August 2021
Hi Folks..hope you’re all well in spite of Covid and Lockdowns; finally there is light at the end of the tunnel now with the vaccines!
Its been over 9 months since I last posted; 2021 has become a year of cancelled/postponed International travel plans for us all in UK and that includes what was to be my big trip for the year; riding from Anchorage, AK down through Canada to San Francisco, CA USA. I was due to leave on 20th August, everything was booked..flights, rental Vstrom 650, hotels etc.
However, as of today the American border remains closed to UK tourists, so I can’t get into USA and even if I could Canada has closed its borders to all tourists, other than double jabbed Americans; so no option but to cancel the trip for this year! 🙁
I have managed to get a flight voucher for the BA flight value and have cancelled all 16 hotels, without penalty via Booking.com. The motorcycle rental company, MotoQuest, has carried over my deposit and I have rebooked 21 days rental during end August/early September 2022. I’m just hoping the World will be in a better place a year from now and then I can finally get to ride the fantastic route that I have mapped out!
So for the time being it looks like bike trips will be confined to the UK only.. time to get some new tyres fitted!
Following the end of lockdown hotels were able to re-open in mid May and soon after that 8 of us went back to Wales and had 3 really good days riding there. Then in July a group of 4 of us rode up North, through Yorkshire Dales, North Pennines and into the Scottish Border country. Great roads and fantastic scenery made it a really four day day adventure.
In between these trips I am riding day trips whenever the weather is good through the Cotswolds, Midlands and East Midlands. There are lots of good roads and its nice countryside.
Its GOOD to be on the bike!! 
Out in the countryside
The thing about day trips; its always a loop.. and I get fed up with riding round in circles. I need to go somewhere I haven’t been before! “Ride” magazine had published a whole load of routes throughout the UK for us bikers marooned in the UK for 2021; so I decided I’d fit in a mini trip; just one night away, to explore the Lincolnshire Wolds & Fens, in the Eastern part of England.
The Wolds is designated as an Area of Outstanding National Beauty (AONB) and the Fens are flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a system of drainage channels and man-made rivers dykes and drains. Lincolnshire has a long coastal area and I booked an hotel near Cleethorpes, just South of the famous fishing port of Grimsby.
In summary, it was a great trip; the weather was good, the roads were a mix of fast and twisty, the landscape was flat, the hotel was OK and they did a mean Jalfrezi for dinner. I had a nice chat with a guy on a BMW R18 I met at a petrol station and I rode along the promenade at the seaside town of Cleethorpes. It was just nice to go somewhere different. 🙂
I’ve made a short video of the trip..check out those roads!!
And to finish; stay safe & just remember one thing….
