TAMMY'S TOUR DIARY

I have been riding since 2011 but my passion for biking started as a kid. At 8 years old I was gifted a 50cc Italjet scrambler by my parents. A tomboy who loved nothing more than tearing around the farmers’ fields where I lived in North Wales. My mum tells me she dreaded me coming back as I was always ‘shit up to hell’ in her words, me and my bike covered in mud which she then would dutifully clean off! She doesn’t do that anymore!

Having outgrown it a couple of years later my trusty steed was sold and I moved away from biking. Until I turned 30… along came my first mid’ish life crisis when I decided to rekindle my first love, motorcycling. I booked my CBT and moved straight onto the direct access. I didn’t want to mess about on 125cc… Nooo I wanted to go straight to the big bikes!

After passing my test (June 2011) I then had to choose a bike! But what to choose? Being a woman of a certain stature… short, at 5’3” there was not much to choose from. Of course, I wanted a Yamaha R6 or the Honda Fire Blade as they were, in my mind, the perfect bike for me! Oh, how naive I was.

Fortunately, my boyfriend at the time and a biker of some years firmly advised me against it saying, I’d kill myself! He was probably right. So having banished those beauties from my shopping list I kept looking and as if it was meant to be I walked into my local dealership and there he was… My Baby! A beautiful shiny sky-blue Suzuki SV 650S. It was safe to say it was love at first sight. With its gutsy V Twin, it was more than quick enough to keep a smile on my face whilst the engine breaking saved me on more than one occasion where my confidence overshot my skill! (Wish I knew Simon then!)

I had many great tours on that bike covering to majority of England, Wales and bits of Scotland and even ventured to Europe too. We rode to Southern France via the stunning mountain roads and villages avoiding the motorways as best we could. Also, over to West Germany’s Rhine valley.

Then along came the little Yamaha Serow 225cc in an attempt to get back into off roading, the whole reason I took my test to start with! Such a great little bike and started first time no matter what or how long it had been left! And unfortunately, it was left a lot! I couldn’t get out nearly as much as I had hoped to due to either not having anyone to go out with and road riding instead! I sold him after 2 years due to lack of use.

In 2017 I got My Boy! A Yamaha Fazer 8. After riding the SV for 6 years I didn’t realise how, let’s say unrefined it was until I rode the Fazer. I suppose this is why you should test ride a variety of bikes, but I never did. The Fazer was so smooth and responsive without feeling like I had to rag the nuts off it all the time and I loved it! Still do! Again, I have been all over England, Wales and still only bits of Scotland on him too. I also went back to Germany and separately through Northern Spain to the Algarve in Portugal. It was this trip to the Algarve when I met Simon Hayes, we had booked the tour through RMT Riders Club (now Motorcycle Riders Hub) and it was a fantastic trip.

All the riding to this point I had done either in a group or with a partner, until this year. This year I wanted to get into adventuring, so having spent literally months figuring out which bike I thought would be right for me to not only tour on but go off road and adventure on I finally settled on the BMW 310GS. I wanted something comfortable, with off road capability light enough that I could pick up, high enough to have ground clearance yet low enough to put my feet down! Having never sat on one let alone ridden one it was a slight gamble to just buy one! But with Covid and all the dealerships being closed I didn’t really have much choice and I was tired of waiting. I wanted a bike to start my adventures as soon as we were able to, and my gamble paid off! That bike, for me is superb! I have been on a few trails with it, and it has surprised me and a lot of other people too. But more importantly it did what I wanted it to do. It took me on my first solo adventure all over Scotland. We did 2200 miles in just under 2 weeks touring the NC500+ and Skye What a trip! Can’t wait till the next one…