When I was 16, Me, a mate, camping gear and a BSA C15 went to London Camping at Christal Palace in Mid November.

In the eighties I rode from Bridgend in S Wales to Warwick Uni for an OU summer school on a 125 with L plates. It took 7 hours and when I got off the bike I could hardly stand, the weight of the books in my backpack and the stiffness in my limbs made me totter around like a Weeble!

I think it was in 1970 my parents decided they wanted to visit the Preston Guild.
My mum came from Preston and the Guild was held every 10 years and she had missed a couple due to the Second World War, marrying my dad, living in London and having kids (me and my sister) etc..
The only thing was by then we were living in a tiny village called Polstead in Suffolk, about 10 miles from Ipswich, so one fine day they set off in the car to drive to Preston.

Later that day I got a frantic phone call from my mum saying that they had arrived at her aunties/uncles/cousin's (delete as appropriate as I can't remember who it was they were staying with) and went to get the suitcase out of the boot of the car to find it wasn't there.
It didn't take very long or very much by way of powers of deduction for me to establish that the reason for it not being in the boot of the car was that it was still upstairs on their bed! A classic case of each thinking the other had taken it downstairs and put it in the boot of the car.
Being the helpful and dutiful son that I was (not!), I volunteered to take the suitcase up to them on the luggage rack on my Royal Enfield 500 Bullet, which had just cost a fortune having a new piston and main and big end bearings, due to the twat I bought it off having replaced the standard 6.5/1 compression piston with a 10/1 high compression one "to make it go quicker".
The inevitable had happened a week after I bought it when the bottom end started rumbling ominously (funny, I can relate to that now!).
Any way, I thought a little run would help ease the new bearings in nicely.
What I didn't realise was how far away Preston was. I'd never been there and although I was vaguely aware it was "oop north" somewhere, I was under the erroneous impression I would be there and back in a couple of hours.
Anyway, I strapped this sodding great suitcase across the back of the bike and set off merrily northwards.

I've just used Mapquest to trace the route and it's changed a lot in the meantime, so there was no A14 and various other roads had not been heard of then.
Mapquest clocks it at 266 miles but I reckon it could have been over 300 then, especially if you include getting lost several times before eventually finding the M6.

Well, I eventually got there, completely knackered, but with the bike nicely run-in. It was late afternoon and I was promptly informed "You can't go straight home. Dinner will be on the table soon and you've got to visit the Guild while you're here".
Well that's northern hospitality and I ended up staying a week.
The only problem was that I'd delivered my parents' wayward luggage but hadn't taken any of my own so I had to beg, borrow and buy any clothes that would fit me.
That's the longest bike ride I've ever done and I wouldn't want to try it again.

I once rode a pushbike from Broadsands to Goodrington, cor knackered, never again. Caught the bus back and picked bike up in the car.