Here are a few
ideas which will make the riders life much easier and get you both working as a
team.

1.    Fuel stops.

When riding in a group fuel stops can cause the
biggest of all delays on our transit days.

To ease the burden on the rider, and the group

The passenger should always go and pay for the fuel,
(Yes, that’s before the toilet, drinks, and etc girls.)

This allows the rider to move away from the pumps
quickly, allowing your fellow travelers’ to fuel up, and grab a bite to eat, or
drink or toilet.

2.    toll booths

Again, it’s much easier for the passenger who as two
free hands, to not only carry loose change, but also dispense it into

The waiting hands of a booth operator, or machine.

The rider then has only to concentrate on balancing
the bike, waiting for the ok from you to move off and watching for the toll
gate to rise.

3.    A second pair of eyes

European riding can be daunting for a first timer, or
a rider with little or infrequent touring experience

So helping him by watching the road ahead for road
signs, traffic, or even what other road users are doing and relaying the
information to him in a calm, relaxed manner, not forgetting it should be early
enough for him to act on,

Is a great help, and will keep you both alert on your
journey.

4.    mountain road riding

Working together when riding tight, twisty, Alpine
roads is a skill which is worth learning, the passenger can become a very
important pair of eyes, by simple looking up past the tight hairpin bend and
telling the rider if traffic is coming or if it’s clear.

(Watch out for fast moving bicycles coming down the
road)

He is watching the corner ahead, and may not always be
able to see up the mountain, where as

You the passenger can, you have intercom, so help him
and use it….

It will make the ride feel safer and more enjoyable
for both of you.

5.    drinks and nibbles

Hopefully it’s going to be hot and sunny on our tour

Picking up something to chew, or drink as we ride
along is acceptable on a Goldwing.

Don’t by a huge bottle of water, a couple of litre
bottles are easier to use, and easier to store.

If you’re passing drinks or sweets to your rider,

Help him by telling him when, and which shoulder your
passing items over, or ask if he’s ready to accept your gift.

PLEASE REMEMBER TO STOW ITEMS SAFELY WHEN TRAVELING IN
A GROUP.

A water bottle
is a dangerous item if it becomes dislodged, and flies’ off,

Think of those behind you at all times please.

6.    Photo’s on the move.

You can and will get some great photos as we travel
along.

Please ensure your camera is secured to you at all
times.

And the battery compartment cannot come open.

Batteries have been known to eject on the move

And at 70mph, it’s like a bullet hitting the front of
a bike or rider,

7.    CB radio

This is a very important piece of equipment for your
group leader and backdoor man,

By all means chat or ask questions on the CB but make
it as short as possible,

That way information can always be passed on when
required by your marshals.

8.    Beware of the push-bike.

You may laugh, but cyclists in towns and in the
mountains are your worst nightmare,

They travel down mountain roads far faster than you
will; they overtake/undertake on blind bends,

They have no regard for other road users and will cut
you up. So be careful.

On main roads you will find large groups of cyclists
riding together

Take care passing / overtaking them, look well ahead
for any obstacle which may cause them to swing out, because they will come out
as a group and expect you to move over,

In Italy cycling is a very popular hobby/sport

They break all the rules of the road but If you injure
one of them expect a heavy fine and a costly damages claim,

What you should carry on your Goldwing

• First-aid kit
• Tool and bulb kit
• Warning triangle (one per group)
• Reflective vest (for France and Spain)
• Note: this must be worn if on a hard-shoulder
  (ie. breakdown, bird watching or otherwise)

• Breathalyzer (must be carried in France I
  would recommend carrying two)

Essential Documents

• Driving license (international if held)
• Motor insurance (showing European cover)
• Vehicle registration document, MOT if
  required
• Note: all the above documents MUST not be
  photocopies. Always take a copy of your documents before you set off and
  leave these copies at home
• EHIC NHS Medical Card

Other useful items

• European breakdown cover
• Medical insurance and travel insurance
• Maps or GPS
• Phrase books
• Credit/debit card PIN numbers
• Euros in cash and travelers cheques

Prepare your bike

• A service before you set off, ask for your
  brake pads to be checked
• Check your tires. You must have at least 2mm
  when leaving Germany
• Ultra seal your tires
• Take your spare key (don’t carry it in the
  bike)
• If your ‘wing is less than 2 years old, carry
  your service book (for any warranty problems)

Final details, Carry contact details of your next of kin, Let the group
leaders know if you or your passenger have any medical conditions, Let the
group leaders know if you have any special dietary requirements (so hotels can
be informed)

