by Major G C F Charles-Jones
Officer Commanding Number Two Company
1st Battalion Welsh Guards
and
Major J M Young
Student, Intermediate Command and Staff College (Land)
It all started as an unlikely suggestion; the best plans often do. In this case Maj Young and I thought we should ride our motorbikes to Romania to visit The Prince of Wales’s Company on Ex SARMIS there. Before we knew it the Commanding Officer had not only approved the idea but sent it to the Trustees for funding approval. The result was that we got the authorisation and funds to help cover the costs. Before we started planning in detail we finalised the aim which was simple:
“Ride motorbikes across continental Europe to the edge of Asia and visit Welsh Guardsmen in Brasov, Romania. In order to: promote recruiting and retention for the Welsh Guards.”
Then we added two restrictions to make it more demanding:
- Only use motorways when no other option is workable.
- Complete the ride in 12 days.
Planning for the ride was straightforward: it was just a vehicle move across Europe. We planned a rapid route out, in order to give us time to get to the Black Sea, and a slower route back to let us ride the more remote roads and trails. Packing was down to the individual with only a few items shared such as a cooker, laptop, GPS tracker and maps. Even so the bikes had plenty on board.
Finally the day of the races came and we set off from Pirbright at first light on 3 July. Our first day’s riding put us in Düsseldorf where we boarded the overnight train to Vienna. This little trick cut off 2 days of road riding and made the Black Sea a realistic target. When worked out against the cost of 2 days riding the price was well worth it.
Boarding the train with a bike isn’t simple. Each rider has to take their own bike on and the clearance means that one’s head has to be flat on the tank while riding down the train, some 200m. One wrong move and the bike would be over the side on the tracks and the rider scalped by the floor above. Fortunately, we managed this at both ends without incident and were on the road in Austria on the morning of day 2 having covered just under 1,000 miles while still feeling fresh and ready to ride. The next couple of days proved interesting. We were making good progress and soon left Austria behind us and were ploughing through Hungary when the problems started.
I suspected something was wrong while I watched Maj Young push his bike to the side of a petrol station forecourt. I finished filling my bike and joined him to find his bike wouldn’t start. We played around for a while trying to work out what was wrong and how to fix it. Eventually, we left it to get some lunch in a nearby restaurant. After lunch we tried the bike again and it started. Maybe it was the heat? Who knows? We had lost time and needed to get a move on.
With full tanks and stomachs, we didn’t need to stop for close to 190 miles. We passed through villages, towns and countryside that were familiar but, at the same time, alien to home. One of the most striking differences was the weather. For most of the ride the temperature remained in the 30s which brought its own challenges; mostly that of fatigue and dehydration which can lead to a loss of concentration. This was not good as road surfaces had started to become challenging and the drivers around us more dangerous.
We had made up a bit of time but still had some way to go when we pulled over in the late afternoon to fill up for the second time that day. Hoping that Maj Young’s bike had got over its little fit earlier he turned it off. Somewhat predictably the bike wouldn’t restart and Maj Young had to be recovered to Budapest for repairs.
With a focus on the mission and Top Gear’s influence in mind I left Maj Young to his fate and carried on. By the time I had arrived in the area we wanted to end the day in I was tired and ready for something to eat. The first campsite I tried looked like it had been relocated from the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Turning my nose up at it I headed for the next option to find it didn’t exist. It was getting dark by now and wild camping wasn’t an option here so I continued and eventually found a sign directing me to a camp site 10km away. Perfect.
As I arrived a naked old man climbed from the communal lake that the tents surrounded. I thought this a bit strange but no one else seemed to mind. So I assumed he was a local odd-ball and I booked in and was led to my pitch. Just before the guide left he said:
“You know this is a nudist camp. You are okay with that, yes.”
It was a statement not a question. I looked around and noticed that, although he was fully clothed, there were other people walking around with just a top on or totally naked. It was too late to find another campsite so I said that I knew full well and would get out of my bike kit urgently. I was willing to get naked in front of strangers for a good night’s sleep after a long hot day on the bike.
Now naked, bar my flip flops, I set up camp, went for a shower, had something to eat and went to sleep. Having had to share the shower with a very old, very naked, very tanned (all over) couple I spent the night imagining myself elsewhere!
Meanwhile Maj Young was in a world of hurt. His recovery man had arrived and when he walked over to greet him the trolley he had been sitting on rolled across the forecourt and hit a police car. After dealing with that and loading the bike he suffered hours in the cab with a recovery man and his wife who chain smoked all the way to Budapest. Not to worry, he’d been booked into a hotel by BMW. It turned out to be a Chinese medical hotel. The “tea” on offer was a blood and liver cleansing mushroom tea and the next morning breakfast consisted of egg tea, mushrooms and fungi salad.
While I quickly packed up camp and left the nudists to their morning stretches Maj Young set about BMW. By 1600 his bike was ready to go and he spent the next 9 hours riding towards Brasov to catch me up.
The next day we had a late start to allow Maj Young the chance of some decent sleep before heading to the Black Sea. It was day 4 and it was time to achieve one of the exercise objectives. There is only one way to the Black Sea from Brasov and it’s motorway so we hit it, got our heads down and throttles open. By the afternoon we had done it, Pirbright to the Black Sea in just 4 days.
We found a suitable spot to spend the night and headed back to Brasov the next morning following a slightly different motorway route. There we met up with the Welsh Guards Ex SARMIS advance party and spent the night with them in a Romanian Air Defence barracks. With the advance party out the following day on recces we decided that we would leave early the next morning and start the longer route home.
Over the following few days we rode some of the most incredible roads that Europe has to offer. We experienced views that are normally the preserve of the National Geographic and met people who showed us such kindness that it could restore even the most cynical person’s faith in humanity. The camping got wild and the riding more demanding but the route meant we were never without something new to see and experience.
One of our campsites required us to take both bikes off-road to hide them before establishing our camp in the cover of some trees near an abandoned hut. Due to the altitude there were no biting insects and it was our favourite spot of the ride. The next day we rode the Transalpine Pass and were amazed by the views and beauty that was so different from the Transfăgărășan Pass of the day before.
Eventually, via the B500 (Schwarzwaldhochstraße) through the Black Forest in Germany, we found ourselves in northern France passing through the battlefields of the First and Second World Wars. We stopped just outside a Loos, a Welsh Guards battle honour, and paid our respects at one of the many war cemeteries in the area before finding our final campsite of the ride.
The next day was short and sharp and we found ourselves standing by the Battalion sign in Pirbright with 3,702 miles on the clocks and a slight sense of disbelief at what we had just achieved.
