The Longest Ride on the Shortest Day.

IaIn & Ross

On December 21 st, the shortest day of the year, three local motorcyclists rode 870 miles from Lands End to John O’ Groats. Their aim was to raise money for the Red Cross Asian Earthquake Disaster appeal.

Iain Corser and Mike Poad of Darlington and Ross Neasham of Potto organised the ride to be carried out in “rotation”. That is one bike, a ’98 Honda VFR 800, and one support vehicle. When rider one was on the bike, rider three would drive the support vehicle and rider two would rest .The system repeated throughout the journey .This meant that stops were scheduled for fuel and rider changes approximately every one hundred and fifty miles.

The journey started at 06.00 at Lands End , and was completed at John O’ Groats by 2100 ,well within the eighteen hour target set.

Weather conditions varied on the day. The first 150 miles were in patchy fog which gave way to drizzle for the next stage. High winds and showers continued into Scotland, where wintry showers carried on to north of Inverness. The last stage to the finish was dry but very windy.

The bike was prepared by White Brothers, who gave it a full service and fitted heated grips. The VFR 800 performed faultlessly throughout the journey, giving a high degree of comfort, weather protection and economy. The bike performed faultlessly, no mean feat given it had already covered 47,000 miles before the trip!

So far almost £1500 has been raised in sponsorship; should you wish to add to this please make cheques payable to “The British Red Cross”. Your help is much appreciated.

The team would like to thank;

White Brothers Honda

MMT

Hein Gericke

The Darlington and Stockton Times

BBC Radio Cleveland

Alpha Radio

And Especially All Sponsors for all their help and support.