View Larger Map

Barry led the way with the trikes behind him followed by the lonely 1500 of Janet and Brian then the faster longer legged 1800s of the rest of the group then me sweeping up at the back in my usual place on these trips as “Back Door Man”.
We took the motorway south passing Boulogne, Abberville and Dieppe, it became a main road as we had to take in the outskirts of Rouen before rejoining the E402 just the other side of the city, we touched the edge of Normandy pushing past Lisieux. Before they built this motorway the best way to and from the channel posts was to angle through Normandy via Chatres..Dreux..Eveux and Lisieux on the back roads and were by far the prettiest, shortest and safest route. The M-ways going North/South (I’ll call them Auto-routes now) all take in the French capitol, you explorers out there will have ridden on the x-rated Paris ring road just the once and will agree with me when I say it’s a right bastard and to be avoided be at all costs!
Alencon and Le Mans came and went as the sign for Tours came up and we left the auto-route for the last time today. Barry slowed down to a trickle as we entered the busy city in the Saturday late afternoon traffic, going slow also to let sat nav do her bit and take us straight to the hotel. Barry and I are fairly used to the sat nav capabilities and know that going slowly through a town or city is the best way forward as she struggles terribly with French place names and streets, I’m passing information from the back to Barry up ahead about the traffic lights, whose stopped and whose moving, some of the group have CB’s too and are listening intently as we take this turn and the next. We pull up outside the hotel in no time and the ladies climb off to book in, meanwhile we men get instructions on where the car park is and drive round the back and down underground to the hotel car park, which seems to be directly underneath the hotel.
The first day went well really. We were on French and not German auto-routes so the learning curve wasn’t so harsh today I’m happy to say. The first day is always the hardest to do though on this tour we had just three or four new couples, the rest had been on tour with us at one time or another before but still needed to brush up on European auto route skills. All in all an enjoyable day hacking down through northern France, we were now just north of the Loire Valley and it was good to chuck the bike keys on the bed in the corner of the room. Have a shower and head out into town. Today we had done approx 360 miles. Well done to all of us!
The old“Splinter Group” are now so old they have become “The Flat-liners” I stood outside the hotel waiting for Barry and the others as the saga six mooched off in search of the old part of Tours and a quiet dinner. Jane darling, your not old but a slip of a girl it’s just that your just married to old Steve! All the rest of us on the other hand didn’t wander that far after seeing the glowing lights of “Le Hippo” We felt this was the place to eat. We were ushered upstairs into the glass roofed attic out of the way, it was nice and airy and so our excited English chatter wouldn’t disturb the rest of the house!
The was France so I was expecting the food to be top notch, which it was, the lager came in jugs and went straight into English bellies, oh my god that tasted sooo nice! It was here that Mark and I found out we both frequented the same pubs in Wakefied back in the 1970’s describing and reminiscing old haunts. A few weeks after the tour on a visit to Mark and Jeanette’s home she showed me a photo of Mark with long hair, I looked and though hmmm he does look familiar, then Mark said he worked in a paint and wallpaper shop and the manager was gay. A door in my distant past was flung open at this statement. I had worked there just two or three days but left because the manager was a poof and I didn’t feel comfy in his presence! How spooky was that? I know it’s a small world and we keep telling ourselves that but it’s still a smack in the face with a wet fish when something like this happens.The poofter has since died as has the cleaning lady.
The following morning we encountered our first continental breakfast, bread of all shapes and sizes, jams meats and cheese to go with it and strong French coffee, tea is pretty much an afterthought here in France as boxes of flowery tea bags stayed mainly full. The bikes were waking up down in the car park as the men went and said hello and cleaned windscreens. Overnight bags were packed back into the bikes. Barry and Tina left first, it was a steep curve up out of the hole. Ride to the outside of the curve then gun it was the way to do it. Unsure riders sweated a bit already at this move, it was an unusual piece of road I admit it’s just that some are more confidant that others. Julie manned the electric barrier until we all left, I would always be the last man out wherever we were, this was my usual job on tours and Sunday ride outs back home too
We formed up outside, a quick last minute check on everyone, then Fatha decides he wants to have a little walk and say hello to folk. He did this more than once on tour and was always encouraged to get back on his bloody bike! Off we go then, Barry had the Garmin on and took us slowly out of town towards the open spaces. We rode a south east direction through the region of Vienne towards the auto route less than an hour away, we saw the “real” France now as we rode along the E62 passing through several sleepy villages.I know it was Sunday morning but every time I ride through French villages they always appear “sleepy” whatever time of whatever day! Outside one such hamlet we fuelled up at the local supermarche and the ladies visited the one ladies loo so a stop of thirty minute or more was forced by the bladder.
We head for Limoges and the E9 auto route south passing Brive and the haunted town of Rocamadour.
Lots of dark deeds happened here during WWII and the civilians suffered violently at the hands of the Germans with many being murdered. The place purposely reflects this as a reminder of war.
The weather yesterday was very cloudy and not too warm however today it improved greatly, the clouds had all but gone and the temperature was as warm as Steve and Jane’s back brake, back in Tours earlier that morning they had gone several miles with the handbrake on and smoked the bikes behind causing some consternation, the airwaves bubbled with “Smoke! I can smell bloody smoke! summats on fire!” I went through the group on the open road and checked each one out, as Steve grabbed their hand brake putting it in the off position, Aha that’s the problem! They had gone about two miles with the hand brake on, looking down Steve saw no flames and Jane thought the trike felt fine so elected to bang on, everyone was awake now as we turned onto the auto route.
It was another long day with close to 380 miles to do, a day we call a transit day. We had to juggle the positions around with the trikes as large gaps were appearing, large enough for trucks to slip into and generally bugger things up for us. Basically we ride staggered with the two second gap, Its everyone’s responsibility to keep up and try not to let a large gap form, if a car, van, truck gets between, then the gap will increase hugely as the vehicle sits happily behind slow traffic. You become unsighted and the next junction we turn off at or garage we pull in at you will miss and will pull the rest of the group with you. “Fucked” is a word that springs to mind! If everyone had CB and listened it would not be such a problem but they don’t, they don’t come cheap and so it can problematic. In the first few days some folk are concerned and reluctant at going over 75/80mph when playing catch up because someone has done what I’ve just said, folk where having to go really REALY fast for half a mile or more to back with the group. Folk are given the opportunity to travel down on their own or in groups they have maps hotel ref numbers etc and are adults. Travelling in a group can be lots of fun but you can’t dawdle and you must keep together and in sight. This happens at the beginning of EVERY tour it’s just a learning curve for a day or so. We try to explain these things at the pre tour meeting but don’t ram it down throats with do’s and don’ts for fear of putting people off and being draconian. The first day of continental riding on auto routes is always enough to get people in the right frame of mind.
Further south we rode with stops every ninety minutes-ish for petrol, pee and tea. Mantauban was the next provincial city we passed before hitting the ring road of Toulouse, being Sunday it was quite a peaceful days driving, the land had turned quite brown now as the temperature rose to the late twenty five degree mark.
We had seen many of Mother Nature’s aviators namely the Buzzard, they lounge about on fence posts and other roadside furniture like bored teenagers but unlike bored teenagers they had a purpose, and that was to clear up the roads of squashed rabbits and such like. If you see one quickly enough ahead on a post you can see they have wonderful markings, a huge yellow ripping beak and hands like shovels..erm I mean feet! They have deep set dark eyes that see better than a ships radar. The Kite is here in large numbers too, and easy to spot in the air due to their sharper outline and deep tail fork, the Buzzard in contrast is more solid looking and quite dishevelled in the air with splayed feathers like long fingers, a few time I have seen them hover, they angle themselves in the wind just enough to keep airborne and flap their wide wings slowly whilst widening their tail using it to catch the uplift.
Carcassonne is the next large city we pass, I shout Barry and Tina ahead to keep an eye out for the wonderful castle that would come into view on our left soon. Meanwhile I was looking to our right at the far off mountains of Andorra, about 30 miles away, Julie waved at a waving motorist as he peeled off in that direction, he had Andorran number plates.
This was the region of Aude and is dotted with interesting places and holds stories of bygone races. The Moors mainly as they crept up through Spain from North Africa. Following them came religious European types, a particular group called Cathars became a thorn in the established Christian races of mainstream France. They were not mainstream Christian but a different sect with different elements of Christianity incorporated. Hence this region is known now as Pays Cathare. The term Pays Cathare, is French and means “Cathar Country” it’s used to highlight the Cathar heritage and history of the region where Catharism was traditionally strongest. This area is centred around the fortresses such as Montségur and Carcassonne. These areas have ancient ruins from the wars between the various Christina sects and came from as far away as the lands now known as Germany. Why does everyone cry out there is only one god and want to kill anyone who says different? It strikes me that they are similar to some silly motorbike club I know! Sounds also a bit like Rome from back then and Iraq recently, also like the “Mad as Hatters” Moslem extremists that are allowed to run around breeding discontent and murder. The many ruins are still visible today. We would visit some of them on our “Castles rideout” later in the week. The last Cathars by the way were persecuted and killed off in the Crusades of the late 12 century.
Anyway I digress! The famed Carcassonne castle loomed into view to our left. Not everyone had CB so Barry’s pointing to the left hollering “Carcassonne castle to the left everybody!” was lost in the warm wind. I had been down here with Julie a couple of years ago and knew we were nearly at our journeys end for the day, the sea was in sight now and we had reached the south coast of France it was warm just like the brochure said! The auto route dropped us off on the outskirts of the old town, it being Sunday made finding the hotel here in Narbonne easy. Cruising down to sat nav speed let Mistress Garmin lead Barry and the rest of us right to the doorstep. The huge old wooden garage doors were opened and we rode inside. We filled one garage and part of the second. It was perfect! The day manager was a biker too, his dusty old Japanese 650 sat in the near corner. He was happy to have us “own” the garage for the week.
Our room was small with a great view of a brick wall just ten metres away and there was nowhere to put our kit so it stayed in the bags on the floor, there was a dresser and a TV, shower room and “le crapper” It was clean but basic. We didn’t really mind, it was just a bedroom after all, the bikes were all indoors which for this week was the most important thing I think. We swarmed in and out of other Wanderers rooms and saw raised toilets, balconies, some looking over the traffic lights, Lynne even saw Michelle in the shower as she dashed in looking at their room and without realising Michelle was in there drew back the curtain to shrieks and giggles!! Look out folks the Appy Wanderers were in town! Mark and Jeanette pointed across the huge crossroads and said “Pub” Aha..my kind of word! In a shot we followed them, Tom and Michelle were hot on our heels. It had been a long hot day with another 360 miles notched up, time to celebrate, everyone had made it without a hint of drama and we were to be congratulated.
We piled into the small bar eager for drinks, the young girl was a bit in awe as we pointed at the two lager pumps, I pointed at the solitary dusty pint glass, we eventually took it in turns to use it, the rest of us made do with the half pint things, we used the plastic table that was under the red yellow and green neon of the traffic light, this would be cool when it gets dark! I was pestered by the only drunken Algerian trampess in Narbonne and she understood what Feck off meant! It sounds unkind I know but she only wanted to indulge me in conversation in the hopes that I might buy her a drink and give her money but I was in no mood the bar girl managed to get shut of her bless! Mick and Ann soon joined us pulling another table under the traffic light. Sandra and David came along with Barry Tina and some of the others, they didn’t stay, instead they pushed on into the old part in search of something to eat, we on the other hand had the bit between our teeth and were celebrating and keeping the lass busy re-filling the little glasses and the one pint glass. Cheers m’dears!
We said Monday would be a day off the bike, we had done rather a lot of miles in two days and had a way to go yet so I for one didn’t want to turn it into “La Moto Enduro” and wanted to try and get the balance right. My pal Martin owns a biker hotel just up the road in the village of Coursan, he is originally from Oxford he is ex RAF and a solid biker and seasoned traveller, spending years in the U.S as a self employed real life cowboy, he got married whilst there and now has a son who is currently serving in the US Marines out in that troublesome desert, you can gather from this that our Martin is a really interesting and friendly guy. Julie and I now see him as a friend, having robbed his fridge of beer on several visits. We really wanted to visit him during the tour, it would have been extremely rude not to! So on the Monday we took Barry, Tom and the girls with us. Meanwhile the rest of The Appy Wanderers spent the day wandering around Narbonne at leasure.
Martin was on the pavement as we pulled up tooting and shouting greetings and the beer was right where I said! I pulled some out and passed them around, one small can each. Id threatened on Facebook to empty his fridge since last year! This is his B+B website in case your interested http://www.st-georges-fr.com/ He has a great place with room in the garage for about eight wings, please have a look it might well be of interest to you! It was really nice to see him again since last years holiday in September. I introduced him to everyone and visa versa. An Englishman was here too messing with his bike, Barry helped in fix whatever it was that he was fixing, I wasn’t interested to be honest I was here to see my old mate Martin. I wanted to show Barry around with a view to maybe using the place for some future biking holiday but he was more interested in the bike outside! We stayed an hour or so before saying goodbye for now and carried onto the beach another few miles on.
Barry had smelt the mountains and got all excited and wanted to go right now! But this was a rest day for me at least and I had to remind him! There was all week and I had planned a route or two in that direction, we would be going into “Montagne Noir” tommorow (The Black Mountains) So I went to the beach followed by two other wings though one seemed a bit reluctant! The afternoon by the beach was nice as we explored Narbonne plage. Barry and I rolled up our trousers and took a dip in the Med, then congratulated each other on a job well done so far. It was a nice feeling. Tina came into the sea for a photo, ah this was the life. Barry settled and agreed this was a good afternoon after all. I knew it would and took them back to Narbonne through the hilly dunes along great little back roads. The road from Narbonne to Coursan is on the old Roman road from Italy to Espania in fact part of the original road is on show in Narbonne, how cool it was to actually stand on it again that evening as we explored the square in search of good food.
Tuesday morning at breakfast we began to get to grips with the hotel coffee machine, it gurgled, spluttered, bleeped and winked its blue light. If it doesn’t work straight away keep prodding the bloody button we thought. It’s impatient I know but I think it’s a human thing if it doesn’t do as its told straight away then beat it to death. The machine had a link to the receptionist I’m sure because after a couple of prods one of the staff came out to tell the perpetrator off! “ Zut Allors, vouz presse ze button only wance” they insisted, I copped for a “telling off” on the first morning.
So after a hearty breakfast of bread jam, cheese and coffee we sorted ourselves out in the garage and decided to leave individually to the garage a mile up the road due to the fact that the 7 roads of the roundabout with multi traffic lights just five yards away was actually like joining Death Race 2000! It’s here that we also got to grips with card only payment for fuel, this is still an alien thing for most English. My local supermarket now has this facility at their garage but not many use it so I get filled up quickly every time.
Barry has my route in his sat nav and we head North through Montagne Noir towards the world famous Millau Bridge, it was a two hundred mile rideout, I have ridden the mountains before with Julie before and know what the group have in store for them and know exactly what their reactions are going to be, especially my mountain road mad mate Barry.
Everyone was struck at the beauty of these clean and new roads into the hills, Barry was loud and happy on the CB! People were enjoying the first rideout very much, Telford began to explore the road at speed, the corners were so open and wide, his body suggested he was getting “into the zone” and was leaning into the corner’s he’s driving a trike so this was funny to see. We powered on and eased off constantly taking the views and enjoying the roads in turn.
We are heading towards St Affrique about a hundred miles away through lots of “sleepy” villages sitting between dozens of green clad hills, we rise high to look back at the sea in the distance, it’s a hot day again and Appys jackets are removed and locked away in the top boxes, it’s a great ride and folk are riding these roads for the first time, they are privileged bikers and will no doubt recount their feeling when they get home and chat to fellow bikers on many a weekend to follow. We stopped at St Pons for half an hour break to buy bottles of water.
Setting off again in good time we soon had the bridge in site, the cloud came as we crested the hills and jackets were pulled out for a while. The bridge was visible from miles away. It didn’t hit home how big it was until we dropped into the valley and crossed beneath it, the main supports seemed to go on for miles into the sky to the auto route way above us. Personally I have never seen anything so vast and I felt like a gnat! Deryck had told me months ago of a café with a panoramic view that a friend had told him about and sounded ideal, I “Googled” it and found it it quickly, it was still there and looked OK so I put it into the route.
Just after the bridge Barry started to look for the right turn in question. It was a bit “Stelvio ish” in that it was a zig zag up the hill side but the surface was not in great condition, we carried on slowly and made cautious progress. On one of the switchbacks Russ and Elaine had got it a bit wrong and crashed. From the back I saw their wing roll back down the hill backwards after messing up a corner Their bike shunted hard into the barrier bounced forward and flopped to one side, several bikes had stopped on the uneven road, Wanderers were round them in a flash and were helping the two of them and getting the bike up. I couldn’t help so I passed them to make my way to the top and pass on what had happened to the rest at the top. A trike went back down to bring Elaine up and with some help the bike came up too. The bike didn’t look to badly damaged save for the usual scratch marks on one pannier the crash bars had scuff marks but had done their job, Russ was a bit bruised as was Elaine and were both a bit shook up, it was a cuddle time and with plenty of hugs for Elaine and words of support for Russ and a gentle pat on the back. After all that trouble the bloody café was shut and looked like it had been all summer, would you believe it! Nobody could have known this but it was still a bummer, we stood and looked at the great view of the bridge in its entirety, getting some Belgian bikers to take the group photograph, we had to turn round and go back down the twisting road, Russ and Elaine took it easy with me fifty metres in front ansFatha and M in support just behind them, the rest of the group waited at the bottom, when we were one again we set off and looked for the Macdonald’s in Millau village. On retrospect the accident was rider error on an extreme road, and the fact that the café was closed was nobody’s fault.
The staff at the Macdonald’s probably wish they were shut too as twenty six bikers wanted feeding altogether, Lynn played crafty and ran up the hill to get their meals first, but they had to sit about for ages until we at the back got our food and took the rest earned. Feeding us in such places always causes a bit of a panic to the staff, but really we are only like a coach party…a very much younger coach party!
We began to move out eventually and Mark had trouble starting the trike but luckily we were on a hill so a quick old fashion jump start sorted it out. It was really hot now as the mid afternoon sun cooked the land and we were in a wind-less valley! We fuelled up in the town ready to make our ride south to Narbonne on the famous bridge, half rode out of the garage to wait just up the road when Mark stalled the trike again only this time it was as flat as a pancake. My CB began to play up too and it was getting hotter by the minute! Tom and I tried to push the trike but it still wouldn’t start and we didn’t have a slope of any kind at hand. After some more determination and a litre or two of sweat we got the bike breathing again! By now some were really getting hot and bothered and tempers frayed a little, well it’s to be expected we are only humans after all!
