Monday 28th July Day 0 Cambridge to Harwich: Mileage on day 1: 68.7

At the last moment I bought a rain suit from Cambridge Motorcycles as a talisman that might stop it raining while I carry this around. Surprisingly it fits, rolled up, into the minimalist luggage I own. I leave the house at about 6.30pm and already my GPS is trying to send me on some bizarre route out of Cambridge and I ignore it for the first time on the holiday. I am headed for the 11.45pm ferry at Harwich. I have my trusty new Triumph tank bag and, strapped onto the passenger seat, my old two-story tank bag with my clothes, spare bulbs, padlock in case I ever want to leave my helmet with the bike and even the hazard triangle it seems you are meant to carry in Europe squeezed into it. I have a pair of Crocs and some food and water as well as documents in the front.

I started planning this short trip months ago. The first challenge was buying a bike that would not be a strain to ride at speed all day. Even driving down to London on the M11 and back on my old Bandit 600 left me with painful wrists as I tried to hold on against the raging Essex wind. After four months of investigating and looking on Ebay I bought this Triumph Sprint ST 955i with 3000 miles on the clock. Luggage was more challenging – or rather more expensive than I could afford, so hard luggage will have to wait. Instead I invested in a Garmin GPS as I realised without someone with a map on their lap in the passenger seat next to me, finding anywhere would involve endless stops by the curb and a huge amount of wasted time.

The ride takes me out of Cambridge over the Gog Magog hills, via Haverhill, where I fill up with £15 of petrol, and beautiful winding country roads down to the A12 at Colchester then on to Harwich to catch the Stenna ferry to the Hook of Holland. It’s a beautiful sunny evening and still light when I arrive at Harwich to check in behind a German couple on an old BMW.

We chat later about their holiday in the UK. I also talk to another couple who live in Amsterdam on an older Honda with 16000 miles. He’s American and she is an English concert pianist. Also friendly is a Dutchman on a bright red Honda CBR who though young is a veteran of channel crossings as I find out later. He says he has ridden more miles on the left side of the road than the right. Three other young guys arrive on brand new but miniscule 125s and are photographed presumably it’s a jaunt for some biking magazine. I try to get in the background.

Eventually, after waiting for 72 cyclists, we are beckoned to drive up the spiral ramp and on to the boat. The Dutchman has taken his bike on this ferry many times and has his own equipment for lashing it down. I am completely hopeless at it and can’t even work the ratchet on the ties, so I get generous amounts of help and advice on this i.e. tie the bike down by its handle bars being careful not to damage any of the cables. If the handlers insist on tying the bike down over its seat, trap your gloves under the tie first to avoid damaging the seat.

I can’t believe that this is the same ferry that I was sick on every summer as a boy going to Germany for our family holidays. You barely realise that you are on something moving at all so vast and smooth is this vessel.

After months of planning I finally sail from Harwich tonight over to the Hook of Holland and then the rest of the week biking in Germany around the Mosel area. I have spare lightbulbs, bandages and a folded triangle that sticks out the back of my luggage. Accommodation is booked and the daily rides are not ambitious – the first day is about 350k though and rain is forecast for tomorrow. I also have a Garmin GPS which I tried out in Spain last week and I have learnt that it can really help in situations where you are totally lost – though it did give a few odd directions, like the wrong way down a one way street. So baring breakdowns (I have Cover) and accidents things should go well. with a good book – Austerlitz by Sebald (in English) which I have lost – and a pack of Camel, this should be enjoyable.

Read most reviews of the Triumph Sprint ST and sooner or later you will see two things – first, that to change the headlight bulbs you need to dismantle half the bike and, second, that many owners add some electronic gizmos in order to undo the silly arrangement where only one of the two headlights comes on at a time. I spent some time searching the net for instructions and searched through my Haynes manual. In the end, a list of which screws and bolts to undo from the net in hand, I set about sorting both tasks – to change the standard bulbs for supposedly 30% brighter xenon bulbs and install two relays to get both headlights to come on. I approached the task with my usual pessimism but two hours later and with a significant lack of problem the front of the bike was off, and bolted and screwed back on again, the work having been done. Here are some pictures.

Its coming up to six weeks of Triumph Sprint experience. This bike is such a pleasure to ride. I don’t remember feeling exactly the same about riding a Bandit. This evening, for example, I had an excuse to ride out of Cambridge for a few miles, with some windy A roads and a short blast on a dual carriageway. The weather wasn’t fantastic but a pleasant summer evening – rather overcast in fact – but I remember feeling that I didn’t want the ride to ever stop. Slowly I am gaining confidence in handling a motorbike and enjoying preparing for corners (though one or two arrived quickly and turned out to be very sharp) finding a line, crouching down, trying to keep up speed. Even driving along at 45 behind traffic is enjoyable. Last weekend I took it up to the North Norfolk coast up the often-impossible-to-pass-on A10.

The bike is very happy to go along slowly but demonstrated that once I’ve decided there is ample safety to overtake, it rockets past anything and can keep going at 80 or 85 very nicely. The Bandit was always revving too quickly and I was forever searching for another gear. I’ve done just over 400 miles in 5 1/2 weeks. I had the Bandit 8 months and only managed 500 miles on it. The next challenge is to book my ferry ticket to Hook of Holland – and get some more luggage for it.

I haven’t gained confidence in my nice new(ish) Trimuph Sprint. Now I have a nice new battery, fully charged on my new Optimate charger (battery and Optimate – another £100). So it starts beautifully now and sounds great. But I cut what was going to be a quick blast into the country into a short circle around town because the engine management warning light is now on. The little symbol is a diagram of an engine but I wonder whether it ought to be a pound sign. Luckily the bike is booked in next week for a service and other sort out, so I will add this to the list. What’s the betting its some obscure part that needs ordering from Triumph and will take 6 weeks? (Now, I am just being a pessimist here.) Or maybe something just needs resetting after being batteryless for a couple of days… Its strange when things start off with niggles before there’s a chance to feel settled into a confidence. Funnily, when this light comes on, the handbook says, the engine goes into ‘limp-home’ mode. I must say I didn’t notice much limping. In my usual inept riding style when I turned on the lights I opened up the throttle unexpectedly and the bike shot forward with impressive eagerness. It is as if the bike is saying to me ‘ride me properly’. On the hope side my Bandit is going up nicely on ebay so hopefully paying for all this work on my limping beauty.

Hmmm. After the initial euphoria of riding this lovely bike, some reality is dawning – an expensive reality. I’ve noticed that the front fork oil seal isn’t doing its job and oil is leaking right almost down to the brake discs, so that needs replacing – probably £100. It may be low mileage but it hasn’t been serviced in 4 years so a major service is due – price unknown so far, and today I got dressed up for a quick ride and the battery is absolutely flat – another £40 or so. So this beauty is booked in for a sort out next week at Cambridge Motorcycles in Cheddars Lane – but a trip up there by foot is called for to get a new battery so that I can actually get the bike up there. My enthusiasm is definitely on hold until the end of next week. What I hopefully get for the sale of the maligned but reliable Bandit will pay for this and some luggage and GPS with any luck. Oh by the way, also when I picked it up I realised it wasn’t taxed so there went £60 in the local post office to ride it home legally….