The Great Malle

1500 miles through Britain, The Lizard to John o' Groats, majoring on twisties

- Rob Mantel

It was the black duffels strapped on to the back of bikes that did it. Ride to any biking event and you tend to spot other participants as you get closer. Heading for an adventure bike weekend and it'll be GSs with aluminium panniers; going to a track day it's the sports bikes with riders in matching leathers; but this time it was the individually numbered black canvas Malle duffel bags we'd all been sent that became the defining feature on the M5 as we all headed for Lands End.

As we got closer to the meet up near Lizard Point, we'd grown into a group of about a dozen riders who'd never met, other than a helmet nod, but had simply morphed together with a common purpose as the roads got smaller and other traffic thinned out. We rolled into the farmyard meet point, parked up and as bikers worldwide do, started chatting about bikes.

We were soon registered, given the Covid restrictions in place and assigned into pairs for our tent accommodation for the week. Essentially the Malle Rally is a large self-contained bubble which moves up the country with its own accommodation, catering and mechanical support, while the riders meet the challenge of the daily stages. Accommodation was in bell tents which came well-equipped with air beds, cushions, lights and other homely comforts. Better still, they were erected for us so when we arrived it was simply a case of unrolling our sleeping bags.

More bikes arrived in the farmyard over the next couple of hours, and as per the Malle Rally principle of 'inappropriate bikes' were an eclectic mix ranging from pre-war vintage machines, through classics to modern customs, but generally naked bikes of some sort.

What is the Great Malle?