Ride to the Wall 2023

[Millietant]

Again, this wasn't today, but October has been a really busy month for me in terms of riding (both the FJ and the FZ1/Fazer 1000) and in terms of non-riding issues.

In the non-riding sense, it's been a mixed bag, with my disabled son showing the first signs of improvement in his neurological condition, my wife having a lot of hospital visits and making some progress with her cardiology issues and my best friend and riding buddy Jim, being diagnosed with cancer and having his left lung removed in an emergency operation last week.

In amongst this was the annual Ride To The Wall, motorcycling service of Remembrance for those lost in all of our Armed Services since the end of WW2.

This is an immensely emotional single afternoon event with upwards of 8,000 bikes and 12,000 people taking part. It is held at the National Memorial Arboretum where the names of every service person lost in action is recorded on a series of walls atop of a mound in the centre of the arboretum. This year, the number of participants was much higher than anticipated, to the point that over 1,000 bikes couldn't actually get into event in time because of traffic jams around the venue (and one accident which closed a section of road for a short time).

The traffic volume meant that it took over 90 minutes to get from the entry gate to the parking area and in this time (with an unseasonably hot sunny day) my FJ got hotter than it's ever been.... Anywhere !!!!!

It was ticking like crazy and sounding terrible when I parked it up and I can imagine my 20w50 oil had the viscosity of water !!!

Thankfully when I returned to the bike 5 hours later and it had cooled down, it started up and sounded as quiet as it normally does......phew...... and the ride home (we waited until most riders had left before we walked back to the parking area) was uneventful and very enjoyable.

Here's a few photos to give a flavour of the day. There were 11 separate meet-up points around the country for timed group rides-in. There were approximately 1000 bikes in the group I rode in with from Donington Park race circuit, which is where the first photo was taken. The remainder were taken at the venue itself (the NMA).