LEATHERS or GORTEX?

“Leathers or Gortex darling”? That was the first thought of the day as we drew back the curtains and looked at the sky. Best not get carried away with ourselves in the excitement I guess so Gortex it was to be!

At 0835 hrs Sunday March 22nd we were galloping north up the A1 from Doncaster, heading to Ripley and the start of the first ride out of 2009. That old trailer in the field had a new lick of white paint but the invite from God wasn’t there now. “Ha! He finally got the message I wasn’t ready then” I said to Julie nodding in its direction. It was a crispy cloudy morning with tons of white, grey clouds as far as the eye could see, but most of all it was dry so a good day beckoned, I wondered how many might come today six, eight of even a dozen maybe? A good day was on the cards no matter what the number. I gave the Mistress Garmin a tap and she answers “Go straight ahead for 20 miles then exit left” in a commanding American drawl, OK honey I reply!

We pulled onto the cobbled area in the middle of Ripley by the Boars Head hotel at 0935 hrs saying hello to the lonely Yamaha FJ man sitting on the stone steps, he was waiting to meet his girl and they were going up to Grassington for the day, a black 15 and 1800 did a drive bye, Hmm! Gone for petrol maybe? A dull coloured 1500 trike was our first companion to pull up ridden by Dave Fryat and his missus followed quickly by two, three and more bikes,

The first gathering of 2009 in Ripley

then Barry and Tina arrived from the start point at Keighley with more wings. Seventeen bikes in all turned up, what a great day it was going to be! Folk parked up amongst the Jags and Beemers, neatly manicured older posh people from the hotel in green tweed looked at us pretending not to be too impressed as they put their designer cases in their car boots.

The lovely Andrea from darkest Lancashire

New faces came and said hello, “Hello Dave I’m Scooter boy” said Tom from Keighley, Michelle smiled from behind, Dave and Lynn from Skipton, two proper suverners from darn sarf smiled and nodded, guys arrived from the dark side of England (that’s Lancashire to you and me) Sir Cattle Grid and windswept wifey Denise on their white (not for long) 1800. Denise looked beautiful as usual in her multilayer sheep outfit and matching pink boots. They brought Malc and grinning Andrea, George an Mildred came too…sorry I mean birthday girl Carole. Geoff and Chris had a new gold 1800, having recently thrown the last one down the road at Squires Cafe in Sherburn, A new road surface is not always a blessing and questions are raised at the oily residue, on this occasion the police are on our side. Old familiar retards showed up too, like top bloke Mick Gordge who was looking suspiciously young today, your hair looks really good today Mick, any thoughts anyone? He left Christine in the shower, I wondered if she noticed he’d gone yet? Meanwhile Adrienne took some of the ladies for a quick stroll to the nearby looooos, leaving Ian womanless for a few minutes.

Ian chats with Triker Dave Fryat

He amused us with his frog, cockerel and moo cow noises. The higher echelons of the Yorkshire Wings branch appeared namely reps 1 and 2 Tony Walton and Roger Morgan, Club moneyman

Duffy strikes a manly pose for Babe Denise

Dave an Julia Duffy pulled up on their stripy trike, Hazel the movie star graced us again and provided kisses.  there too was Gordon, an affable pipe smoking character riding an orangey 1500 with huge flashing council light fixed to the top box, he says this is going to be helpful in the forthcoming 24 hr challenge, meaning he would be helping broken bikers, I think Gordon is probably one of those really nice chaps, unassuming, quiet, courteous and damn handy to have around! These gatherings are always noisy and friendly, no politics, no bollox just fun and frivolity! Barry takes centre stage and gets attention barking through his unlit roll up, half the village hears him too as he kindly reminds everyone what’s what and that we are on 15 for CB’ers.

You can tell its Sunday as the local Battenberg vile wagon pulled into its hidden hole and the faceless official sets up his speed camera, ready to collect revenue for the council robber barons, probably hundreds of these vile vans do the same the length and breadth of the UK intent on cashing in, in the “interest of road safety” every Sunday. He gets a wave and smile all the same as we leave Ripley, he is still a bloke after all.

Off we go then, exit stage left and left again at the first roundabout, I look round to make sure everyone has got away OK and call to Barry half a mile away “Everybody out Barry” Before scurrying along quickly to catch the £360,000 pack of Goldwings solo’s and trikes. The day was ours to enjoy!

