The Battle of Hastings (via the A21)

Now I quite like going to the seaside for a day out every now and again, and this Bank Holiday Monday the BBC weather site reported that a number of southern coastal towns were going to have 'sunny weather'. So off we set, not a care in the world, car packed with buckets, spades, change, snickers bars, biscuits, children, wife, etc. What could possibly go wrong?

Not for the first time, quite a lot. For a start, the BBC weather website content was clearly based on the weather from circa the ICE AGE, with cold blustry grey skies setting in about 3 hours early. However, the real PITA factor was the lack of any advance warning that the entire motorbiking population of the UK take their two-wheeled death machines to Hastings and back on the first BHM in May, hitting the A21 around 10.30am. As did we.

I kid you not, there must have been a thousand bikes on the stretch between Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells. Bonkers. A lot of them were weaving in and out of the traffic, but really the sheer volume was staggering. Kent Police's massive operational presence consisted of a couple of parked up camera vans, 2 cars and about 3 bikes spread over about 10 miles. Newsflash Kent cops: if there'd been a major accident, you guys would have been in breach of your statutory duties.

Advance warning? Well, yesterday a helpfully cryptic electronic 'THINK BIKE' sign appeared near TW. But that was it. I can tell you, I thought a lot of things today, but 'bike' wasn't on the list. A slightly more useful message might have been 'Hastings Bike Run Tomorrow - Avoid A21 10-11am' but of course, that requires someone with a brain to have programmed the board.

This is apparently a well-known event in biker circles, as an impromptu trip to a biker forum or two on my mobile informed me whilst munching my fish and chips in Bexhill-on-Sea. Quite why the police don't give a monkey's is beyond me, since the speed, volume and nuttiness of the bikers was a recipe for disaster if the weather turned nasty. We saw at least one nearly lose it. We also saw a rather odd collection of mono-eybrowed types lining the road and waving (union jacks) at the bikers as they went past. As past-times go on a BHM, I can't see the attraction unless you're hoping an accident is going to happen.

The only real advantages of this entire fiasco was that it demonstrated to my eldest once and for all why the second lesson her Daddy ever taught her was 'motorbikes are pants'.

(The first lesson I taught her, by the way, was 'pussycats don't go moo', but that's a different story..)