A difficult ride and hot ride followed as we rode through the congested town centre, we made our way to the bridge slip road high above us. I was at the back as usual urging folk to act a bit more like bikers and wiggle their way through the traffic instead of just sitting in line with the cars, I was very happy to start climbing up and out of the town, clear of traffic, pedestrians, traffic lights and bloody pet dogs! Wearing silly bike kit and helmets instead of speedo’s and sunglasses wasn’t helping one little bit either!
I forget how much the bridge toll was but it was lovely to be on it and so high in the cooler air AND moving at a faster pace. An eagle was spotted by several Wanderers and photographed by a couple of the lucky ones. We were on a fantastic bit of auto-route that ran steadily down and through the mountains, I’d pulled out and began going past the guys informing Barry that his “back door man” was about to pass him and go for a five minute blast, “See you 10 miles or so down the road byeeee” It is one of those moments you know will become a good memory, Fatha and M had pulled free with me and we chased each other for a while. The E-11 twisted and turned in and out of the brown jagged mountains, we had come up this way last year so this box was ticked as done in less than 12 months! A French biker latched onto us as we lost altitude at speed Fatha and I switched once or twice before slowing down to a crawl to wait for the group to catch up, the French guy was waving and grinning like crazy as he passed us, he had probably never before chased but lost two Honda Goldwing 1800cc motorbikes far ahead of him! Barry and the group where back again in no time and normality returned. Miles down the road a glitch was had as Barry and most of the group peeled off the auto-route and head North towards Montpellier instead of staying on the E-11. I said “See you guys lateronthen at the hotel”
I rode with two bikes behind me in the correct direction towards Narbonne. We came off the auto-route to ride along the old road down the coast, we pulled over at Coursan to our old supermarche for fuel and drinks, the six of us sat on the wall drinking a while before mounting up to ride the short few miles into town and the hotel. Not fifteen minutes later the rest of the gang turned up. We had done about 200 miles today though some did an extra 40 miles or so! They hadn’t gone the wrong way we are on holiday so they just went a different way instead! Folk washed and changed and went in search of a good meal in the centre, small groups formed, it would have really impractical to all go to the same place every time.
Wednesday was a day in Carcassonne just forty miles away, the city has a huge reconstructed castle wall around the top with period houses all inside. Some went there on the bikes whilst the older “Flat-liners” elected to go on the train.
It’s said that the Romans first built fortifications on the hill top around 100 B.C At some point when the Visigoths arrived and the importance of the city as it overlooked old French Spanish borders grew and grew. Much later in 1659 a treaty was signed and the border region became French and so the border itself moved back beyond the hills making Carcassonne less important as a thriving border post.
The fortified city itself consists essentially of a concentric design with two outer walls with towers and barbicans to prevent attack by siege engines. The castle itself possesses its own drawbridge and ditch leading to a central keep. The walls consist of towers built over quite a long period. One section is Roman and is different from the medieval walls with the tell-tale red brick layers and the shallow pitch terracotta tile roofs. One of these towers housed the Catholic Inquisition in the 13th Century and is still known as “The Inquisition Tower”. Today there is a museum “Musée de la Torture”, which shows some of the original torture equipment employed by the Catholic Church was struck off the roster of official fortifications under Napoleon and the Restoration, and the fortified cité of Carcassonne fell into such disrepair that the French government decided that it should be demolished. It was completley restored in after many years of hard work in 1853, its this structure that we saw today. It’s well worth a day to visit and wonder around its tiny tourist filled streets, this was our second visit and we still found bits that we missed the first time around.
We agreed to meet in the car park about four and went into the mountains again on rather an unplanned rideout, it’s just so inviting it has to be done as often as you can. Mazamet was the place we headed towards on some devine roads and with some help from some truckers we road in ecstasy! A Spanish trucker in particular was very helpful and stopped us when it wasn’t safe then indicated when it was safer to pass him, Gracias Senior!! A view point was found and we gathered on the wall overlooking Mazamet for a group shot as the Spaniard roared by hand firmly on his truck horn blasting and waving, we replied in kind. That few miles had been really good, the green trees and jagged boulders and rock formations were split in two by the smooth grey tarmac, Telford had the bit between his teeth again and he was hunched over and leaning again! I shouted “Spacings Telford” on the CB and he came back to reality and backed off from the slower grey trike of Mick and Anne. It was late afternoon and hot again, we would need drinks again soon so I suggested that Barry head for St Pons along an A road that cut up the valley floor in between the green wooded hills. There are plenty of villages around her but I found before that many didn’t have any shops, garages etc, so St Pons was picked because it was larger and would have the things we needed.
We turned south to Narbonne from here climbing up the valley and over the tops, the view from left to right and all the way down the coast was vast, a drifting Buzzard or two showed to be the only sign of life. Once again we coasted into Narbonne finding our hotel with ease, a couple of the girls opened the old wooden doors and we rode inside, it was a late return so a very quick change and out we went again to the square and a table here and there was found. The nights were all very enjoyable the food was great as far as I was concerned; The girls experimented with the various sweets, usually taking the soft option of ice cream! One night the waiter gave Julie a sweet with Vodka in it, she joked with the waiter about the remaining bottle of Vodka, he gave it to Julie to take home! I gave it to Barry not being a vodka lover unlike wife Tina.
Breakfast was a bit louder this morning as the riding tales were recounted to the Wanderers who had gone into Carcassonne by train. The receptionist looked on as people got to grips with the gurgling coffee machine, nobody dared to bang the bugger now!
Today we would ride in a different direction, I called it “The Castles Run” Everyone made their way into the huge garage next door after breakfast and got their bikes ready. Mick had a bungy cord holding his rear break in a fixed position in an effort to make it work to his liking, it wasn’t a problem to him it was more like a niggle, Mark had put his trike on charge at night determine not to have a flat battery like the other day, he was nearly positive now that he had left his lights on but putting the charger on was not a bad thing I suppose and a good remainder that he doesn’t do it again! The girls loaded the top boxes with things needed for the day, a cardi…just in case a few bottles of water an apple a few sweets and camera, suntan oil factor 50 and some Kleenex, one by one folk rode out into the morning sun and went up the road to the self service garage half a mile away, waiting at the hotel was not a good idea as it was on the corner and French wrecks zipped round like nobody’s business!
We were force fed the continental way of serving petrol yourself after inserting a credit card and following the prompts. These things have been around for years in France but are still quite new back home, after helping each other for the first time we had all soon got the hang of it, hey we were turning into seasoned explorers already!
A short hop up the main road to Lezignan-Corbiers then we turned left onto the dreamy yellow roads that meant good views and little traffic, when using the excellent Michelin maps if you used the minor roads (narrow yellow routes) you were in for great day and would see the real country rather than sticking to major (red routes) or auto routes (thick red and yellow routes) We went like this for an hour or so before pulling over at Lagrasse for a drink break and a little wanderaround on foot. We turned south now and rode our first pass of the day “Col de Villerouge” not huge at all but nice and twisty as it climbed high over the ridge line and back down the other side, the sun was not as hot today which I was thankful for, we were only about an hour from the border with Spain. This was the region of Aude and the land of the Cathars
The term Pays Cathare, French meaning “Cathar Country” is used to highlight the Cathar heritage and history of the region where Catharism was traditionally strongest. This area is centred around fortresses such as Montségur and Carcassonne also the French département of the Aude uses the title Pays Cathare in tourist brochures. These areas have ruins from the wars against the Cathars which are still visible today. We would throughout the day see a lot of ruins from those days.
We were now riding towards Mouthoumet before spending a little time at one such castle ruin, it was just past the village of Auriac, we parked where we could on the summit road and had a little wander, some actually climbed the ruins and took photographs of the plains below and behind us, it’s always fascinating to look back at where you have just come don’t you think?
Down the hillside we rode on a very narrow gravillion filled road. Le gravillions, poxy paint bashing stone chippings..bastard shingles..call them what you want but they put the grimace on the face of the most seasoned biker. In France it seems they don’t use much tar to make the damn stuff stick, they leave it to the following vehicles to tamper down the new surface, now and again we hit newly laid gravillions and had to take it really slow, the underside of the bikes were getting stone blasted and billions more spun round the inside of mud guards making the most fearful racket. I’ll never moan at my local council ever again!
Everyone physically relaxed when these areas were passed. We came across a strange sight ahead of us, they looked like the modern day Mary and Joseph complete with donkey, the woman even had a bairn wrapped in a cloth and was knotted around her shoulders, by the time I passed from the back the woman had had enough of being photographed and was shouting and waving me on, her man leading the donkey caught my eye and threw his eyes skyward, I nodded at him and throttled away.
A mile or so ahead we came across a fantastic sight that was the Gorges de Galamus, a long gorge with the road chiseled out of one side of the rock, it was all very grey and narrow, so narrow in fact that a “hoolie” of a gale was rushing through it.A viewing spot was at the end and we all pulled over to gaze back up the way, “Wow” was shouted several times, especially when one saw the little house right down there. We could see a cross on the roof and a little CCTV monitor! Deryck was gazing up one rock face to watch some climbers messing about with ropes on the sheer rock face. It’s something he used to do in bygone days so probably knew exactly what they were doing. I thought they were just plain bonkers.
Time to go Barry said and off we went down the hillside into the flat sandy coloured open spaces below. We stopped at the next village about thirty minutes away called St-Paul. As usual 24 mature English (and two Scottish) bikers overwhelmed the sleepy café and parked the bikes anywhere and everywhere, the one or two locals who were sat here drank up and made themselves scarce, the two lads tried their best and eventually got us all sorted, another young lad was dispatched to get more bread because they had run out! I chilled out and watched the Wanderers gel together over jam cheese and coffee, I remember being so excited on my first Wanderers tour it made me smile, seeing Mr Jones AKA “Fatha” swap Cumbrian insults with new friends. Lynne took over her table and force fed old John some coffee, Brian did as he was told around Janet who always had a quiet air of authority about her broken only by a squeeze and cuddle. My god what a family I have! Just then Tina aimed then squeezed a huge dollop of tomato sauce, missing Barry’s plate it splodged onto the table for me and Barry to dip our chips in she sat down giggling. By now folk had eaten and were paying up, l took my place in line with Tina to pay our due’s The bikes woke again and with whirring and purring they negotiated the uneven tarmac and stones to turn around and head out of the village going south even more. We collected ourselves just down the road and looked for the village of Maury and our furthest village south today, it was here that we turned towards the rising road away to the left. We had to find our little back road behind the village negotiating some really narrow fiat sized streets the kerb and house steps passed just really close to our feet, a little girl skipped across my path waving and shouting as we went by, her yellow pullover had a big hole in the elbow.
The twisting road ran up the Grau de Maury, I asked Barry to let me go up first and find somewhere suitable to photograph everyone coming up, I remembered from last time the backdrop looking over to Spain, it was fantastic. Today thought the cooler air meant a thin covering of cloud and a poorer view than I was expecting. I took the photos everyone waved as they went by but today the back drop was a disappointment, I remembered how lovely it looked the last time I was here.
At the top sat Chat de Queribus a mystical looking single structure with a view to die for…no doubt many did! We negotiated the shingly zig zag track up to it and took photos. A couple of bikes stayed at the bottom of the shingly spattered road opting for a quiet break on flat ground instead. We soon joined them and carried on our 180 mile round trip, another four castles were spotted in the next few miles, Aguilan being the largest. More villages came and went without a murmur, I had stopped being puzzled wandering where the people where, It was familiar sight in both France and Spain.
Another gorge came next, the road began to drop below the rocks when we were joined by a group of BMW’s trailie types I think they were Belgians. They sat happily on our tails for ages, the leader began to push through, it didn’t last though as their road weet different to us, a fleeting glance and wave was exchanged. This was another pass, this time called Col d’ Extreme, it really wasn’t though, not when you have done the likes of the Stelvio, I’m not bragging it’s just true. Lots of passes or Cols to give them their correct name over here are in fact roads chiselled deep into the rock side to follow the river that has over millions of years warn the softer rock away, so yes it is a pass in the true sense but not a high Alpine one that Barry and I love so much.
Through another village we collected a rasping 125 with two youngsters clung to it, the passenger was looking at us as Pierre Le Elbow on the front wrung the life out of the bike in an effort to stay in the group, blue smoke blew out of the short stubby exhaust, they turned off and watched us glide by never to be seen again.
We saw the blue signs for the auto-route north soon and knew Narbonne wasn’t far away, we joined a red road for the final ten miles the auto-route E-15 looked busy, this carried traffic south into Spain towards Barcelona. It lay first to our left then right as the road switched a couple of times. We had entered town from this road before and knew exactly where the hotel was now and so arrived pretty much as a group, no mean feat in town traffic. The usual wash and quick change before meeting people at the bar outside, only this time we used an Irish bar devouring nuts and drinks for an hour before hunting down a decent dinner table in the square for the evening. Chalk up a good day with a tidy 180 miles in the bag.
Today is Friday and a short ride to the beach at Narbonne-Plage was in store for everyone mainly because tomorrow was a long transit day to our second hotel 200+ miles away in Lourdes awaited us on Saturday.
I took the lead today and head out towards Coursan, the sun had returned as was slowly heating up everything and everyone, it would reach the high twenties before long! Barry took the back door for a change today, this was a novelty for both of us and not something we usually do. The road to the beach from Coursan is beautiful I’d shown Barry and Tom on Monday and now wanted to show everyone else. We cruised by Martin’s place honking and hollering as we went by caught Martins attention and he popped his head over the fence, He was mouthing something like..“Keep going please for Gods sake the fridge is empty!”
Coursan is a small village that sits on the remains of the old Roman road from Italy to Spain, its importance as a major truck artery still seems to be evident today, the roadside buildings have the characteristic coating of road dust and most of the wooden window shutter stay shut. There is a new motorway now, I mean auto-route! The is the E-15/80 which should take the bulk of the traffic, but it still seems heavy today and the houses are still encrusted in the dry brown stuff.
It’s a scenic ride to the beach I was saying over the CB when I spotted the bloody bastard Gravillions sign in front of us. Oh no, not here not today I groaned. I had to slow down as we trundled through the damn chippings, it made a fearful racket as they bounced up and into the fairing and bounced around front and rear mudguards. Lynne and John became concerned at the racket so much so that they asked me to pull over, finding a place for us all down this country road was easier said than done but we did eventually. They were right to be concerned at the noise, what was probably stone chipping caught in the brakes or something turned into something more. Barry escorted them back to the hotel ten miles away and began to find help with some phone contacts because the problem was a wheel bearing that had chosen this day to fail!
The rest of us continued to Narbonne Plage for the day, it made sense, there was no point in all returning, knowing Lynne and John they would have wanted nothing else. Unfortunately something like this happened a couple of years ago and they insisted the group carried on regardless. So Narbonne Plage it was with a customary shrug of the shoulders from me, I was “fekked of” with what had happened but these things happen and could happen to any of us at any stage of the tour, this is why we all have individual recovery insurance, I personally agree with John and Lynne’s philosophy. The day at the beach was a welcome break to riding.
I was attacked by a dog, or would have been if the lady hadn’t kept a hold of the bastard thing! I was just strolling by on my way to “Le bog” and the damn thing went into one! Jesus Christ I jumped a mile, I never even saw it! You can’t blame the swishing tails on the bike this time, no it deffo is me they want! From bloody Bulgaria to the Yorkshire Dales and now in the South of France they all hated me and wanted a part of me. They must have heard on the “dog grapevine” how I used to deliver meat as a butcher boy on my push-bike on Saturdays as a teenager and that my old dad got me some steel toe capped pit boots to kick the little bastards as I ventured on my delivery rounds especially down the old pit villages where the Jack Russell dominated. It’s funny how the tables are turned these days.
Telford began to flex his authority as he was asked to don an orange jacket on account that my CB was playing up somewhat and it was down to him halfway down the group to let Barry know what we were doing. Mick was having some trouble with his brakes over these past few days when Telford wondered up to the trike and mentioned his concern this as he depressed the rear foot lever of the trike. Mick and myself began to chuckle at Telford and our shoulders heaved together, finally Mick interrupted, “You idiot that’s not my trike, mine is over THERE!” It has to said Telford looked a right English plonker in those rubber 10 to 2 sandels with black ankle sock pulled up so high they reached his knees and shorts so low that only about one inch of white shin was showing a blue Sam Kydd hat and dark glasses, the huge man bag draped around his body finished him off, He looked so much like one of those 1970’s “Mr Gumby” characters from Monty Python, he made me laugh.
By the early afternoon folk had gathered back at the bikes and I led the way back inland to Narbonne, we went through some really scenic coastline and managed to pass by the resurfacing work on a converging road to meet the original road just metres from the newly laid tar less chippings, I really hate the Gravillions!
That night we heard the bad news about the purple trike and John and Lynne’s bad luck streak struck again. They would have to make their way to a garage in another town and wait a few days for the new part to arrive then for it to be fitted, it wasn’t a happy moment but there was nothing that could be done, they should be able to join us in a few days hopefully when it was fixed. Everyone made their way into town for dinner in their respective groups for the last time here in Narbonne. An early start lay in store for us on the morrow.
Bills were paid the previous night so it was just a matter of consuming bread jam cheese and coffee, saying thank you to the hotel staff, Wanderers went off on singles to the petrol station up the road, saying goodbye to Lynne and John, I didn’t want to linger around for long it was not a nice thing to say goodbye in such circumstances.
We had two routes planed for the transit day, to the next hotel at Lourdes, a wet run (Auto-route) and a dry run (side roads) we had looked at the weather and opted for the dry route. Russ, Elaine, David and Barbara opted for the auto-route and peeled off on the outskirts of Narbonne west onto the E-80. They would probably land first. It was about two hundred miles and would take us about six hours on the scenic route.
