Three Shropshire bikers have raised over £1500 for Blood Bikes Shropshire, Cheshire and Staffordshire, by riding a trio of Honda 125s over 1000 miles from Shrewsbury to the Hebrides and back. BMF member David Bramwell, who did the ride along with Keith Arscott and John Clarke, takes up the story. “My friend Keith said, ‘I want to ride to the Hebrides on a Monkey bike and take it along Barra Beach!’ When we’d all finished laughing we thought it was quite a good idea. I’m a bit too big for a Monkey bike so I bought a PCX 125 and John already had his son’s CG125, though to be honest that was a bit of a wreck.” Perhaps wisely, John traded the old CG for a new Forza 125 scooter before they left.

“We couldn’t use motorways,” added David, “but we had a good ride up the A6 before catching the Ullapool ferry to the islands.” After crossing Lewis and Harris they paid homage to Whisky Galore, visiting the setting of the famous Ealing comedy, but were unable to fulfil the ambition to ride Barra Beach, which doubles as a landing strip for the island-hopping plane – the tide was in.
“We’d like to thank all the friends and colleagues who sponsored us,” said David, “as well as Shrewsbury Honda Centre. We were all surprised at how comfy the 125s were over distance, as long as we kept to about 200 miles a day.”

Jim Freeman, Chair of the BMF, applauded their efforts. “Great cause, great idea. Unless you want to get somewhere in a rush, which is often a bit of an illusion on todays roads, with ever tighter control and ‘20’s plenty’, where making haste slowly counts for a lot, a small bike makes a lot of sense, sipping fuel in tiny amounts. I bet they’re much more comfortable than my C90 Cub was, which vibrated in a high frequency buzz if you rode it flat out. I was a teenager; I rode it flat out everywhere . Riding from Nottingham to London, on the A1, was pretty epic, ‘cruising’ at 45mph. Didn’t miss a beat, but boy was the seat uncomfortable after the first couple of hours and being overtaken by trucks on the gusty straight bits of the A1 was cheek clenching. Perhaps I should say ‘character forming’! ”

Written by Peter Henshaw

Top image courtesy of David Bramwell