they could safely remove from their bikes to donate to me.

I did try to sleep, but with the motorway beside you it's a lot easier said than done. The happiness I felt when I saw my dad's battered Nissan Micra pulling in was unbelievable. After a good chat, the KLR topped up on oil, and with the caliper firmly fixed on with an impact driver and a hammer, we set off on our separate ways and I went back onto the M25.

Now you'd think this'd be enough problems for one journey but no. You see, there never was an exit for the M5 on the M25. I was confused. I thought I took the M5 to the M4, but it's the other way around, and not knowing this, I set off on the M25 once again looking for the M5.

The whole way round the M25 again. Hours and hundreds of miles later, I thought I'd take a chance and set off down the M4. It's a good thing I did or I might well still have been on the M25 today.

I was so happy to see signs for the Southwest, I almost cried. I pulled into another service station a short way down the M4 to tell Sam the situation, only to find out that Nikki's party was now just hours away.

I jumped back on my KLR, kicked her to life, and shot off down the M4, doing seriously illegal speeds in an attempt to make up lost time. This would prove to be my latest mistake.

The M4 went by pretty uneventfully, but there was one thing I didn't take into account about my full throttle riding - fuel consumption. Now on the M5, the KLR made the horribly familiar noise of a bike that's out of petrol. I pulled onto the hard shoulder and went to flip the fuel to reserve, the first time I'd ever had to use reserve on this bike. No big problem right? Right, except it already WAS set to reserve.

I pulled out my phone, texted Sam, and then my phone died. I was now sitting on the hard shoulder of the M5 with no phone and a bike that was out of petrol. I rolled a cigarette and cried.

I hadn't actually been there long when a motorway police car pulled onto the hard shoulder behind me. Luckily, these weren't just any motorway cops. In a car, they may have been, but they were true bikers at heart. They took sympathy on me and together we shook the poor old KLR about, rustling up the last dregs of fuel and then pushed me down the hard shoulder to give me a bump start. Then the KLR fired up once more. I thanked them from the bottom of my heart and set off again hoping to hit a petrol station too but I didn't even cover two miles before she died again.

Again the cops stopped and helped me bump start her - this time saying I could drive down the hard shoulder doing 20 mph and they'd drive behind me with their lights on. So once again I set off, this time with a police escort. A couple of bump starts and a few miles later, still no petrol station, and the KLR was completely dry.

Not many cops would ever have done even as much as they'd already done, but still they didn't stop helping. They helped push the KLR off the motorway behind a barrier so it couldn't be moved and gave me a lift in their police car up to the next petrol station (one off the motorway to save me money too!) to buy a petrol can and petrol and then gave me a lift all the way back.

They really were the nicest cops I have ever met in my entire life. I'll never forget them. They stayed till the KLR was filled up with petrol and running once again and once more I set off.

Think it's over yet? I would've thought that'd be my last problem. I really hoped it would be but there was one more problem for me.

Running the bike that low on fuel must've pulled all the crap sitting in my petrol tank through, as near Bristol I started noticing it was getting harder to do high speeds. The problem got progressively worse and worse, until with the bike struggling to keep at 60, I pulled into another service station.

From this point on my memory gets pretty hazy, as I had been awake coming on two days, but the bike would only rev high with choke and low without it. I tried giving her some redex, and set off again, stressed and upset. It took me hours to finish those last few miles of the M5, the KLR pulling 50 mph at the absolute maximum towards the end - downhill - but she never would completely die.

I stopped in almost every service station for coffee as I didn't have the mental power or willpower to carry on anymore. I was seriously upset. Freezing after such a long ride, I finally made it into Devon and off the M5. On the Devon Expressway I stopped for one more time, hope given up. I was cold. My visor was frosting up. My glasses were frosting up. My hands were numb. How had my life come to this? I eventually managed to gather the willpower to cover those last few miles off the Devon Expressway and into the (oh so beautiful, oh so fun) roads of Dartmoor.

I found myself having to flip the choke on every time I needed to climb a hill, and off as soon as I got to the top for compression braking, otherwise I'd shoot off like a rocket (23% gradients is a normal hill where I was).

Eventually, I made it into Princetown at 1:30 in the morning. It'd been more than 24 hours on the road and even longer I'd been awake. I missed the party, and I missed them getting engaged, and sadly I had more problems with the KLR and ended up having to sell it while I was there. The bike I took the clutch cable from also got stolen while I was in Princetown.

But, I now own a CB500 - it's taken me on the same journey there AND back with no problems but it's such a boring ride it's unbelievable. I'd take the KLR any day and hopefully, one of these days, I'll be able to afford a KLR600. -- Hippy Vince

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