We rode towards Limoux for an hour or more in fine weather then up into the wooded hills and hit rain! Our speed dropped right off as we rode into the clouds, a brief stop at the village for coffee and patissiere brightened the mood somewhat, though it was becoming a “wet ride through gritted teeth marathon” rather than a comfy ride through nice countryside. We droned on towards Mirepoix the rain still persisted as did the fog like conditions as low cloud hit us as well some folk even complained of having cold fingers! A quick discussion and a recalculation was done, OK we would head towards the low ground out of the murk and rain. The town of Pamiers became our new destination.
Sometimes life is as basic as a choice of two and sometimes the roll of the dice is wrong! Today we would have been better taking the auto route with Russ and David along the low plains in the dry, but hey, that as they say is the roll of the dice and nobody is to blame! We looked for a fuel stop and ended up somewhere we didn’t want to really be and that was up a hill on a small tractor track seemingly on the road to nowhere! We realised this road was undesirable for Honda Gold Wings. Sat Nav was trying perhaps to take us the shortest route up this steep piddling broken track that just got extremely narrow! We decided to turn around at a farm, no mean feat in the wet damp conditions. Not many Wingers practice doing this back home, to turn around on a narrow pitted road on a hill side but hey this is the adventure part of our tours! People helped and supported bikes in turning around we all managed to shuffle round and got back down the hillside. I had a chat with the old curious farmer who poked his head out from the farmhouse. I got enough information from him in animated form and lots of pointing as to which direction we had to go to get petrol. Within a few minutes heading north it picked up the garage old Pierre the farmer mentioned, it was the same garage but this time it took us up the auto route, if we had searched for it before we left the auto route earlier we would had found it 15miles ahead of us….another roll of the dice I guess.
To be fair though It did looked like the next junction on the auto-route would be out of reach for the 1500’s amongst us, hence Barry and I agreed to leave it at this point to look for a garage in the next village or two before unfortunately heading into “Them Thar Hills” The next junction was in reach after all and so minutes later we piled into MacDonald’s after fuelling up and devoured dinner. It’s surprising how much better folk feel after a warm meal and in minutes everybody felt good to carry on.
We cleared the poor conditions after riding through a couple of villages and dried out quickly as we sped westward following the route of Russ and David towards Lourdes, on the auto route the weather was a lot warmer dryer and sunnier the blue sky returned as did the feel good factor. We stopped again for a break and shed wet weather kit. Lourdes wasn’t far away now, dampened spirits rose to the normal level, the Wanderers smiled again.
The junction for Lourdes came quickly and the first garage was our first port of call now. We waited for “Fatha” as the lady in the little hut ran out of till roll! His dour looks and comments probably rattled her somewhat. It had been a long day today and full of moments to remember, but not at the moment as we rolled into town and searched out the hotel, we went slow to allow Sat nav to direct us, I called out the halts and traffic lights, we were gelling well now though and nipped through lights and round standing traffic to keep together, allowing Barry to concentrate on following directions to the hotel.
We crossed the bridge over the river to reach our destination right in front of us. It was quite a large hotel with seven floors. The girls got us booked in, the hotel manager was on the ball and was there to greet us and direct us to the garage for the bikes. It was a capacious lock up, less than a hundred yards away and more than big enough for all our bikes, perfect! The view from the bedroom balcony was really nice too, the wide river ran gently through the town coming down from the high Pyrenees in the distance over to the right. Today was about 200 miles of wet and sunny weather. In little groups people head into the town to find dinner, several of us called at the bar next door for a few swift drinks, this process we followed every night here in Lourdes some wingers joined us on some nights whilst others did not and opted for dinner and a glass of wine such was the diversity of the group.
Today was Sunday and a visit to the a mountain railway was planned, we downed the morning breakfast of jam coffee bread and cheese before walking over the bridge to the garage. We formed up outside, yesterdays ride here was long forgotten. Barry sorted and I sorted ourselves out at the front and rear, Fatha strolled up and down the group chatting to anyone and everyone, “OI get on your bike Fatha!” People joined in the chorus. It was getting a regular stroll for him and became an amusing delay to the ride outs. We rode along part of the auto route before turning off and began climbing up high, the sun was back with us it was turning into another spanking day, the ride began to take on an Austrian “feel” the clear blue sky topped off the mountains to our left and right, it wasn’t quite as high or as rugged but one or two certainly had snow on the tops. After the village of Aucun we saw a local biking club on the move, mainly mature guys in spandex with one fat bloke with the biggest builders bum on show! Oh dear that must have spoilt the dream for the girls! Aucun village was left behind along with the bike crew, the road turned and climbed making its way up along the ridges taking us up higher we crested this wonderful ridge at 1475 metres at Col de Soulor.The car park was nice and empty for us and we piled in to park up wherever we liked, it was only about ten thirty so not many vehicles were up in the mountains, it was Sunday the roads would get busier later no doubt.
Months ago in the planning stage Barry and I had planned a short rideout to the train then have most of the day on top of the mountain range on a mini train, a chillaxing day out doing something really different. We had to book a particular time to take the cable cars up to the train which was also booked due to the size of the group, we had only two slots to choose from because the round trip on the train is a couple of hours long. We thought a quick ride would see us there in plenty of time.
Meanwhile back on the Col we took in the most breathtaking views, some of us had done this quite a few times but enjoyed it just as much as the new guys only the new guys were stunned into silence for a while. There was some kind of avian concern here too with statues and posters about the eagles, standing about waiting for a stroke stood several ponies and horses, I don’t know what the hell they were doing up here or who they belonged to but we spotted them throughout the day perhaps these guys were the Pyrenees version of our Dartmoor Ponies? After a good look at the first of today’s mountains we moved on. Everybody should go up the mountains of mainland Europe on a motorbike at least once before departing Mother Earth, it’s so good for the soul and puts our little lives into prospective.
Small grey stone chippings in England are laid over worn out road surfaces and are stuck in place by a carpet of tarmac substance, there is often a channel of loose stuff down the middle and a bit more down the edges right? Well over here when they repair the roads they just seem to lay the shingles without any sticky compound and leave it to the vehicles to press them down and the heat of the day to make them stick. I suppose it’s not a huge problem until you come across it on a motorbike then your slipping and sliding and staring at the road, picking your way through the heavy patches that always seem to be on the line you want to take. Now and then it’s poured into a pothole but you can’t really tell and if you are on any kind of lean the front just slews to the side as if riding on sand. It’s a test of nerves believe me, especially on mountain roads! So far it’s only France where I have come across this. Time was now conspiring against us as we slowed.
We saw triangle warning signs for ATTENTION Sur la GRAVILLIONS! “OH shit not up here too” I said. We had the stuff on the straight and level back in Narbonne and that was bad enough. Even with the sunshine, clear blue sky and fantastic scenery it wasn’t a pleasant ride for the next ten miles or so. I was at the back with two wings that were going quite slow and with good reason, Russ and Elaine had fallen off a few days earlier and were still feeling the physical effects and their confidence wasn’t 100% which in the circumstances was understandable. David and Barbara as the oldest couple were struggling a slightly. David had already decided to trike his wing before the tour because it was too big for him. They never fell off but gave me a scare once or twice. We made slow progress to catch up the main group who were going slow when the gravillions appeared in large numbers! Barry had to pull over to let us catch up. The time taken so far now became a concern
A few miles further on Barry stopped again at a village, he was troubled and thought we would miss our time slot for the train and chair lift ride. The gravillions and twitchy riders kept our speed really low this morning.
It wasn’t going to plan and Barry got a bit out of sorts, he went on ahead alone to see if he could get our time slot altered, I said it wasn’t the end of the world if we missed it, the road conditions don’t allow for us to make time up, best to forget it and just enjoy the day everyone was happy to be out and about. But no, it was the devil that got the better of Barry again and he rode off to the chair lift office, I felt this was pointless. “Fatha” took over the vacant lead position and promptly led us up a cul-de-sac on a hillside! We were obliged to perform a mass U turn on difficult ground! I got off to assist David and Barbara as he struggled and got his turn all wrong nearly riding into the bloody storm drain, I was holding him level as he tottered round urging him to use more power and accelerate away from the drain, which he did and wrenched my arm as I was still struggling to stop him toppling over. Nobody saw this, even David and Barbara were oblivious to my yelping! The funny this is he knew hills were going to be a problem months ago as he struggled on a cobbled short cut to Barry’s house for the pre tour briefing. Again I was there to rescue him and rode the bike up the cobbles, my first time on a bike on this road too.
“Fatha” got his bearing with Mistress Garmin and we sorted ourselves out back in the village setting off again this time in the right direction. We joined a major road now going south into Spain. We had left the cursed “gravillions” way back there now and biking speeds returned to normal. We came across a dam with cat paws in red climbing from bottom to top. Julie and I had seen this before but had approached it from PAU instead a couple of years ago on our own Pyrenees holiday. We twisted and climbed up and to the right of the dam wall, the road stretched out again and we were off again gaining speed oh yes I remember it now! At the other end of the dam we came to a large dusty car park area were Barry was waiting. Indeed we had missed our spot on the cable car and train. Nobody really cared, after a short break taking photos and just looking at what we would do, we decided to continue riding on this road into the mountains I knew it was a fantastic road with fantastic views and we could go to the border for a tea stop. Stephen and Jane had been this way on their trike too and agreed with us that it was worth going up the road.
With that sorted we got ready to move and bugger the train ride we had missed it but we didn’t really care we were going on our own pleasure ride under our own steam! The D934 began to climb as it pointed to the border ten miles away. People were encouraged to go on their own up to the border and enjoy it for themselves, some would race up others would poodle, the choice was theirs. I hung back with Barry and “Fatha” I said I would go up ahead and find a good corner to photograph them on their blast up the hill. It’s a bit difficult on “twisties” to park up somewhere flat and keep safe from the traffic. That said I managed it and was getting set up when a white van turned onto the grass in front on the corner then a car then followed it. It was too late to move elsewhere Barry and “Fatha” were making haste towards me and I did the best I could in the circumstance, Barry saw me and leaned a bit further gunning the engine, I got a couple of good shots but the van spoilt the image I was after.Never mind mate by the time we get to retirement age I’m sure I will have got the perfect shot on another mountain!
We got back on and sped after them twisting up around the spiralling tarmac as it made its way up the summit. We came across buildings and people, up ahead we saw glinting in the car park and people milling around the “Tat” shops. On the left I saw all the Wanderers had parked up together uniform like, whilst I as usual parked elsewhere in the car park. This spotwas known as the Pic du Midi d’Ossau and beautiful it was too. The shape of some of the tops looked like dried chocolate cake mix with a sprinkling of Thyme, some had a dusting of sugar near the tops.It certainly was not as high and rugged in these parts, granted there was spodges of snow on the very tops but you could see the vegetation spread nearly to the tops. It’s still fantastic and humbling all the same. We ambled the short walk to the border and had lunch out in the sunshine.
Deryck meanwhile took a ride on the back of Barry, he thought he’s lost part of his sat nav or camera I can’t remember which. Barry took him on a fats blast back down the mountain to the dam car park and back….where he found the missing bit……stuck in his clothing!
At our table as we ate lunch “Fatha” and I had the pleasure of a yapping dog in the back of the nearby pick-up truck, the little man was barking for no good reason I think he just liked to hear his own voice! After lunch, photographs and the purchasing of trinkets we made our way back down the way we came and would meet up at the dusty car park by the dam. Again I went ahead to try and set up a good spot to photograph everyone coming back down, I have to keep lookingbehind to see what the back drop was like before eventually choosing and finding somewhere to park up the wing that’s out of the way of the traffic. Julie counted everyone back, I deleted most except a couple of decent photographs That done we had a few minutes peace then mounted up and rolled slowly down the hill after the group.
A couple of bikes had pulled over and were staring across the valley maybe 150 metres away, as we came closer we saw vultures circling high up then loose altitude fast extending their legs and opening as much wing as possible to slow for a vertical landing, impressive indeed! We stopped to watch this spectacle vulture after vulture appeared from nowhere to spiral quickly down and land near the other up ahead. In all the years of spotting eagles, vultures and the like on our mountain rides we have never seen what we were seeing now. I rolled forward to catch up with the three or four bikes they were off and photographing the vultures on the ground.
We joined them and saw twenty of more vultures they had just about devoured a dead sheep.More were still spiralling down from high above, a couple were sat still less than a hundred metres away behind a few low boulders and were peering over the top at the feasting birds another rambler In a bright yellow shirt was moving closer to them and they began hopping away in that ungainly way they do when on the ground. Have you guys ever seen that animated football match that had those two vultures carrying the stretcher in “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”? Well they were just like that. Tom said the whole sheep was bouncing as dozens of them ripped into it quickly consuming it. I guess nobody feeds these guys and they eat when they can. It would be a bad thing to crash and lay still for too long on this road!
The vultures hopped and skipped away as the yellow man tried to get closer and closer, the sheep looked more like a bloody rug now so we saddled up and rode the last few miles down to the dam and met up with the others, Russ and David had decided to go the more direct way back to the hotel the rest of us voted to carry on back the way we came in-spite of the ten miles of gravillions that lay before us. Though it’s awful to ride on its good practice and will make everyone that bit better a rider.The ride was much easier coming back, at least that’s what I thought!
Dave and Sandra slipped about a bit on the loose shale saying it felt like being on a bloody jet ski, He turned into “Fishman” for the remainder of the holiday. To be precise he became one of THE enemy fishmen from “Stingray” complete with the “wobblewobble” voice, many of us old farts remembered this and spoke like this to him, to the bemusement of locals!
Telford had got the bit between his teeth again and hugged over the bars making his trike go! He was really enjoying it in spite of the gravillions I couldn’t understand his style of parking though, the front wheel of the trike always seemed to find some grass to languish on, hence Telford became “The Lawnmower Man” We were getting quick off the mark when had a senior moment and were getting quite wicked towards each other! Even Mark made the headlines as he overtook a car and hit the coming bend a bit hard and managed to get the trike up on two wheels, much the consternation of Jeanette gripping the rear seat limpet like! I’m sure we all did the same or similar when first learning how to ride two or three wheels. Safe to say he got chastised and wouldn’t do that again so soon!
We pulled over for the last tea stop of the rideout at Col d’Aubisque, once again the car park had horses roaming around some with foals, I watched one such foal nibbling the rear spoiler of a flashy car. I looked on open mouthed, the sound alone was making me wince. Julie commented that’s what they do all the time they are just exploring it with their teeth and lips, all I can say is I’m glad it’s not my bloody car and went and stood near the bike.
It was late afternoon now as we poured from the car park leaving the horses to their nibbles, it was still bright and sunny with not a cloud in the sky, what a great day it had been in spite of the glitch earlier in the day. We rode back down the mountains to rejoin the auto-route for the short run back into Lourdes. We tucked the bikes away in the lock up and walked back over the river to the hotel the guys who left earlier to come back the quick route were up there on the balcony and toasting our return. A drink will go down nicely I thought as we tramped back to the hotel in our bike kit, the bar at the side of the hotel would see us there in an hour or so. We had all enjoyed the days rideout very much today.
So to the bar and some drinks with whoever was there, usually Tom and Michelle would be the first there followed by myself and Julie close behind came Mark and Jeanette, we got on really well and repeated this jolly event on most nights, practically the whole group came for a pint one night and we took over the outside area for an hour or so, the staff were more than happy to accommodate, on other nights it was just a few of us several times we were joined early doors by the likes of Barry and Tina Mark and Ann before they took themselves into town for a meal, we on the other hand laid down our hats in this bar and were quite happy to use the excellent menu in the eatery part on several nights just downstairs, we did make our way into town to explore the other eating houses but preferred to go later than most of the group, going into the bar for a couple of hours most evenings was not everybody’s cup of tea, we revellers had gelled way back in Narbonne on chairs surrounding that bloody neon traffic light and had continued until the end of the holiday!
Monday was going to be a rest day. I wanted the day to have a look around the town of Lourdes. Others wanted to go out on the bikes again so Barry took a group off into the mountains, another small group went their own way for the day with Steve and Jane, I think. These guys had been down here before so knew a few places to have a look at. I remember talking with Barry ages ago as to why we like doing APPY WANDERERS tours and it is to show folk what it’s like on the continent and to encourage them to ride their bikes and go explore. This was now happening often I’m glad to say. We joined the group as they sorted themselves out with maps, sat nav’, gloves, bottled water and other pararafinalia for the days ride out. Barry was soon ready and waited for everyone to climb aboard and wave to him that they were ready, they all did so after a few minutes and slowly pulled away, the Appy Wanderers music train was on its way for another day in the mountains only this time without me and Julie. After they had left we returned to the hotel and collected our bits for our ramble around this famous town.
Lourdes had the obvious man made attraction or should I say “myth” perhaps? Following the reports in 1853 that Our Lady of Lourdes had appeared to Bernadette Soubirous on a total of eighteen occasions, Lourdes had developed into a major place of Roman Catholic pilgrimage and of alleged miraculous healings. The 150th Jubilee of the first apparition took place on 11 February 2008 with an outdoor mass attended by approximately 45,000 pilgrims. Today Lourdes has a population of around 15,000 but is able to take in some 5,000,000 pilgrims and tourists every season. With about 270 hotels, Lourdes has the second greatest number of hotels per square kilometre in France after Paris.
There are so many shop selling tons of paraphernalia relating to “Our Lady” I’m not sure if I should refer to them as souvenir shops it was quite serious, the atmosphere wasn’t the same as a seaside or touristy place it was a lot quieter. We walked around quite gobsmacked at the spectacle I’m a bit of a cynic I know but I was amazed at the wall to wall shops all selling the same stuff and all full of grown adults buying. I don’t intend to insult the Roman Catholic faith but as an outsider it really did look like “tat” Almost every shop had small empty plastic bottles of various sizes, some even had 2.5 litre containers more used to holding cleaning fluids, these were for collecting holy water and taking back home. One glaring contradiction was a shop selling all the above yet had a counter selling Tazer guns flick knives and mace!
I guess it’s all down to belief and I just don’t have it, in fact my belief went out of the window when sat in R.I class as a twelve year old to be told by Ms Schoefield my fanatical R.I teacher about some bloke being turned into a pillar of salt, and the feeding of the five thousand, with some fish and a bit of bread. I just couldn’t get my young head around it and when I asked I got a bloody chalk filled board rubber across the back of my head for my ignorance. If that was religion you can fucking shove it I thought. Forty years on and I’m still of the same mind!
