Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

If you can’t work with plan A, go to plan B – always a good motto. We’d planned to try out our new tent on the North Coast 500 last year (a route that hugs the Scottish coastline), but illness prevented that. We then planned to use it in France and Italy this summer, but the very late delivery of my driving licence prevented that – and Covid-19 would have made it a bit dodgy, too.

Plan C involved a three-day window of warm and sunny autumn weather in the Lake District. Sunday dawned bright and sunny in Stockport, so for the first time in more than a year we loaded up the Valkyrie with tent, sleeping bags, high-tech air mattresses and as few clothes as we could get away with. We’d pre-booked a campsite in the Lakes. There wasn’t much of a selection to choose from, but it was out of season and maybe Covid had closed the better ones. Compared with the sites we use on the Continent, these looked a bit sparse in the facilities department, with one boasting of a new shower block! We tend to take an on-site bar, restaurant and extensive washrooms for granted, but maybe we’ve just been lucky over the years.

We set off up the M60 and the M62 in warm sunshine, enjoying the feeling of being off on a road trip again, albeit a short one. Traffic was light and stayed that way as we branched off on to A roads, but then it got busy – especially with bikes. We passed probably 100 scooters coming back from a rally somewhere. I’d forgotten how reckless some riders can be on open roads. A reminder came when we slowed to a crawl at the scene of an accident, where the tail of a sports bike was sticking out of a hedge, and not quite at ground level, either.

As the road climbed higher, the sky grew cloudier and the air cooler. The clouds looked ominous in the direction we were heading, enveloping the hilltops in the distance. It started to drizzle, and the drizzle changed to rain as the patches of blue receded behind us. The rain became heavier. Peter on the pillion was reporting that her new Shoei Neotec was hurting the top of her head, just as mine had, so I resolved to give her my sponge pad to try. The joy of our new Sena intercom was the ease of discussing whether to abort the trip or not.

We stopped for fuel and a sandwich and watched the weather get wetter and gloomier. The prospect of setting up a new tent in a wet field, sleeping through a wet night and waking up to a wet morning didn’t have huge appeal – not compared with the nice warm bed waiting at home. We’d crossed the M6 motorway only a few miles back, and it seemed to promise a fast route back to sunshine, warmth and maybe dry roads. That’s what we did – it turned out to be Plan D! Some people think nothing of riding and camping in the rain; I’ve done a lot of the former and a bit of the latter and see no pleasure in either, apart from that recent ride home after a year off the road. Happily, the rain stopped within minutes of joining the motorway south, then the clouds parted, and the ride home was sunny and warm; it was like visiting two climates in the space of 30 minutes.

A few days later we headed out for a day trip. I gave Peter my helmet sponge pad and tried my own replacement liner instead. She was much happier with the pad in place. The new liner solved the roof-of-the-head issue for me but instead transferred the pain to my forehead, which was why I’d chosen the larger liner in the first place! Motolegends kindly supplied another skull-cap sponge for me and now we’re both sorted, even if it’s a bit of a Mickey Mouse solution for a top-of-the-range lid. The tent, however, is back in the attic till next spring.

The rain started to fall less than half-way into the 200-mile trip: so much for believing the weather forecast – after more than 50 years of living in the British Isles you’d think I’d know better! My vision of returning to serious biking in endless sunshine after a year’s break ended in a service area on the M40.

The plan had been to ride from Woking, the bike’s normal garaging place, to Stockport, where we live. On Sunday, the following Wednesday looked dry and warm-ish, according to BBC Weather. By Tuesday night my wife and I were committed to travelling the next day, but whatever had been brewing in the Atlantic for Thursday brewed a little faster and brought heavy rain by midday Wednesday.

The day started well enough. It felt truly wonderful to be back on two wheels after my enforced layoff. The bike had a fresh tank of 97-octane unleaded and was running far more smoothly than the day I’d put it back on the road. My brand new Shoei Neotec 2 helmet was comfortable and quiet at first, but after about 90 minutes it started biting into the top of my head.

The rain started to spit down as I pulled into the service area to have some lunch and don waterproofs. I couldn’t find any obvious reason for the helmet issue so headed off again, planning to ride cross-country towards Derby to pick up the A50 and then the A515 through the Pennines – much more fun on a bike than the dreary M6. My wife, following an hour behind me in the car, discovered the route and always prefers it, too.

We’d treated ourselves to the luxury of built-in Sena headsets after years of grappling with the wires of an Autocom system. However, you need to study the leaflet well to sort out the combination of three buttons and how long you press each one to get radio, phone, intercom or satnav – and my leaflet was in the car with most of our stuff.

My Garmin would ensure I found my way home – I’d only travelled this route as a car passenger and wasn’t entirely familiar with it – but one of the reasons I’d spent a small fortune on two Sena units was to have the audio feed from the sat-nav. I pulled over into a lay-by and fiddled with the buttons: was it centre button for on, then five seconds holding down centre and the + button together for sat-nav? I was rewarded with some encouraging beeps and set off again, with Alexa’s cousin giving me route information.

The rain got heavier, but the pleasant Pennine roads provided plenty of diversion. It just felt so good to be riding again. By the time I reached home, I’d made a few discoveries: my Alpinestars riding boots, which are about 12 years old, were no longer waterproof, despite their Gore-Tex lining; neither was my Rukka jacket, which had kept me warm and dry these past 17 years but was now letting water in around the stomach area; and my new helmet was definitely digging into the crown of my head.

The boots and jacket are probably overdue for replacement, and I’ll do that in due course, but the helmet was a worry. I’d just spent something in excess of £700 on the lid and headset, and what had seemed fine in the showroom was now a disappointment. I get my riding gear mostly from Motolegends in Guildford, and have always found them excellent, so I dashed off an email next morning. Help!

They’d recommended the Shoei over Schuberth, which I’d had for my last two helmets, saying it would better suit my skull shape. I’d opted for a slightly larger lining for greater comfort, but that allows the helmet to sit every so slightly lower on the head. The larger insert also has less padding on top, and that was causing the harder internal centre rib to dig in. They dispatched a replacement liner and a sponge-like skull pad by first-class post. The pad slips between the helmet shell and the inner lining, and it works a treat.

Despite heavy rain, painful helmets and leaking waterproofs, it still felt wonderful to be back in the saddle. All we needed now was a few days of sunshine and maybe we could go camping…