The BMW Club East Anglia Section

Apologies for the lateness of this report, the dog ate my homework 🙂

Hopefully everyone that attended the ride agrees that it was a great way to start the year, I certainly feel like me and my bike have a great year ahead.

We had seven bikes and eight people: Myself on the R1150RT, Tim on his K1300GT, Matt on his R80RT, Dave on his R1200GS, Brian on his Pan, Gary on his K1200LT and Bob & Sue (the only pillion to brave the day) on their R1200GS.

As you will probably remember, that Saturday was a "bit damp" but certainly not as cold as it could have been and not so wet as to take away the sheer fun of being out there on your bike.

I’m afraid there are only a few pictures from the day, but to make up for it (and then some) Tim tested his new Christmas present out – a Helm-Cam (not the official name) – to create a movie of the ride and so I have included a link to that here as well.  Including mutlimedia in our pages is a whole new venture for our web site so please let me know your comments.

Right, on with the show:

If you cannot play the movie, click here to download the 11Mb file and play it locally.

Here are a few snaps too:

We congregated at the Tesco Superstore in Bury St Edmunds (near the sugar beet factory) and fuelled ourselves up with a cooked breakfast in the Tesco Cafe.  Our esteemed secretary (Mark) met up with us at Tesco’s for a quick breakfast and to see us off.  Bob and Sue arrived just as we mounted up to ride off and so we were a complete group.  As we set off we decided the drop-off system was going to be necessary and it worked well throughout the ride.  Mark had only been able to attend to see us off so he peeled off home shortly after we set off.

We headed north for our first town: Brandon in Norfolk. Unfortunately during that first leg of the journey my sat-nav lost all power which was bad as I was leading.  Of course it had to happen just as we were due to make a turning, but with a bit of luck we managed to make the turn and then I pulled over and swapped with Tim (so he was leading and I was tail-gunner).  Tim’s video above reflects this as first he has bikes ahead of him and then suddenly they are all gone – I didn’t want you to think we just let him behind. So now, being at the back, it also gave me an opportunity to grab a couple of snaps as we headed across from Brandon to Ely along the lovely fen roads.

We passed through some lovely villages and right in front of the great doors of Ely Cathedral, then headed south to Newmarket and a deserved break for a coffee at the glamorous Burger King (it was warm and served hot drinks – that classes as glam for me).



Here we chatted for a while and then set off once more.  Unfortunately Dave was not feeling too well so as we passed through Newmarket he peeled off and headed home.

From Newmarket we headed in to Hertfordshire on a leg that saw the two extremes of our great British roads with a blast on the A10 dual carriageway and then off on to the back roads to head across to Bishops Stortford.  If it wasn’t wet enough our route took us through a ford and down some single lane roads which in turn cleaned off some of the road muck then put plenty of road-wash back on.

We then stopped off for lunch at the Birchanger services at which point Matt peeled off for home with a cheery wave.  Everyone grabbed refreshments, ranging from a full size lunch to just a cuppa.

All rested again we set off on our final leg through Braintree in Essex and on to Sudbury in Suffolk at which point Bob and Sue peeled off with the four remaining bikes completing the circuit of 150 miles (almost exactly) and arriving at Tesco’s before daylight was lost.

I hope all who read this will come along to next year’s ride and pass on the word 🙂

Happy New Year to all