We soon wandered down to the centre of the attraction we only went into the grounds to take a closer look at the Basilica and take some photo’s because it was an awesome looking building. Yearly from March to October this Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes is a place of mass pilgrimage from Europe and other parts of the world. I saw one cross with the words LEEDS written on it.Today there seemed to a lot of folk from Spain here. It’s written that an estimated 200 million people have visited the shrine since 1860. At the time of the apparitions the grotto was on common land which was used by the villagers variously for pasturing animals, collecting firewood and as a garbage dump, it possessed a reputation for being an unpleasant place, it’s amazing what a bit of spin can do isn’t it?
We got there as dozens and dozens of wheel chair bound folk were moving to the shrine nurses and young helpers were pushing them, these poor souls looked in quite an awful state with more than just a twisted ankle or a bad back. Following them dozens of bath chair type wheel chairs with the small wheel at the front with a steering bar on it, the occupant lain prone inside, bags and drips where visible, some looked to be at the end of their days. Again nurses and young helpers pushed and pulled them, these people looked even worse than the first bunch. Perhaps they were all going to be blessed? I didn’t know nor did I want to impose and ask one where they were going but I could understand now how such folk wanted to believe. Words like despair and hope came to mind for these helpless chair bound people I have to admit that even though I didn’t believe, it was a bit of a moving moment. We spent about an hour around here looking and watching, at the grotto huge lines of people fell in line to walk past the spot where the apparition showed itself and touch the wall, the wall was quite black with grease from so many hands I watched one old lady rub a handkerchief along the wall before swiftly secreting it in plastic bag it then into her handbag, many guides stood around controlling the area, if anyone actually stood at the wall they were quickly ushered along. People bought candles they ranged in size from little ordinary household one’s to huge three foot monsters they handed them to these guides who placed them in special little booths and lit them. I thought the small ones might burn out by the end of the day but not the huge ones so what happened to them overnight I wonder? A couple of us where commenting about this when one of the guides looked at us and motioned that we should “Shush” Hmmmm, very suspicious indeed and so I drew my own conclusion of what was going off here. That night at the bar we talked about it with other Wanderers back from their day out. But to be honest I still don’t get the religious thing and after seeing it with my own eyes I decided it was all a sham and thought honest folk where being exploited.
After breakfast the next day I stood outside with Barry and looked up at the slight drizzle and cloud, unfortunately in Lourdes you can’t see the sky very far because of the surrounding mountains, we pondered a little and thought it would get better as we rode out of the valley, well we would find out and got ready for the days ride. The best rideout of the tour was in store for me today and I didn’t know it! We had looked at the route earlier and decided to change it due the heavy presence of Le Gravillions around these parts especially on those spanking little twisting mountain roads that Barry and I love so much, sadly though some nerves and riding ability was being stretched a bit much to be considered comfortable. We were on holiday after all and not participating in the 2011 version of Death Race 2000! I told myself there will always be another summer and smiled. Bossost and the exquisite squiggly mountain road would have to wait until next time as will the mountain top train ride.
We left Lourdes at around ten in the morning and rode a different way after filling up with fuel at the self service station by the supermarche, we were all pretty expert with this method now and sailed through with no fumbling or fretting. We took a pretty road east through the lowland country side and ran parallel to the Pyrenees. The weather picked up considerably as we cleared the valley, today I took Jeanette on the back for her first ride on a 1800 whilst Julie took a ride on the Panther 1500 trike with Mark. Ahead suddenly we saw cloud, dark grey ones that had water in them, I looked intently as Barry shouted up about the stuff perhaps I had spoken too soon! We were about fifteen minutes away from it and closing, an odd thing happened next and the sun burst out bathing us in warm air, the haze was now on our right and we missed it completely! Back home in England the opposite would have happened for sure! In a car it just wouldn’t have had the same impact. A comment heard years ago came to mind again. “Driving in a car in beautiful scenery is like watching a movie but riding on a bike is like being IN a movie”
We now turned south into the mountains heading up a main trunk road up the Vallee Daure A supermarche at the village of Arreau showed itself to us almost bang on request! It was a parody to that old Monty Python sketch about the bicycle repair man (John Cleese) who just happens to be there every time when Micheal Pailen had a puncture as he rode around the countryside. It was a sleepy shop until the Appy Wanderers poured in and bought food and drink for the mountain top picnic, with after thought somebody should have bought a fekkin cattle prod, more about that later! The toilet was well visited, some lingered at the cold shelf to sneak a bit of cool breeze, its true I saw them loitering with jackets open.
We rode back down the road and turned left onto D918 a yellow road on the map with green borders denotes scenic routes and the fact that it looked like a sidewinder snake meant it was a mountain road, the most perfect combination as far as I was concerned, I just hoped the accursed Gravillions hadn’t reached these parts.I shot off in front of everyone to find a good photo position, glancing behind on the bends to see the view required for my photograph. I stopped a few times but wasn’t quite satisfied of the view or the parking of the bike. I persevered because it would have been a crime not to try and get some brilliant shots of Wingers in such beautiful surroundings. Eventually I found a spot that looked great and was safe enough to park, I lodged myself in some rocks just after the corner and waited for the stars to arrive meanwhile Julie sat further along and took in the air.
All too soon the peace was fractured by the smooth distinct loud whirr of the first of the Wanderers, it’s not the meatiest bike sound but the comfort pleases me more these days. I clicked away as they blew past me, everyone smiled and waved. Julie counted them by and we mounted up again to catch up it was a good twenty minute climb up the green trees, the road found its way round some hills and assaulted others head on with a series if zigs and zags, not severe by any means to people who had ridden the Alps which most here had done, the road surface stayed old warm and sticky smooth.
Lynne and John meanwhile were still on the south coast waiting for their trike to be repaired. The wheel bearing was still waiting to be replaced, in fact they were going to have both rear wheels done it made sense after all. Janet kept in touch with Lynne and passed on their progress, they felt sure they would be ready to join us at the overnighter on our return up through France to the “Chunnel” They had hired a car and where making the best of things down there on the south coast.
We were soon at the top and pulled onto the shale car park, we looked back down the way we had come. It was a great panoramic view to behold, green topped hills in the near and middle distance far off one could see higher lumps, the colours had gone a softer purple haze they were so far away but you could just see snow caps here and there. The road we had come up could be seen twisting down and round the mountains. In fact this was part of the Tour de France route and due to start in just a couple of weeks, I do hope they have better luck with the bleeding gravillions that we did, I imagined the horrific rash they would incur when they fell off. There would be more skin on the road than a dead cat for gawds sake! For you Tour de France followers this was the Col d Aspin. The pass has been part of the Tour de France 66 times and is 1489 metres in height.
The girls pulled picnics out of top boxes and side panniers and groups of us sat on the grass and began to chill and munch, oh what a great spot for a picnic, Then came Daisy “La Femme Fatelle” Of all the cows in the world…all 1.3 billion of them we had to meet Daisy!
At the other side of the road stood and sat herd of cows all basking in shyte and sunshine, except for Daisy that is, we had plonked ourselves down on her patch of grass without realising it, naturally she ambled over for a bite with us and waved her sharp horns happily as she got closer, people got up and moved further up the hill out of her way some sat and thought they could “Shoo” her away but Daisy wasn’t having any of it she was hungry and came right up to people. The adverts portray doe eyed cows with the most perfect eye makeup as gentle soft things but forget to impress they weigh and average of 1200lb, whereas an average man weighs a mere 180 lbs. So you’d get out of the way right? It’s not rocket science is it
With this firmly blotted from “Fatha” he tried to stand his ground between Daisy and his wife and picnic. He tried to push her away but without a cattle prod or a twelve bore shotgun quite frankly he stood no fekkin chance in hell as Daisy gave him a hefty nudge leaving him with a wicked bruise on his belly from one or her horns. It was Barry’s turn now, He decided to grab Daisy by the horns and wrestle with her! God only knows what was going through both their heads as Daisy made short work treating Barry like some annoying shit-fly flicking away his hands with a swish of her head, thankfully she didn’t stick him with her horns. Tell me again mate what size are then nice shoes of yours? Finally everyone gave Daisy a wide berth until she realised our food wasn’t exactly what she had in mind and turned to wander off back towards the others. It wasn’t a funny moment to be honest and could have seen somebody injured. There were some clenched sphincters’ I can tell you! Speaking of which, did you know that the sum total of the world cattle population is responsible for 18% of planet Earths greenhouse gases and in fifty years at the rate of expansion it’s going to double?
We had the rest of our lunch in peace and took photographs before collecting ourselves and our rubbish back onto the bikes for the next leg of the ride. We decided to ride down as single bikes to the bottom the solo ride was spectacular, a few played with each other passing and re-passing each other. I pulled away quickly to find a spot and take photos again, I stopped by a post with sign stating what the road was, it was significant as part of the Tour de France. I thought I got some good shots, again we were last to meet up with everyone at the bottom. Wow! That was a good blast and judging by their faces The Wanderers had enjoyed the exciting blast down the mountains too.
I waved and called to Barry indicating we set off again, we would now be going up again so agreed to make our way up to the next stop at the village of La Mongie. We were getting higher than before now as the Pic du Midi de Bigorre showed itself high to our right, this was a mountain of 2782 metres. It really was a day of going up and down with spectacular views at the end of each summit climb. I stood on the village plinth and took more photos of Wings arriving to park up in the square behind me and with the usual beaming smiles got off and stood around looking up at the mountains. Some of us had a browse in the shops until someone shouted that the bikes were sinking into the tarmac! Some of our side stands were sinking into sort tarmac, it wasn’t that hot to make us wary of the soft tarmac, maybe it was substandard stuff? Luckily someone noticed the sinking side stands and averted a small catastrophe…..Thank you Brian and Janet!
We had another summit to ride up and so I set off to look for another great backdrop and ready myself to photograph the group as they came up. Julie and I soon got settled, she was sat watching a helicopter ferry equipment from the summit top to about half a mile away down the valley, it looked like pieces of pylon.Meanwhile I was in a ditch lying flat out pointing the camera down the valley hoping to get some worms’ eye shots as The Wanderers cruised by just five minutes later. Following on we rejoinedthe group at the very top of our last summit of the day. This was the The Col du Tourmalet and is one of the most famous climbs on the Tour de France. It has been included more than any other pass, starting in 1910 when the Pyrenees were introduced. The first rider over was Octave Lapize who went on to claim the yellow jersey in Paris. Since 1947 the Tour has crossed this summit 47 times. Since 1980 it has been ranked as exceptional. At the col is a memorial to Jacques Goddet director of the Tour de France from 1936 to 1987, and a large silver statue of Octave Lapize gasping for air as he struggles to make the climb. I saw a group of breathless but very happy Japanese bikers gather under the statue with their lightweight bikes and take snapshots of each other. Bloody long way up on a pushbike I thought to myself.The view ahead was fantastic we could see the road slowly twist its way down the mountainside like a single grey thread, one could see it all the way down to the tea hut on the valley floor and our next stop, this break was just for photographs and a “look-see” A warm breeze swept up over the ridge and white winged finches played on the wing as they darted between folk grabbing tit bits. One by one we set of down, gently tipping the bikes into the first decent, this time Julie and I took a gentle stroll down and took in the whole scene, part way down I saw Tom and Michelle had stopped and were capturing scenes with their video camera. I turned off the engine and free wheeled the quarter of a mile to them on a corner, rolling slowly past them shouting “Brum brum!” I hope that scene comes out Tom. The café at the bottom was quiet until we arrived the waitress became busy as folk ordered tea and snacks, I sat a way down the road taking it all in quietly and went to look at a rebuilt stone farm dwelling, between the building you could catch glimpses back up the valley, what a great place to live!It was late afternoon and soon time to push on back to Lourdes now, we rode off down the valley. We rejoined the short D821 auto-route back to Lourdes, the garage and our hotel and the inevitable bar on the corner! What a brilliant day’s riding it had been, and then it started to drizzle slightly but we got back before we got wet. The bar was next again for an hour or two later in the evening as we had dinner in town thunder and lightning was getting closer and after a short walk we hurried back to our bar as the first rain drops fell. Gods symphony arrived to the first deep drum roll and loud crash bangs! The lightshow light up the town and whip cracked around us with piercing notes, we got settled into chairs to watch the show, an exciting end to an exciting day….My round is it? It was now Thursday and the drizzle was still here, the cloud was low and heavy, Barry and I studied the grey sky and decided to call it a rest day. I don’t mind being caught in rain on a ride-out but I didn’t relish setting off in rain for a ride-out and didn’t think anyone else would either so a rest day in Lourdes it was.
After breakfast we drifted off into town some of us took the road train trip around town, how crap that was! It showed us where the bloody car parks where and not much else, still it passed half an hour. We explored the Basillica and this time we went inside. Once again I was amazed at the amount of people who had so much faith in it all. The church was a fantastic building just to look at as are most churches and in spite seeming a soulless heathen I quite enjoy looking round them. We of course looked in at and the magic fountain and stood bemused by the constant stream of people wanting just to be there and touch that very spot.
We made our way up to the castle and had a nosey inside, Julie and I tried to visit previously but the arse on the door waved me away briskly saying “Closed closed go away now” Today we got the timing right and had a interesting couple of hours, it seems most of The Wanderers had the same idea and we saw nearly everybody during the afternoon visit!
Besieged in 778 by Charlemagne it became the residence of the Counts of Bigorre in the 11th and 12th centuries. In the 13th century, it passed into the possession of the Counts of Champagne part of the kingdom of Navarre before coming under the crown of France under Philippe le Bel It was ceded to the English by the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, before returning to France at the start of the 15th century after two sieges. In the 17th century, the castle became a royal prison and a state prison ( I can’t get away from work can I?) After the French Revolution continuing in this role until the start of the 20th century when it became the Pyrenean Museum which it remains. It is the largest museum of popular arts and traditions in the Pyrenees. We settled into a different eating house for the evening before drifting back to the hotel and our bar hoping that Friday might be a bit dryer.
A new day dawned and the piggin drizzle and low cloud was still with us, Barry went off to find some information after talking to Steve and Jane who mentioned some underground caves nearby that were worth a visit. A coach was due to go if enough folk would book, enter The Appy Wanderers and the trip was on! We might be on a bleeding bus (Where is my schnapps Barry?) but at least we were still going out and about exploring.
It was a short ride into the countryside to the cave or to give its correct name Grottes de Betharram. It was discovered about 1810, strangely it was first explored by English people living in the nearby city of Pau, eventually it was opened up, made safer and was open to the general public in 1903. It’s the biggest deepest cave complex I have ever been into, we walked down deeper and down further, the stalactites and stalagmites’ have formed over millions of years and are huge in size, some have dripped into odd shapes and are lit for all to admire, in fact they are forming even now, the drip drip dripping of the seeping water is never ending, the caves were very deep and long. It was a long visit with plenty to goggle at, I had spent over ten years underground as a coal miner but had never seen anything like this and was suitably impressed, I think everyone was and of the day was success in spite of the damned weather!
We had our special Appy Wanderers prize giving dinner to look forward to tonight and a special rendition of the tour log so far…it would be the special unadulterated version and no the one you reading right now! Dinner was organised by Barry at our hotel.
After the cave tour Barry and Tina had gone out to buy special gifts for the winners of category. I had also been shopping and had a surprise for Barry. It was all meant to be a bit of fun and to give everyone a laugh at the end of a good holiday. So we all gathered for dinner in the dining hall, just a small group from Spain sat eating in the other hall so we could be as loud as we normally are! We sat together for the first and only time of the tour. I stood and took photos as Barry rattled of his speech about the tour and how it had gone.I agreed wholeheartedly with what he said about the tour but would like to add that it was a great deal of hard work too hence my need for days off the bike and days away from folk! Thinking back now it was a great adventure and not just a holiday in the sun. I think this every time but always a week or two after the event. Then another piece of paper appeared and the awards were launched! I’m not going into it in detail because it will ruin it for you future Wanderers who go on tour, let’s just say there was much laughing, jeering and cheering as the rise was taken in typical fashion, we all knew each other fairly well and it was taken in good spirits. Dave Roberts aka “Fishman” take another bow my man you were nearly as entertaining as Telford on his lawnmower on the roads!
Saturday morning was going to be busy for everyone as we were moving out and heading back up country on our first leg homeward bound. In fact most of us were ferrying bags from the hotel to the bikes that late afternoon before the dinner pre-empting the frantic rush in the morning and most everyone paid their bills on the Friday evening too, making the morning as simplistic and smooth as possible.
Breakfast was the usual coffee, bread jam, meats etc. Its funny what you can soon get used to. The weather had come clean and the sun was out which meant the flippin drizzle and damp clouds was gone, we waived Lourdes goodbye then hit a roundabout to come back into town and exit on the correct road, we waved goodbye again then pointed ourselves towards Pau and the main road north towards Bordeaux.
Julie and I came this way two years ago and travelled on a minor road along miles and miles of forest I remembered that it seemed to go on forever, this was the region of Landes with Bordeaux at the top of it and Biarritz at its southern tip. A dotted line showed a new motorway under construction, the Garmin started to play up and insisted we did a U turn constantly for the next few minutes. Barry was having the same trouble up at the front, we had a chat on the CB and eventually decided that we must have ridden onto the new northbound motorway, every now and again I saw the old road going parallel convinced we were heading in the correct direction for Bordeaux we turned off the Garmin’s until we got a bit closer. The new road was so new that there wasn’t any stones or gravel, bits of rubber on the fresh paint on the tarmac, no residue at all from the traffic speaking of which, hardly a car was spotted for the whole run up to Bordeaux. We pulled over at a service station to top up our tanks, everything looked brand spanking new so new in fact that they hadn’t put signs up to direct traffic back onto the auto route, we had a little ride around until something made sense. Dave commented that if we carried on like this he would have to fuel up again, I began laughing and thought “You shouldn’t have said that right now mate” Barry’s short Saxon reply was, well it was expected as he and Tina struggled to find our way out of this tarmac and bollard maze. I have to admit I was laughing at Dave’s silence and could imagine his shock at being told what to do, I’m giggling now as I type this. I know my mate quite well and just KNEW what he was going to say in reply, that’s what made it all the more hilarious at the time!

