August 2020

Dyke Down.…. yes another one… Our Sister, Dori G, from prospective Dykes on Bikes® chapter Rhine-Weser in Germany is the next 2020 casualty. Luckily, she was in her car and not on a bike. Lucky because she was rear-ended by a truck, which would have been fatal on a bike. Dori has a minor head injury and severe whiplash.. we wish her well and look forward to seeing her soon.

9th august – petrolettes

This month we were due to travel to Germany for the annual Petrolettes Rally.. this is a women only biker rally in northern Germany.

Of course this was not going ahead due to Covid, but they came up with an ingenious alternative plan…. creatively entitled… Plan B!

https://petrolettes.com/2020plan-b/

We registered to ride this event and were sent specific points to include on our route:

This is your challenge:
Take at least 4 pictures/videos from the checkpoints of your activated city:

1st picture/ video @checkpoint 1: Tower Bridge (meet at The Timepiece Sundial)
2nd picture/ video @checkpoint 2: Bodiam Castle, TN32 5UA
3rd picture/ video @checkpoint 3: Hever Castle (childhood home of Anne Boleyn), TN8 7NG
4th picture/ video @checkpoint 4: The London Eye

Meeting up at Sheila’s gaff, near to Tower Bridge, we have a delicious brekkie.. thanks Sheil… and then on the road. We were expecting murderous traffic, but it was actually remarkably quiet. We make good time to our first checkpoint:

Onwards Chicas… to Bodium Castle… an enjoyable ride out of London, (we think the organisers believe London is the entire SE corner of England)!

We arrive to find this is a National Trust monument requiring a fee, of course, but Spanna manages to sweet talk the young woman at the entrance to the car park, persuading her to let us in for just 5 minutes to take a photo… she does…

or two…. of course. Sadly the castle itself is quite a distance so we have to go with the view from the car park.

Of course we are all thirsty and there is a cafe on site… seems that ‘just 5 minutes’ is elastic as it stretches to almost an hour… oops. In fact the young woman comes over to ask if we are leaving… out with the honey tongue, Spanna…

Next stop is Hever Castle. Another great ride, through the beautiful Surrey countryside. Pogs almost runs out of petrol and as we arrive at the Castle she is running on fumes… silly Pogs!!

Yet again we get permission to enter the grounds, but it’s still quite a trog to the actual castle…. long distance shots again…. Dobzilla is enjoying the view.

Another opportunity to hydrate, the Henry VIII pub is nearby so in we go for some well deserved refreshments, while Pogs tries not to stress about the lack of fuel situation. She manages to find a petrol station just 6 miles away so off we go in hopes of getting there in time.

Yay…. petrol done! Back on the road and we navigate via faster roads as time is a marching… back to London and the famous London Eye.

It is late afternoon by the time we arrive, but still light of course so plenty of great photos to be had.

Another fantastic day out… thanks to our Sista, Sheila who organised it all for us.

Later we learnt that our photos are included in the Petrolettes online Digital Event… wooo go DoB London.

22nd august – Sistas go to sissinghurst

On the 22nd August we joined in the annual worldwide IFRD, (International Female Ride Day), event that was postponed from the usual date in May.

Meeting up at Harley Davidson in Mottingham, we are joined by Titta, on her first ride out with us… welcome.

The weather is very changeable and we are caught in quite a heavy downpour, stopping in a lay-by to put on wet gear.. although most of us hadn’t brought any, we carry on and thankfully the rain stops quite soon afterwards.

Our route took us, firstly, to Sissinghurst, the home of that famous Lesbian author and gardener, Vita Sackville-West. The house wasn’t open, but we enjoyed a lovely picnic outside in the beautiful gardens, thankfully the weather was good. We were joined here by our President Petit Chou and her wife Lynda… so great to see you and spend some time with you both.

Onwards via small country roads through the Sussex Downs to Dungeness where we stop briefly to say Hi to Derek Jarman… the gardens here are again famous, but the wind is really extremely strong so we don’t stop, just turning around and heading slightly further up the coast to a more sheltered area for a spot of fish and chips and Titta grabs the opportunity to have a swim.