Page 126 - 2022-08-01 RiDE

BRITAIN’S BEST RIDE-OUTS SEASIDE

VERYONE LIKES BEING by the seaside,
Riding the
but the British have a unique way of middleweight
doing it – beaches bustling with kids wave on Triumph’s
pulling at parents’ hands, knotted Tiger Sport 660
spotty handkerchiefs, ice-creams
plopping into hot sand, the faraway
electronic babble of amusement
E arcades and a heady tang of hot chip-oil
and vinegar... and to that mix we can add burgeoning
ranks of motorbikes parked along the prom, lined up like
dominoes, textiled and leathered riders lolling on the
grass drinking cans of pop.
The seaside is a motorbike magnet where the ride is
only part of the story and the destination matters more
– we’ll endure the most beaten-up roads and choking
lines of tormented traffic to get to the sea-front and find
a space to prop up the bike, buy a bag of chips and natter
about the lengthy service intervals on the new Tiger
1200. It’s all very civilised and a long way from mods
and rockers tearing the place up in the 1960s.
And with 8000 miles of coastline, there are plenty of
seaside rides from which to choose. Today, I’ve picked
my favourite run from Great Yarmouth, glittering like
Norfolk’s answer to Skegvegas on the extreme East
Anglian coast, north through Cromer to finish the
evening at Hunstanton – Sunny Hunny – on the lower
edge of the Wash. It’s not the greatest ride in the world
– it’s not even the greatest ride in north Norfolk, to Fuelling up Somewhere
paraphrase John Lennon – but seaside ride-outs aren’t on sugar and over there is
necessarily about tasty tarmac and carving corners; this carbohydrates Holland, maybe...
ride is an easy roll along a familiar, if bumpy, gravelly
path; roads we’ve ridden and scenery we’ve seen
countless times before. It’s a kind of ‘comfort’ riding
– you do it because it’s like keeping in touch with an old
friend; keeps you grounded. Sometimes, on a bike, we
all need a sobering dose of consistency.
We kick off slap bang in the centre of Great Yarmouth’s
long beach, at Sandy and Bert’s Beach Hut café having a
morning brew and a breakfast bite to eat as the sun
climbs into a warming blue sky. We park the pretty red

‘The ride to the

seaside is just part

of the story’

18 | BRITAIN’S BEST RIDE-OUTS