The Garmin readjusted itself as we rejoined the auto-route and pressed on towards the busy bustling city of Bordeaux. We soon joined the ring road and had to follow it halfway around the city to rejoin the northern auto route. It was really busy with trucks in particular we tried to keep in the centre lane, the heat from the trucks blasted us as we negotiated our way forward, some vehicles passed through us as they switched lanes, we had ridden as a group for two weeks now and were used to each other and of riding in a group so the run around Bordeaux went without any problems, emerging onto the E606 was a relief all the same, the traffic eased considerably as did a few bums.
I thought the hard part was over now and it was a case of riding with the flow towards Angouleme, the road switched from auto route to main road a few times but we hardly noticed any difference, Poitiers was the next waypoint, the auto route switched to main road as we rode through the industrial edge of the city, we soon saw the centre over to our left but were too busy with a dozen or more roundabouts to take a long look, the traffic was behaving and we were doing just fine we sometimes got split at the lights and so a quick shout up to Barry had him slow the lead bikes enough for us to catch up before the second set of lights could drive a wedge between us and cause problems, we got it just right and made it through as one group even when a little car tried to mate with me! She waved sorry as she got back into her lane.
I knew some didn’t have CB’s so couldn’t hear tips and prompts from either Barry or myself. I didn’t want them going off on a different road due to gaps. I know everyone had maps and the location of the hotel but I was eager nobody went astray all the same. Sometime I had to sound my horn to get people’s attention and for them to to see me indicating right. But mostly Id kept vehicles away from our rear. I started this two weeks ago when a Discovery tried to cut in front of David and Barbara as they slowly weaved their way round the terminal at Folkestone, I pulled up at the side of the car and motioned with a smile that he should refrain.
Meanwhile up at the front Barry and Tina had their hands full finding their way forward spotting signs whilst listening to the Garmin and trying to make sure the lead trikes kept in touch behind. He often offered words of encouragement to keep together
The auto route morphed, growing from the main road as we cleared Poitiers and up the speed went as we pushed on to our hotel in the next city, today we had ridden about 350 miles to our hotel in Tours again. Several more fuel and tea stops were made, it wasn’t a race but we intended getting there before six, we were on the world’s finest touring machine so it would be easy peasy lemon sqeezy!
Meanwhile word had got to us that Lynne and John where actually in Tours now and awaiting our arrival, they would get the code and open the barrier for the underground car park.
It was sometime after four in the afternoon when we landed at the barrier behind the Tour’s hotel, sure enough the two strays were there and had the barrier raised, we all swooped down the hole like giant bats returning from a food raid. The hotel wasn’t manned up when we poured out of the lift from downstairs, she came rushing from other duties and booked us all in, they agreed to open up the breakfast bar early for us in the morning, a dash to the chunnel was not something advisable so time was built into the last leg and we needed to eat earlier than the hotel served breakfast, they agreed to facilitate us and word was passed to the Wanderers as they flitted around the foyer later waiting for each other before strolling out for dinner.
I teamed up with Tom, Mark and the girls for another evening of fun. We made our way into the old part of town stopping off at the first watering hole for a drink. We joined other Wanderers all ready there for a drink or two before strolling off in search of good food. I fancied a place on the outside layout with the live group in the square, they sounded good and so sat down to listen, we got a menu and drinks then ordered food, today we took the plunge and ordered horse meat. Horses not only look good but tasted wonderful! It was a really nice last night in France, later we spotted another large group of Wanderers enjoying themselves in the square but in the opposite corner. We made our way back not too late or too full. Another early start was on the cards in the morning and missing our allocated train back to England was not going to happen!
The breakfast bar was buzzing at seven as coffee tea bread meats and jam were purloined we all sat around eating and chatting. it was a busy hour as folk ate purposely, some were down at the bikes early packing away the last shoe and wash bag. Barry and Tina were up quite early and were now outside at the form up point. I made sure everyone was present and made sure nobody had any problems, as the last bike left I had a quick walk around to make sure nobody had left anything on the floor, satisfied I rode out of the garage and joined the end of the group by the road side. Barry was talking to the triker people as I joined for a quick chat, as I walked down the group a blue Gold Wing slowly toppled over!
Within a blink of an eye several of us rushed to Jan as she lay on the pavement, Deryck was quick onto his feet and his bike was righted with no damage, we lifted Jan up and dusted her down, It’s a bit of a face looser when one drops a bike like this and for no apparent reason, no fuss was made we just made sure both were ok and looked over the bike quickly. Honda Goldwings are heavy lumbering beasts to paddle round at 0 mph, these minor “fall offs” happen infrequently, transferring the whole of the bikes weight from the side stand to ones own feet is something we do every time we get on the bike, and if the camber is not level, or there is some stones underfoot or one gets distracted or the passenger shuffles about at the wrong moment then the whole lot goes over I’m afraid!
So with the blue bike sorted we set off out of Tours on an early Saturday morning. Tours and the hotel was a good choice and I was glad we stopped here for the halfway hotel in both directions. We rode through the city traffic lights no problem. At this time of the morning there weren’t many cars or buses to look out for either
It was still early as we followed Barry down the spiral ramp onto the E502 settling for a good ride on an empty road, It was a lovely sunny morning too. The fields were turning golden as the summer sun did its work on the crops to our left and right, there still wasn’t much traffic yet so cruising along at 140…please take note J.B I’m talking about kilometres and not mph before reporting me like you tried last time just stick to bullying and lying your good at that.
Julie called out when a huge bird came into view sat on one of the many road side posts, mostly these were brown speckled chaps with hooked beak, feet encased in shiny yellows boots and keen dark eyes, they are beautiful looking creatures that deserve to be called something a bit grander than a Buzzard! The thermals were not sufficient yet and they just sat there saving their energy and waited for something to be killed on the tarmac on their behalf.
This went on for a while until we rode into the northern region of Normandy, the landscape changed to hills, trees and hedges and a good deal more human habitat, we rode past the famous old town of Alencon and the ancient city of Rouen, the cathedral is well worth a visit here and you can park up right next to it if I remembered correctly, today though we followed “toute directions” round the edge of the city to rejoin the auto route again, this time on the E 402,we got through Rouen quite easy with no drama, now we headed for Abberville, Boulogne and finally Calais. We had made good time and had a long stop for lunch, we had made so much time that we thought about having a break on the nearby Normandy coast, Barry and I both believed in “Sods Law” so we decided against it.
Riding across a new white bridge that curved and climbed across to the hill top across the valley, at the top if you looked to the left you could spot the coast. Then it hit us. Bloody fog, where the hell had this come from? Somebody shouted up “Have we arrived in Lancashire already?” We were in some thick stuff and slowed down to about 40 mph then 20mph everyone locked onto the tail lights of the bike in front. We had plenty of time and this time the roll of the dice was good! The fog cleared then returned several times before the Garmin told us the turn off was just a few miles away, thankfully the fog cleared finally and the signs for the tunnel terminal began to appear. This was on the southern side of Calais so no town to negotiate and we would arrive in such time that we got an earlier train
We filed into a couple of rows to punch in our ticket details, punch being the operative word, the screens were so worn out that several Wingers had to really bang the screens. We passed through more check points and customs showing passports and smiles.In another line a dozen Harley riders from the Medway Chapter chugged by, they said they had been touring to Brugge for a week. Brugge was just 75 miles from the tunnel and they all lived in the Folkestone area so probably hadn’t done more that a 150 miles from home to Brugge. They asked where we had been and replied “South of France and the Pyrenees for two weeks” knowing how little distance they had covered I couldn’t resist adding “Only about 3000 miles.”
We were directed onto the empty train through the last carriage where a twenty foot section of the side door had rolled up into the roof, we rode on and slowly rode the entire length to park up with front wheel nudged into the walkway, on the side stand and left in gear. No straps are needed, it really is that smooth. we took photos and said goodbye to some who were going in a different direction Mick and Anne Brade for example where were to peel off left heading to Hampshire. Barry and Tina had elected to make the last leg to Keighley when the train docked, it was only 280 miles and late Saturday afternoon, they would probably be home well midnight. I on the other hand elected to stay over at the same hotel in Maidstone that we had used on the way down. We got there in about thirty minutes to find that Russ and Elaine and booked tables for the evening meal bless! These two along with Mark and Jeanette got through customs a bit quicker than the rest of us and took an earlier train. As we sat in the bar an hour later we saw a fair few others had the same idea and one by one pulled into the car park, Aha it wasn’t going to be a quiet evening after all. C’mon you “Flat-liners”!
To be fair we didn’t go mad with the drinks because we still had the last leg to do in the morning, it still didn’t stop us enjoying ourselves though. Breakfast was had by everyone unlike two weeks earlier! It was nice to have a greasy heart attack breakfast after two weeks of coffee, bread, cheese meats and jams! Mark and Tom planned to come up from their digs in Folkestone shortly after breakfast for the run up home. We were just loading up the bike when they arrived.
We said our goodbyes to this year’s Appy Wanderers tour members, some we would see again in a few weeks, the rest we will see later in the year probably. It was a hot sunny morning as Tom, Mark and I pointed our bikes onto the M20 and head towards London, it was Sunday morning the roads would be empty, at least they were until we came to the toll booths at the Dartford Tunnel, the lines of traffic went on for miles, we sat for a while and watched the temperature gauge slowly creep up. Mark on the trike suggested Tom and I wiggle on through the traffic, hopefully we would meet up once clear of the M25. There had been a bad accident near the booths and several seemed to be closed, I saw a yellow jacket on the far right stood at a booth and made my way to him. Tom stuck to me and followed. The man shouted something about being in the wrong lane, I played dumb and kept saying sorry but I didn’t know (which of course I new full well) He shook his head and stuck his key in the barrier box which lifted and we both passed through shouting our thanks. Tom said somebody else on a bike tried to follow but the yellow jacket wouldn’t let them, what a bloody arse! We rode around the empty M25 on to the M11, we rode up to the first service station for fuel and drinks, I wondered how Mark and Jeanette were doing when they arrived! I don’t think they were more than 15 minutes behind us. With full tanks and cool drinks inside us we set off again. Up the M11 we rode and joined the A1, we were getting on for mid morning now and the traffic was beginning to grow in number. About two hrs later we neared the junction for the A614 Bawtry Road we slowed to let them pass and waved goodbye. Mark was heading a bit further on towards Wakefield whilst Tom and Michelle had a bit further onto the M62 before getting home to Keighley.
We pulled into our drive the lawn was overgrown, the jungle was taking over! A bonfire of junk mail and bills cluttered the foyer and the cat wanted feeding! I switched the engine off saying that’s that then it’s over.
The 2011 tour was hard work in places and I was fairly worn out as I always am after our tours. It was a great adventure exploring new places and for Julie and I we in particular enjoyed visiting our pal Martin and his beer fridge in Coursan. Barry and I had put in a vast amount of time, eaten a lot of bacon and consumed a lot of Tina’s biscuits. I have spent so much time at the clubhouse I’m thinking about having my name added to the house deeds! All the weeks of planning had been successful the roads great, the scenery fantastic, all the visits worked well except for the saga of the gravillions and the few days of rain. It’s simply a roll of the dice.

