Great Malle Rally (UK) 2022

Weather: It poured down the night before rally start, thereafter the only rain we had was on the evening of Day 5 and early morning of Day 6; during all riding hours it was dry, in fact it was unusually warm and sunny for the UK, 25 to 30 degrees Celsius & cloudless skies each day. Incredible.

Campsites were a fairly eclectic selection of venues not normally available for camping and in order these were: a camel farm in Cornwall, a vineyard south of Bristol, a cricket pitch at a Welsh castle, a motorboat club in the Lake District, a groovy old castle on the Ayrshire coast, a rundown mansion in Torridon, and finally a field overlooking the Orkney islands across the Pentland Firth.

Food was mostly very good. Days were full and intense with little time for non-riding leisure, or at least that was the case in my team. Organisation was pretty good considering the small team and amount of kit they had to move. They did like to reveal the next day’s route the night before, but this often ended up being at about 10pm thus giving little time for any decent planning. Starts were early leaving little time for sleep, that would be my main ‘complaint’ the schedule provided only about 6hrs each 24 for sleep.

Bikes: Most were new Hipster type things, especially BWM R9T’s and various Triumph Bonnevilles. There were some older (pre 2000) bikes, perhaps 15 ish. The oldest was probably a 1975 MG 750S. I was surprised that my 1982 CX500E was one of the oldest, and one of only 3 Honda’s on the whole rally (+ one of the Marshal’s had an original Honda AT Dakar). In terms of capacity, the smallest was a Honda CRF250L, other than that I was again surprised that my CX500E was one of the smallest capacity bikes, most with 1200cc Triumphs and BMW’s.

People: About 100 riders + ~12 or so Crew/Marshals. No issues, generally very nice bunch. Not many hipsters, other than the crew/marshals. Very few women (quelle surprise!), only 1 pillion rider, mostly white folk but pleased to see some others getting into biking. Generally older fellas, perhaps 50 to 60 ish. Some young’uns, especially in my team where we had a 21 yr old (with his dad) and a young Argentinian couple. A big international contingent with Americans, Germans, Italians, Irish, Belgians, a Mexican, Canadians, etc. That was great. I didn’t see any fallouts, and generally people got together to help each other out. They had a makeshift bar each night, decent beer & fair prices, sometimes a proper bar depending on the camp venue. But no one was really going for it as we were all too exhausted.

Highlights: N Devon to Minehead; Cheddar Gorge; most of Wales; Winnat’s Pass; Malham Cove; Lakeland Passes and lanes; Applecross; most of final day. My team were a good bunch of people, lovely to ride with the young Argentinian couple, generally the riders and crew were all good and interesting folk.

Low points:
2 crashes (#1 in a ford in the Yorkshire dales, #2 on a road and into a bog in Torridon at end of longest day). Bike was OK ish, I was a little bit sore here and there. Some repairs due and other things to attend to.
We had a breakdown in our group, ECU problem on a 2021 Moto Guzzi, day 5. The father & son pair still finished and arrived at camp at nearly 10pm. Epic effort.
We missed a checkpoint entirely, Aberfoyle on day 5, my fault. Ended up being a longer day anyway due to unexpected road closures so perhaps not a bad thing.
Dinner at Torridon, end of day 5. The food was good when you got it but the system in place was utterly chaotic, not what you need at end of longest day.
The lowest low point of the whole trip was the exit from Halifax (day 3); horrendous traffic and terrible roads. Still giving me nightmares, everyone was frazzled by that.

The bike: Bomb-, and we now know also bog- , proof. Absolutely amazing little machine. Never missed a beat, even after sliding through a ford on it’s R side, and being ridden into a bog and falling on it’s L side. Brakes are a bit wooden. Engine was smooth most of the time. Very economical, about 4.55L per 100km (that’s about 62mpg, UK gallons). I was thrashing, and crashing, that little bike all week and it just kept serving me. It was a popular bike at the rally and at many stops. I could keep up with most bigger bikes on the twisty lanes, would fall back a bit on straight sections. A few things to fix now, the most troubling being a recurrent oil seep from the L cyl head gasket which I am now thinking might be a warped or damaged cyl head surface.

Value: Yes, this rally cost a lot of money and I was doing it the ‘cheap’ way! But it was excellent value and you do get quite a bit for your money. So I would say 7 out of 10 for value. It has given me the confidence to do some bigger DIY trips and look to take my CX500E abroad now too.