Due to having booked some days off work and figuring I’d not seen the olds in a while I decided to ride my L plate Yamaha 125 up to see them. They live near Glossop in North Derbyshire so it was going to be at least 160 miles.
I looked at the various non motorway routes (as I can’t ride on Motorways yet) and wasn’t too keen on going through Wolverhampton. My (vague) determined route was to go up to Gloucester, then head to Leominster, Shrewsbury, Teflord, Stafford, Buxton and then finally Glossop, a trip of about 200 miles.
Now I’ve never riden longer than 50 miles or so in one go before so this was a whole new ball game. On hindsight I hadn’t fully taken into account how cold it would be (given that the day before I set off was lovely and sunny in Bristol) nor how heavy my luggage would feel. I only had a small tank bag and my large burgen rucksack to carry stuff in so I figured that would be ok.
The journey started off well, leaving Birstol about 9:20am and following the A38 up to Gloucester. From looking at Google maps before I left I was a little worried about Gloucester as the route looked complicated. Thankfully it wasn’t at all and I breezed through it (I think Google maps is out of date for that area as well!).
Now this is where my route deviated from my planned one. I had planned to go from Gloucester to Newent and then on to Leominster using a B road. However I (cleverly) managed not to note down the road number only the place name, which wasn’t showing at all. Thankfully I did write down the name of the road I wanted later on (A417 I think), spotted a sign for that and followed that road. I ended up driving through the delightful medieval market town of Ledbury (one I will have to visit again when I’ve more time). I planned to stop in Leominster but due to the lack of signage as to which turning led to the actual town I ended up stopping on a dirt track beside a farm. I stretched a bit and re applied some Anti-fogging stuff to my visor and glasses before setting off again.
I made good time and had initially planned to stop for lunch in Leominster but pushed on to Shrewsbury. Once I got there I was suddenly left with the problem of where to park. I’ve never parked a bike anywhere other than peoples houses (oh and one car park in Cheddar) so I had no idea where to look. I followed signs for parking but once there, there was no obvious place for bikes so I parked up as best I could and even bought a parking ticket (there was no mention of bikes anywhere on the signage but I figured it couldn’t hurt). I also had no lockable luggage to had to drag all my stuff into Shrewsbury to find somewhere to warm up and take the load off my back. Managed to find a Subway (there’s never a Weatherspoons when you need one!) which was ok and stayed there for about 20 mins.
The next parts were fun. Trying to get out of Shrewsbury was … interesting and a detour with missing signs didn’t help but eventually I made my way to Telford and quite quickly found signs to Stafford (although the name Stafford kept disappearing so I had to do a quick GPS search on my phone to see if I was going the right way). Stafford was again very easy to navigate and there were some great corners on the way there to get the bike into a lean 
Once through Stafford I tried to head to Stone, although once again signage was a little confusing with it leading you in a direction then giving you a mini round-about with no signs at all. Luckily my guesses were correct and I made it to Stone. I had planned to stop here to relive the numbing in my bottom but couldn’t find anywhere decent to stop so resorted to standing up when I stopped at traffic lights (and there were a lot of road works so must be close to April!). I was also having fogging issues with the visor. Another reapplication In Shrewsbury (with a clean too) hadn’t helped and condensation was forming. It didnt’ help that it was getting foggy outside as well (or was becoming so).
Anyway I pressed on and headed for Leek. Once through Leek the road started to climb and I suddenly realised that this route led over the moors and then down into Buxton. The moorland was fogged out. Visibility was about 10 meters but that wasn’t the worst of it. My fogging problem in my visor became much worse and there were points where I was struggling to see at all! Still I soldiered on and thankfully made it into Buxton ok.
I stopped at the station to try and un-freeze my poor hands. From this point I knew the way off by heart and was surprised how quickly I got to my parents.
I was elated to have made it and feel I’ve passed a real milestone. My body is very sore tho and I’ve pulled lots of muscels mostly from the heavy rucksack. I’ve ordered a top box and some better anti-fogging stuff to be delivered here for my return journey. So there we go. If you’ve read this to the end, well done 
marathon 906 mile trip from Lands End to John O’Groats on my little Yamaha YBR125. Im still L plated so can’t use any motorways (but who’d want to on a trip like this?)