A Brief History of my biking experience

Where would you like to ride today?

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"3809 miles in ten weeks"

"Honda C70"

"Green laning on a C70"

"RNLI Challenge"


"Bun Burner Gold"

The full story in brief

It all started "when I were a lad" - I cycled around the UK when I left school in 1970 covering 3809 miles in 10 weeks. Read more here.

This was followed by a trip in 1978 of 2865 miles in 2 weeks on a Honda C70 during which I retraced much of the route cycled eight years earlier.  Click here to read more.

In 1992 I purchased a Kawasaki GTR 1000 and my interest in riding was re-awakened.  On 25th June 1994 I set off on a one day ride from West London with the aim of visiting all Three Countries in mainland Britain and get home within the day. Total mileage for the day was just under 800 miles.  A year later on 2nd July 1995 I had upped the goal and set off to visit all Three Capital Cities (London, Cardiff and Edinburgh) in under 24 hours. This time the mileage was close to 1000 miles in around nineteen hours.  Both trips involved less than 50 miles of dual carriageways (they are for wimps and sales reps).  Click here to read the full story.

I figured that was the best I could manage until my good friend Bill Bonfield suggested the RNLI Challenge - visit as many lifeboat stations in 48 hours as possible in order to raise money for the Royal National Lifeboat Institute.  Much planning led to a team travelling from my home near Salisbury to Aberystwyth on Thursday 3rd June 1999 ready for the off on Friday evening at 18:00 - the following 48 hours saw us travel almost 1500 miles and visit 48 lifeboat stations, mostly in the rain, between Borth and Lymington (near the New Forest) via Lands End raising several thousand pounds for the RNLI in the process. Click here to read the full details about the RNLI Challenge ride.

Once again I figured this was the pinnacle of my long distance riding - once again I was wrong - another challenge was offered by a fellow member of the Middlesex Advanced Motorcyclists group, Alex Eggert, who was organising a group long distance ride.  He told me that a couple of members were planning a Bun Burner Gold which is over 1500 miles in under 24 hours.  Apparently this had never been achieved by anyone in Britain before.  I felt I had a reputation to uphold so I decided to try to be the first person in the UK to achieve a Bun Burner Gold.  I achieved this on 19th June 2000 by riding 1576 miles in under 24 hours.  I think I might settle down to a few shorter rides again for the time being - but then again who knows!