Tempting TOG - last chance to experience the joys of 350 Morini ownership before Chilling out

There is a bloke over on BCF who managed to ride from Dover to Lands End
entirely on off-road tracks. It did take him 3 days though.

 

or someone else's plates.

 

Or the world cup.

I drove from Southampton to Edinburgh on Christmas Day a couple of years
back. 90 mph all the way - lovely it was.

 

Yea right, the usual insults from the usual suspects.
Have you actually driven or ridden the route recently ?
I drove it last year and there is NO WAY that Champ's 25 year old
ride could be repeated nowadays, even riding like a total **** again.

The entire route now has more roundabouts, more lights, a helluva lot
more traffic, roadworks everywhere, more speed traps and more enforcement.
And many of the petrol stations have closed.

Try it and tell us how you get on.
My trip last year took 2 hours more than it did in the late 80s.

 

Actually, I'd sort of agree here. I think it's generally accepted that
it would be really hard to beat, for most of the reasons stated. And
Plod uses helicopters these days, too, to catch dedicated speeders.
Not saying it couldn't be done, only that it would be very difficult
and there's a much higher risk of being caught and seriously penalised
for it.

Back in 1984 I got done for a speed "in excess of 118mph". I copped a
£100 fine and a one-month ban. I reckon these days I'd get a much
longer ban, probably be ordered to take a re-test, and possibly get a
short sharp custodial.

Has anyone here been prosecuted for very serious speeding in the last
(say) three years? As in the sort of speed I got nicked for? And if
so, what did you get for it?

 

Felixstowe to Dartford 50 minutes. Christmas day is great for hooning.

 

Not been done myself but I was following this case with interest:

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/MoD-driver-faces-sack-
for.6483229.jp

£450 fine & 12 month ban for 135mph.

166mph on the same road saw someone get 9 months inside.

Spawny get of the year award goes to my mate who got a £60 / 3 point
fixed penalty for 104mph last weekend...

 

Clackett Lane to Dover, 35 minutes. Rush hour on a weekday. Allegedly.

 

Didn't Simon Hargreaves use a shitty old 500 quid Beemer with a barn
door fairing to do exactly the same job a couple of years ago?

Not wanting to bring facts or empirical evidence into a Usenet argument,
of course, but it has been done again more recently, though not *quite*
in the same time.

 

Round Birmingham by motorway: 51 miles in less than half an hour.
Also on Christmas morning.

 

Unlikely. For a custodial sentence you'd have to be done for dangerous
and you'd be unlikely to go down for that unless you either coughed to
it or had compounded the offence by having no insurance, no licence,
etc.

For a re-test you'd either have to be done for dangerous (see above) or
have demonstrated a woeful standard of driving. As in you can't control
the vehicle, not you were going too fast.

I was done for "in excess of 95mph" (in reality about 110) two years ago
and got 60 quid and three points for my trouble. Another chap I know was
done for 150 a year or so ago and while they tried to get him to cough
to dangerous he declined, and ended up pleading to careless. Fine, ban,
no prison, no retest.

We see these stories in the press quite often about people being banged
up for speeding. Look at the small print. They're usually uninsured.
They're usually already banned. They've often taken out a granny or two
in the process and been chased for quite some distance. Prison for
speeding alone? Unlikely.

As I've said previously, we already have one crn, we don't need another.

 

Dunno, but I bet he would've done it faster on a sportsbike with fuel
cell.

I should bloody hope not too.

 

go on, you know you want to.

 

The 80s are long gone. Try it now, if you manage to make it south to the
border without either being arrested or ending up in the back of an
ambulance the chances are that you will have been flashed by enough
scameras to accumulate 12+ points by the time you get to Manchester.

Feel proud, your record is likely to stand unbeaten for a very long time.

 

You made Oi smile: in the 1970s, I lived in Brent Knoll village. The
'rest area' had a greasy-spoon either side (and no fuel as you
discovered). A schoolfriend of mine worked there, and she often used to
run across the motorway to help, if the other side's caravan was busier.
Not these days!

The trip is still something worth doing mind, (and you're tempting me
for next summer), but you'd never 'survive' the averaging camera systems
on the M6, and I hear the A9 is the coppers' favourite for tickets in
Scotland. I did Bristol to Falkirk & back a few years ago, and the speed
restrictions were a complete PITA.

It was probably a good thing tho, as that was the trip with the split
carb diaphragm on the M6, which burned out the RH exhaust port. Had I
tried to go faster for longer, it could have been worse.

Mine dew, the R80 complete with screen, tank bag, panniers and stuff on
the rack wouldn't hardly have broken any records.

 

but maybe someone else is.

 

I wonder if there's a record for doing it without using motorways. That
could be fun.

 

The only speed cameras I've seen on the M6 in recent years have the
forward facing SPECS average ones except the set of road works up by
Carlisle, which had a trad gatsos.

Drove the A9 from Aviemore to Falkirk yesterday - spotted 2 gatsos & no
police at all. Think the traffic levels have put the kibosh on averaging
100 from Inverness to Stirling but the police activity seems to have
decreased markedly in recent years.

Same goes for the Stirling - Fort William road: the days when they had 2
unmarked Scoobies, a helicopter & a selection of unmarked sports-
tourers[1] specifically for chasing bikes seem to have gone. No fixed
cameras either, as far as I know.

OTOH the A80 / M80 is currently in roadwork hell with a heavily enforced
40 limit between Haggs & Glasgow

Bob

[1] blackbird, VFR8, R1, FJR13 & some K bike thingy

 

FoF having just fin shed a ban which should have been under totting up
but with the last offence being ~100 in a 60 resulted IIRC in a months
ban, then got nabbed for 120+ and got 7 weeks.

 

This is the only reason why I don't have a go at breaking it. We could
do it together then flip a coin 100 yards from the end to decide who
was going to hold the record?