Tillateronthen
The Wanderers Scribe.
P.S
I’d like to thank The French Tourist Board (underground cave shots) and several of the Wanderers for letting me reproduce some of their images for the write up.

Julie locks the house and POOKA hops off for the day on all three legs bless! We hop onboard Mistress Mable and hop of for the day too! It’s not a bad start here in South Yorkshire at 0800 hrs, the sun is playing “Peekaboo” with the white clouds and the wind is thrashing across us as we hit the M18 motorway heading north to the M62.The A1 link from the M62 at Ferrybridge curves high and swings right to curve around the massive power station, it’s a beautiful curve and we can’t help but make a mockery of the 50 mph sign, Mistress Mable gulps in gob-full’s of air between copious swigs of firewater, the fuel needle moving down a fraction each ten miles we chew up. The A1 is at its best on these early mornings, it’s really worth the effort of getting up and away early, not a five truck convoy or a wobbling lane hogging motor home in sight…wonderful!

Within the hour we are zooming past the Ripon exit, the sun was now swamped by grey swathes of dirty streaks, I looked left towards the west and saw more of it heading our way, hmmm not looking promising I thought, it was getting bloody colder now as well as we rode deeper into the depression, at least the road works and the bleeding bollards have gone! We drifted off the A1 onto the slip road and slowed towards Thirsk centre.

The Troll chats with Filey David at THIRSK

was wondering how many might turn up today because it was a busy weekend for real bikers, there was bike racing at Croft just to the north of Northampton, and the second day of the BMF down in Peterborough was getting underway. Barry was there working and hopefully having a positive day financially.

Personally I think the BMF weekend is pretty droll and expensive for what it is these days, how many years has Moped Mayhem been going on and how many times do you want to see old speedway bikes “put put fart” around the track for instance? However it’s pretty good for replenishing bike kit and you can pick up a bargain or two. So I suppose I might still go if I need new kit. ”it’s not the money”!

Looking up from the square I decided today’s weather was going to be against us, Paul the weather man was on the nail today So all said and done we might have maybe six or seven bikes turn up.Thirsk was buzzing even at 0915 hrs with lots of bikes, like I said, Croft was going to be a big pull for bikers today. We pulled up on the cobbles as the drizzle put in an appearance.

Julie and I were hungry so we went into a nearby café and ordered breakfast.Mick and Evelyn pulled into the square just minutes after and came to join us. Presently the “Bridge Troll” and Heather appeared with a couple more, Mick and I started counting, trying to identify folk from our table in the Café, Dean and his wife from Nottingham arrived with Tony Hudson, then four more arrived, then another, then two more! On it went until we had sixteen Honda Goldwings in various sizes, a couple of 1500 bread vans came with Adrianne and grinning C.C.  Mick stood out in his Day-Glo yellow jacket and fulsome grin, he came on the greeni blue 1500 “Christine is still in piggin bed” he grinned back to the asked question. Deryck and Jan on the deep blue 1800 came too, Deryck was fiddling around with a CB adaption in the boot. The white 1800 brought Cath and Mark, they had just come back from holidays in warmer climes and she was…well if she had balls they would have frozen off apparently! I think Mark was the same but he’s from Castleford and the lads from “Cas” don’t get cold OK? Todays trikes had gathered in a huddle with Cheryl, Telford, Alan and Chris on the “Pudsey Trike”. New trikers Mark and Ginga from Havercroft came to see what it was all about and got some group riding practice in before the tour in June, their 1500 trike was a kind of pearl white and a body shape with a difference. Mark had a surprise up his sleeve or up his trousers to be more accurate, but more on that later! Geoff and Christine arrived from the other pick up point in Skipton and brought the remainder of todays APPY WANDERERS. Tom and Michelle on the lovely “Ace of Spades” black 1800 came out to play today. Tom is a right character and extremely passionate about scooters and the life style it brings, so he dips in and out of scooters and gold wing events when it suits. Isn’t it great to have the freedom of choice eh? Michelle spends most of her free days driving the logistic vehicle (an old van loaded with beer, tents and more beer) for Tom and the rest of the scooter boys.

