It’s time: late June and the Longest Day Challenge looms large into view. In the last two weeks, and for the first time since I’d signed up, I felt good about it. Largely because I was sure I’d picked a brilliant motorcycle to work with – my bog-standard 51k-mile 1992 CBR600F-N…
The event has run since 2013, and involves going from Land’s End to John O’Groats, in one ride, on the longest day of the year, on limited budget motorcycles. Oh, as if that’s not hard enough, you can’t use motorways either. Right you are. It’s not just a jolly – the event is a fundraiser for Cancer Research, and the accumulated rider sponsorship total now exceeds £300,000.
The twin kickers of avoiding motorways and using cheap bikes really make the event what it is – the bike budget at £600 isn’t meant to make it easy either – although this has actually doubled from its original paltry £300 for the 2022 edition as secondhand prices have far outstripped nine years of inflation.
Chief of the LDC is fellow writer John McAvoy, from our sister magazine Fast Bikes – one of the participants from year one of the event. He collects a merry band of volunteers and they morph into a support network worthy of a military operation: five pit-stops with supplies of food, drink and bike maintenance from as far south as Cirencester to Inverness in the north, plus van support for breakdowns on every leg. It’s a feat of incredible dedication and organisation.
Section 1 - Land’s End to pit-stop 1 Cirencester
Section 2 - Cirencester to pit-stop 2 Nantwich
Section 3 - Nantwich to pit-stop 3 Preston
Section 4 - Preston to pit-stop 4 Gourock/Dunoon Ferry
to pit-stop
