He won't be riding a Royal Enfield motorcycle this trip, but it's impossible not to watch as Gordon May attempts to ride to Egypt and back on a 1952 BSA Bantam.In 2008, May's challenging UK-to-India trip on his 1953 Royal Enfield Bullet made him probably the world's most famous Royal Enfield traveler. Now, his website reports, "Peggy the Bantam" is ready to tackle the 6,500-mile round trip from the UK to Egypt.
"Unbelievably, the time has come for me to set off once more for Egypt," May writes (this is his second attempt). Departure is set for Tuesday, April 27.
As a test, "I rode her almost fully laden over the High Peak to Buxton, Derbyshire. She pulled solidly at 30 mph in third gear for half an hour on a long steep climb and she never missed a beat. My levels of optimism for a successful trip this time are very high," May writes.
One of his first stops, oddly, will be Redditch, birthplace of Royal Enfield.
"One highlight of traveling south through England will be meeting up with former BSA development department worker, John Garner, of Redditch. Now in his eighties, John was a test rider of the prototype Bantams in the late 1940s. I'm really looking forward to hearing his tales and showing him Peggy," May writes.
Check out his website at Overland to Egypt He will be keeping a blog en route to Egypt, which you can follow here.
I won't miss it.
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