Following Geoff and Chris towards Leighton res

We cruised along towards Pateley Bridge, turning off to follow a nice dry twisting B road as it hugged the shoreline of Gouthwaite Reservour, the water was a rich blue today with wispy white horses as the wind whipped the tops, we banked left and right along the narrow road and gave the walkers a quick show as we passed close by. “Not much chance of getting a campervan up here” I chuckled to Julie and hoping some Sunday cretin wasn’t trying to do just that! The Druids Temple soon came into view away to our right slowly changing shape as we passed. I saw a vehicle had stopped at the bridge we were crossing and ten bikes were stood as the lead bike waived this him to come across, You guessed it, it was a bloody campervan and the man had stopped right on the bend to the bridge, people just don’t think sometimes do they? We waited as he crept slowly across the bridge, brrrr! I’m glad I didn’t put leathers on today, the biting wind was making my eyes water, we would be going higher later so it would get colder for sure, we were still grinning like Cheshire cats in spite of the cold!

We took a sharp right off the road and climbed high, negotiating some Stelvio type bends leaving the water far away to our right, it was noticed that someone was missing the chatter on the CB intimated that Dave and Julia had missed the sharp right….inspite of a wing sitting there as an indicator! Can anyone out there shed any light on their whereabouts or what happened? I have pinged an email to them but have not heard a thing; maybe they have been abducted by aliens in a really big spaceship?

Just about the only rule we have on ride outs is that it’s up to EVERYONE to keep up. This is stated frequently and was mentioned again before the ride out, part of my job as back marker is to report any gaps I see to the lead bike, a large gap was materializing in the first twenty minutes of the ride out as we weaved along the waters, I called Barry and we decided to sort it quickly when the conditions allowed. A problem with either the bike or the rider can usually be fixed, and well to be honest if you’re THAT bad a rider, why aren’t you driving a Volvo or summat? The gap today was sorted easily by putting the trikes up behind the lead bike. OK soapbox moment over and back to the story…..

The haunting ruins of Jevaulx passed away to our right as we dropped down onto the main road to Leyburn.  Julie missed the photo opportunity of the narrow stone bride again.  Its an unusual narrow stone bridge worthy of a photograph, my fault I should have called out but I was preoccupied wondering if Hazel would be able to coax old Tony across on their French Trike, Oh by the way did you know it’s called “La Rouge Baguette Bin” on account of it being able to hold dozens of French sticks in its unusually wide boot!

La Rouge Baguette Bin cometh

Wondeful windy views

Next came the windy tank road, the red flags were out, no days off for our virgin soldiers, they need all the practice they can get before flying out to the war zones in the east. The wind really tore at us here and my eyes streamed buckets. If I wasn’t before, I was convinced now that we had the right kit on! We dropped down off the skyline and out of the blasted wind for now heading straight through Layburn, several racehorses stood with their riders as we passed, Yet another remainder of our dear old JAFFA, he died suddenly a few days ago, thirteen years of looking into our kitchen and now he has gone, hard times for us at the moment I’m afraid. We passed through Reeth, giving Tan Hill a miss today, a good thing because we would have been blown all the way to Timbuktu! Instead we ran along the valley of Arkengarthdale, and a quick stop for the girls to inspect the nearby pub toilet, some of the guys did the man thing and pissed in the ditch!! I waited to see if Denise would go to the loo and sniggered at the thought of her ripping layer after layer off as the trickle started, and the girls putting her back together again, that was ever so funny watching last time! Speaking of trickle the coming waterfalls were not half as busy as last week, Barry and I came this way last week doing some research for today, snow lay on the frozen land, and peaty brown water gushed in mighty splendour down the waterfalls, we pulled over and stood in inches of snow looking around, the bike tyres covered in brown slush, I forgot the camera so you will just have to trust my description. Instead today it was blowing a cold wind the land was rich in greens and browns. The cheap six inch tall safety (my arse) catch fence allowed us to peer down the gorge it was magnificent, thank god this bit of road was straight! Across the valley an ancient giant had ripped the ground open with his huge claws and left deep dark green gashes that held ones gaze,

The giants claw marks

mesmerized one even…..roughly grabbed kidneys from behind however signified a bend ahead! The road brings one back to reality quickly. Frequently I saw couples slow and peer down to the left and right, their bike suddenly slowing and weaving in the tell tale fashion of a biker trying to look in two directions at the same time, its that strange phenomenon of wherever the biker looks the bike wants to go, great on the racetrack, but shyte on these B roads! In the distance we could see the flat topped mountains with fine sounding Northern names, so far away that the colours faded to hues of purples and blues, we saw also the twisting silvery thread of our road as it crested another range of hills. Somewhere, in the folds out of site lay the bike haven of Hawes and lunch. On we went along the tops dropping down again passing through dirty sounding Muker and Swaledale, sweeping up again along the Buttertubs and down again into Hawes.

