To Hull and Back; August 2025
Gallery and Video
Ride
I’ve been doing the 2025 PEMC’s Carpe Diem (CD) challenge and prior to July 31st I had visited all the local, south west and Welsh CDs so I thought about a south to north and back again ride based around visiting CDs in the Midlands, north of England and the Scottish Borders. The plan was to keep to the east of England going north on the outbound leg and to return south keeping to the west of England on the inbound leg. Basically a stretched anticlockwise loop.That was the plan anyway.
I departed from home on Thursday 31st July and headed north east with overnight stops near Peterborough on Thursday night and near Hull on Friday night. I picked up 8 CDs along the way, Oxford Classic Motorcycles, Oxford Products, Santa Pod Raceway, Riders Cafe, Skeg Vegas Sign, Willingham Woods Kiosk, Shepherd’s Place Farm and Squires Cafe Bar.
I stayed at a place just north of Hull on Friday night. It was a pub with a separate accommodation block. It was quite comfortable and I had quite a nice meal at the pub that evening. I felt alright when I went to bed at around 22:00 wondering about whether it was sensible to continue on to Scotland given the strong winds that storm Floris was forecasted to bring. However, storm Floris became an irrelevance as around midnight I woke up feeling sick. Soon afterwards I started projectile vomiting. Diarrhea soon followed. This went on until about 4 am at which time I was very dehydrated and feeling quite weak. I must have then fainted and tipped forward as I came to with a large gash on my forehead.
After patching up my head I managed to grab some hours of sleep and, although I was feeling a bit worn out, I felt a lot better in the morning. What a night! I have never had food poisoning of the like before. I recalled what I ate on Friday. The day started with breakfast at the Peterborough B&B. For lunch, I had a burger from the Willingham Woods Kiosk and later on that afternoon I had a coffee with a slice of walnut cake at Squires Cafe. In the evening at the pub where I stayed, I had a pint of San Miguel with my scampii, chips and mushy peas. They say food poisoning strikes 12 hours after you’ve eaten something?
As I said, I felt better on Saturday morning and I had a bowl of frosties and a bottle of milk for breakfast. The latest checkout was at 11 am and after breakfast I contemplated my next move. My head gash looked a bit nasty and I thought about going to Hull A&E but that would take all day and I really wanted to get home to Dorset so I cleaned it up and stuck a large plaster on it instead. I cancelled my pre-booked accommodation for Northumberland and Ayr and booked into a Premier Inn at Solihull. It was a gentle 150 mile ride to Solihull, mostly on motorway (M1). I made a couple of stops on the way, the first was the Triumph factory memorial CD at Meridan, the second was to a Solihull Tesco to get something to eat later at the Premier Inn. I left Hull around 10:30 and arrived at Solihull around 15:00. The Premier Inn room was very comfortable and I fell fast asleep on the bed as soon as I was in it.
After a good night’s sleep and some food I felt miles better on Sunday morning. I was up before 06:00 and had left the Premier Inn by 07:00. On the way home I did the Mike Hailwood, Royal Enfield and Oily Rag CDs getting home around 11:30. After lunch I went to Poole A&E to get checked over. This included a CT scan on my head and it was about 18:00 by the time I got the all clear and left A&E. Not the best way to spend a Sunday afternoon but I was grateful to have been checked over. A trip to remember for all the wrong reasons. The only positive really was that my new NT1100 went very well. It was very comfortable which I appreciated on my ride to Solihull. It did around 800 miles.