Ride to the Wall. (1 of 4)

Good morning, it's Sunday. So now I have to sort out the videos and photographs from yesterday. I set of early, well early for me. The drive down the M1 through Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire was interesting. Much of the M1 is littered with roadworks with a 50mph limit on it. As I was passing Woodhall Services I got the first glimpse of bikers on the car park there. This was one of the meeting places where they all congregate together. They then travel in convoy from the different meeting places depending on which direction they will be travelling from. At this point I was ahead of the large group which was soon to continue their journey. 

Trundling down the M1 at 50mph , I came across several other groups riding together, all within the speed limit. It worked quite well, all being mindful of bikes, cars, and lorries sharing the road space. The bike presence meant that everyone was taking notice of their vulnerability. Bikers always come off worse in an accident. 

A lot of the overhead bridges had people waving their banners and flags, the bikers reciprocated by pillion riders waving back at them. I had planned on doing this journey on Friday night because I thought that with so many bikers on the road at the same time, the traffic would be snarled up. Change of plan, I went to bed early and got up early. I'm glad I did because the drive down was very much part of the build up towards the whole day. 

There are two possible junctions off the M1 to travel through Derbyshire and onto Staffordshire. I usually take junction 28 and skirt round the edges of Derby, but this time I decided to carry on and exit at 24A to miss Derby. Once out of the 50 limit it was possible to get up to 70mph. This bypass road joins up to the A38 and from then on it's plain sailing past Burton. 

I found a quiet parking spot in the village of Alrewas and abandoned the car there, and set off to walk the half mile to the Arboretum. The bikes behind me were all coming up the slip road so I got this short video. 

Walking along the road to the site. Bike after bike, after bike. The weather was perfect. Blue skies, slight breeze. 

You might be wondering, what is The Wall. I wrote about it on my previous visit in January. 

I'm going to divide this into four posts because I have four videos, and I don't know how to edit them into one. They will be short and sweet. 

Thanks for popping in. Enjoy your Sunday. Toodle pip.   ilona