Issue No. 25

Born to be wild
When I was offered the chance to discover
the Hauts-de-France region on two sturdy
wheels, I couldn’t resist the thrill. A Harley
Davison ad once read “God didn’t create
metal so that man could make paper clips!”
The Harley Davidson 2019 Ultra Limited is a
big bike. Very big. And I am small. So, we
agreed, my husband Mark and me – he
would do the driving (my feet didn’t reach
the pedals), while I would sit back in the
comfy armchair style seat and enjoy the
ride…
We started our journey at Dover on a P&O
ferry. As soon as we parked the bike on the
deck, other Harley-Davidson riders engaged
in parking, came over to look, comment and
treat us like mates. Biking is like that. They
were on their way to a party in Holland,
meeting up with other Harley fans from
around Europe.
“Did we want to join them?” they asked.
Tempting though it was, we chose to keep to
our itinerary, riding around the region,
discovering truly beautiful sites, glorious
countryside, quaffing Champagne in a little
known part of Picardy which produces a
whopping 10% of all the fizz produced in
France, sampling a legendary dish in a castle
and enjoying some of the finest food
possible. Can you blame us?
Bikers say, “Life is not about waiting for the
storms to pass: it’s about learning how to
ride in the rain!” and I honestly thought, this
is the far north of France - it rains a lot here,
we’ve got some learning to do. In fact, in
eight days of travel in mid-September – it
didn’t rain a single drop and we only saw
clouds once…