We were in such a big group that parking along the High Street was out of the question, Barry led us up a hill a while to a car park, that we promptly filled! The walk back served to ease stiff joints…and massaged stiff bums.

two stiff ladies

I kept pace with Mick The Food Meister all the way to the chippie, homemade meat pie was bought with chips and gravy, so unhealthy but so bloody scrumchious,

Tony finally gets his fish

Barry chose the healthy option and had a fish buttie. Tina got stuck in the chippie, her collapsible coffin handbag got caught in the door frame, and her big fuckoff bag buckle snagged someone’s arse! If it’s not your big bag it’s your dropped box eh Tina? We milled around outside like proper greasy bikers and hogged the pavement, across the road at The Penny Garth Café every corner was taken as bikers consumed tea and chips, a group of Satan Slaves stood amongst the bikes, their prominent leather patchwork caught my eye. It’s a good day to ride the bike, rather than sit indoors in a car or bloody motor home!! The Satan Slaves are indeed proper bikers just like the rest of us.

Time to move on again, we left two bikes to catch up later, they were in a café down the road and hadn’t been served, the problem was that Mr Crabbe ordered lots of food I have been informed by one of my snouts. The rest of us exited left out of the car park and climbed the ridge bumping along the narrow tarmac to disappear down the other side into Langstrothdale Chase, did you notice the fabulously shaped twisted trees? Yes folks it was my turn to try looking in two directions at once! We joined a real road a little after and rode through Buckden, Starbottom and pulled over at Kettlewell for tea and creamy scones,

Sir Cattle Grid savours dinner

I was STILL on the road and saw Mick Gordge disappear into the café. The Food Meister strikes again, that’s my boy! The scones here are wonderful and still warm, you get a pot of tea, a huge scone, tub of cream and glass pot of jam, its free too  if you sit next to Barry that is.……Its not the money! Nigel snaffled two giant ice creams and a tin of Shandy, last night he was on the lash with Malc and Andrea, Malc looked a bit rough but I’d put that down to the ugly tree! It was a grand thirty minutes of cream scoffing I’ve had in a long time, spoilt only by “Scooterboy” flashing his bloody Scooter T shirt. Michelle darling can you make sure he brings none of them to Austria in June or I’ll make him drink his beer with a poncy umbrella in it! Carole and Denise sat drinking tea in a corner, they looked a bit “Pikeyesque” with red rosy cheeks windswept hair dishevelled attire and devil-may-care shrugs, aren’t Sundays just wonderful?

We said our goodbyes to George and Mildred…..I mean Carole, we pulled out of the car park after Roger on his gritty 1500, I could see he was smiling hugely, as we headed skywards again his stereo was belting out some 60’s number and his head was giving it some serious nods!

Roger Morgan passes sleeping sheep

This tiny road was seriously fun, narrow and had a camber to sue for! Getting up to it we picked our way through Kettlewell village and up some more serious Stelvio bends, once again we found ourselves on the ridgeline in the cold wind. Coverdale was covered in blue grey slate which in turn was covered in new green grass shoots, sheep crowded into a hopper full of food, others sat around as Roger showed them his underside as he passed just a couple of feet away.

This was our last ridge of the day, we dropped down again and snaked our way to Ripon along the A6108, this is the road Barry and I scorch on our play days heading into North Yorkshire (our playground) after a bacon baguette breakfast in Ripon Square. The quiet of Sunday afternoon in Ripon square was broken by the arrival of fifteen bikes and fifteen different soundtracks. Folk came across to the free bike show,

Our Barry placates the local law

we chatted with friends old and new before heading towards the A1 and back down to Doncaster. It has been a great day out on the bike and can’t wait for the next one!

I have had an Email from Dave Duffy whilst writing this; he says Julia began to feel unwell along the way so he took her home. So I apologize to the aliens, you guys always get the blame don’t you?

Tilateronthen

The Scribe

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