10.45 arrives and it’s high time we hit the road for todays APPY WANDERERS RIDEOUT called “The Captain Cook Run”, basically we were going to ride along the places where the great man made his progress in his younger life. We were using a new team today all bright and up for it with our orange Day-Glo’s! We are not a B.R track repair gang, neither are we your friendly dustbin men! We are your APPY WANDERERS marshals for the day. I opted not to start with a team pep talk this morning as Barry usually does, everyone has been with us before on lots of occasions whilst the new blood had been reassured and advised what to do and besides it was getting late in the morning and I was getting conscious of that. The trikes pulled out after Derek and Heather onto the road.

Heading through the “Dingley Dell” bit towards OSMOTHERLY

Derek was going to lead the group today and was happy to have no fuss made. Geoff and Christine would place themselves in the middle of the group which has in the past been the best place for CB communication and because Geoff is able to adjust his set more easily because of its different location on his bike, also he is the most experienced with CB’s, he’s played with them all his life, it’s how he and Christine got together Aaahh! She heard him and fell in love, then she saw him and it was too late tee hee! However, seeing Christine today in her sexy black boots I can understand old Geoff signing up for a life with her… also their middle of the pack position is ideal if assistance is required from either lead man or back door boy (me) in this role I would be sweeping up and looking after the back of the group, persuading intruders from entering our group and passing up information, to the lead man.

Leg stretch in the drizzle at SWAINBY

I stopped on the road with Dean to let the group out and encouraged the cars to wait a moment. Sixteen bikes left the square and headed out toward the left hook on the mini roundabout that would take us toward Sutton Bank, the drizzle and low cloud came with us too unfortunately!  Sutton Bank used to be regarded as a bit of a nightmare some years ago, but it’s nothing for the more powerful modern vehicles of today…unless you have some arse in a landi doing 20 mph just in front of you like we had. Derek shouted out the news as we dropped into line astern and when prompted gave each other a bigger gap to negotiate the first tight climbing turn to the left.

The views to the left as one begins the climb are vast normally but not today as we hugged the underside of the grey stuff, the visibility was about 2000 yards or so, not much when the views are 20 miles or so normally!

A turn along the tops took us across the flat fields on the tiny tarmac road to Osmotherly nine and a half miles away. This section of the North Yorkshire Moors National Park was more “Dingly Delli” with lots of trees shrubs and dark damp tree covered swillies as the road twisted, rose and dropped. The open moor bit was away to our right and not for us this morning. The roads are small not well travelled and have the obligatory pile of loose gravel down the centre. It’s ideal APPY WANDERERS country as far as me and Barry are concerned! I’m not sure If I favour the gravel or the lawn that runs down many of similar Irish lanes we rode down on tour a couple of years ago to be honest. But with skill, patience, an open mind and careful riding this route is more than worth it and you get to see things from roads that you wouldn’t normally dream of riding on!  The swillies, cuts and dykes you see and pass through are the very fabric of our great and ancient land. Are you aware we are actually following in the tracks of the great ice glaciers from the Ice Age that sculptured and shaped Mother Earth?  Try not to think “Oh that was a bit slippy and dangerous” Yes it’s true wet metal cattle grids and rubber tyres don’t go very well so use some caution, go slower over them and go straight, simples innit! It’s not only the sights and feelings you experience but also the smells, for example the faint oily smell given off by the bright beautiful yellow rape crop, the sweet smells of wet cut grass as it wafts through helmets for a moment as we pass the odd crop of cottages and the odd old dropped down farm dwelling, and of course the sweet pong of cow kack. It’s bloody priceless, that’s what it is!

For you guys without CB’s I can tell you that Derek was excellent in calling out the hazards, the occasional vehicle behaved and paused to let us by, one even reversed back a while, a wave of thanks, a thumbs up and a smile is always given from me as last man through.

Osmotherly came and went quietly, typical of a wet and cold Sunday morning I guess. It is a really pretty place and worth a glance, the village of Swainby  a few miles further on was our P stop and leg stretch today though and yes the piggin drizzle and grey stuff was still with us!Fifteen minutes later we saddled up again and joined the fast A road that ran down quickly towards Stokesley and Middlesbrough, but once again we hooked away, this time to our right and headed to the village of Great Ayton, the boyhood stomping ground of James Cook…and another bloke that I’ve promised not to talk about.

Derek AKA The Bridge Troll

In the late 1700’s Mr Cook senior like folk today moved, to follow the work, from nearby Marton where James Cook was actually born. As a youngster though he and his eight brothers and sisters lived and ere schooled  in Great Ayton.  The school is still here and is now the library I believe. Young James didn’t take to farm life though and ended up working for a friend of his fathers, in Staithes on the coast near Saltburn eventually ending up at Whitby, it was there as a young man he tried life at sea working on boats that journeyed to the Baltic for example and loved it, James In fact  joined the Royal Navy he loved the sea life that much. He excelled to become one of our most famous explorers, and notched up some famous discoveries. he became a brilliant navigator and cartographer (map maker) his maps of Newfoundland Australia, New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands were so accurate they were used for many years after. Unfortunately his life was cut short. He was murdered along with four Royal Marines whilst trying to negotiate with an Hawaiian tribe in 1779, he was 51 years old.

More drizzle in Great Ayton

We pulled over in front of the white fronted “Friends School” at the village green. Julies Mum was stood there waving at Derek and beckoning him to her…oh yeah Derek, did I mention Julies mum and Dad lived here in Great Ayton and might be around to meet us? I don’t know what he thought about this mad woman grinning and waving at him excitedly to be honest…but I can imagine!We had a longer break here and sheltered under the couple of huge oaks, the in-laws Peter and Marie moved amongst everyone after giving me and Julie a warm hug saying hello and chatting.

Julie with Marie and Peter her mum and Dad

I overheard Big Derek as he was leaning over Marie saying …….”yes and I’m going to kill that man if he keeps lying like that”  “Oh my..” said Marie looking up at The Troll “ and how can you tell he’s lying”?  “ Because he’s breathing that’s why!” Now Marie was a school teacher all her life so folk like Derek are no problem whatsoever and was used to her little boys telling such fibs. I crossed my fingers and prayed Marie wouldn’t engage Derek any further coz she is a master at taking your conversation off on another tangent without you realizing it!  She would have tied poor Derek in knots and reduced him to a naughty little boy!

Michelle at the Capt Cook statue

All in all it was a nice forty five minutes lunch break. Peter agreed that it wasn’t a good idea to call in for tea at their house after all, even their downstairs and upstairs toilets couldn’t have coped and they don’t own thirty cups even their cul-de-sac is far too small for sixteen huge motorbikes and trikes!

Cath looks nice and warm but isnt. Mark says nowt!

In spite of the drizzle everyone was in good spirits, Cath was still cold (should have gone to Skeggi for your hols instead of Trinibago lass) Michelle was cold too hands like ice and sported a cold Mona Lisa grin! I dragged her off regardless for a photo with the boyhood statue of James Cook.

OK we are moving in 5 minutes I shouted pointing at my watch (why do people DO that??) Deane and Tony whip out the cloths and start to wipe screens, I make do with wiping seats and waiting for everyone to zip up and get on board. Again I pull out onto the road, halting to let everyone get out and asking the cars to wait a moment. Peter and Marie wave at everyone as we exited the green, Julie shouted and waved goodbye, God only knows what they thought of the APPY WANDERERS and The Troll in particular!

Peter used to be a biker in his younger days and Marie used to ride pillion until they had a nasty accident.

We passed by the most famous local natural feature known now as “Roseberry Topping” which is one of only a handful of known pagan names in England. “Roseberry” came from Old Norse Óðins bjarg (“Odin’s rock or crag”), after the Norse god Odin The name changed successively to Othensberg, Ohenseberg, Ounsberry and Ouesberry before finally settling on Roseberry. “Topping” is a corruption of toppen, an Old Norse word for a hill. Its summit has a distinctive half-cone shape with a jagged cliff which has led to many comparisons with the much higher Matterhorn in Switzerland It forms a symbolic image of the area and featured as the logo for the now defunct Cleveland County.                                     New girl “Ginga” Tucker.

Roseberry Topping was traditionally thought to be the highest hill on the North York Moors however, the nearby Urra Moor is higher, at 1,490 feet (450 m). Just along the ridge too on Easby Moor but obscured today in the drizzle stands the Captain Cook Monument

Did you know that in 1933 workmen took down Captain Cooks house brick by brick and numbered them before shipping the whole lot of to Melbourne in Australia where it stands rebuilt to this day, it cost Australia £800…..but is not Captain Cooks house after all! Records show it was built years after a young James Cook left home. The nearest they can get is it was built by his father on land that was gifted to him in return for his 19 yrs in service. James Cook actually lived in a nearby cottage, or to be more accurate his wife did. Rather like the story about London Bridge and the Americans don’t you think?

OK back to the riding, Derek hauls ass down the A171, pulling yet another hook this time to the left and motors on towards ruddy Redcar, luckily we miss it and turn east on the secretive little A174, turning off now into Saltburn-by-the-sea. The squiggly road down to the sea at Satlburn.

Now this is a little gem of a place but today we skirt the backside of it and spiral down to the sea’s edge to wiggle along the way through Brotton and Skelton, we hook left again near Loftus and scrape up a tiny lane to head towards Skinningrove on the most glorious road of the day, the drop down towards the mine gave us a most breathtaking view along the coast all the way to Whitby.  Once again tiny unexplored strips of tarmac reveal the most splendid of views not to be forgotten. Staithes, Port Mulgrove and Runswick Bay are notched off. Nick has fond memories of these parts, so has our Geoff but asked me not to say anything so I won’t. OK mate? Sandsend is the last picture postcard village before Whitby and reminds me of the Devon coastline as the road hugged the coastline, dropping down to the edge of the beach, twisting inland to follow the quiet river estuary before crossing the tiny stone bridge, sturdy cottages ran along the cliff edge, we passed holiday makers as they and the day trippers stood and starred at the passing circus, excited kids squealed and waved at us, C.C made full use of his daft farm noise klaxon “thingi” again, the kids laughed even more, even some adults broke out into laughter, I was just glad he wasn’t in front of me this time!

Whitby from the Whalebones car park

We passed the golf course and hove to onto Whitby seafront and slowed as we approached the Whalebones car park. Parking is always a bit of a slow job, folk are so full of concentration trying to park in regimental fashion and forget about me out there stuck on the road holding up the traffic! That’s why I’m sometimes seen to be jumping the queue to squeeze past you guys and seemingly dumping Mistress Mable anywhere I can, it’s not because I’m impatient honest!

The drizzle and the covering grey clag had gone now, in fact it had gone as soon as we left Great Ayton. We were now bathed in sunshine and a stiff but pleasantly warm wind swished over us from the sea. How different to the weather a few miles make! Getting sorted out at the Whalebones

Two pocket rockets arrived and parked next to me. I asked about their day, they said it had bucketed down with heavy rain from Hartlepool to here. So it seems we had escaped the worst of it, they unzipped their leathers, and let the warm winds dry them out.

We allow ANYBODY into our group, even xdressers!

Meanwhile Mr Tucker also unzipped to show the womanly side to him, he was sporting sexy black tights. OH my god I remember back in the 1970’s wearing them when I was a “yoof” and making long bike rides down to North Devon on my black Honda Goldwing 1000cc K2. I remember how awkward things became in the toilets, how the clothes have changed. Now then here is the question, does Mark know this and does it make him gay like Geoff? Or is it just because he is new to our world and has been taking advice from some old bikers on how to keep warm? I half expected Mark to pull newspapers from under his jumper, do you remember doing that lads? We must have been bloody bonkers!  Oh well it got the girls going for a bit, and they got the cameras out quicker than you could say John Bobbit!

Does nowt..Has nowt..Wants nowt Tom and his black  Ace of Spades

Tony chats with a proper little old man!

Did anyone else find it a bit odd how at this point the Salvation Band appeared thumping out the death march as they gathered under the whalebones and proceeded to read out some revelations or summat, minutes later they about turned and death marched back the way they came. Can someone tell me what that was all about then?  Perhaps there have been a lightning bolt to blast Mr naked bollox Tucker to kingdom Come as he cavorted on the lawn.

An hour was spent here and a brisk walk down to the fish and chip shop was in order, everyone went off and did their own thing. Fish and chips seem to taste a whole lot different at the sea side don’t you agree? Chris took some photographs of hungry gulls stood about waiting for scraps, the sea was in too and bashing the walls with its white sea horses.

I kept my eye on the time and made my way back up the hill to arrange the days team photo, as it was the Captain Cook rideout I thought we would have the shot in front of the statue of Captain Cook. I called everyone forward, even getting a couple of bikes to the left and right and took a few shots, the sun was in the wrong place but I was sure I could magic a good print back home on the PC programme. A kind tourist offered to take a shot with me included, unfortunately he made a mess of it and I had to disregard it.

David and Barbara of Filey had joined us today for the first time, they were getting some practice in prior to the 2011 European Tour, it has been very good and productive for them today they had both really enjoyed themselves and couldn’t believe how friendly we were. David picked up

A choppy Whitby harbour

some handy tips from us and had a chat with Derek about some handling issues and so now he hasn’t got them anymore! I think they are now better armed and more confidant. They said their goodbyes and departed to their home in nearby Filey an hour away down the coast road.

We gathered ourselves  to leave the scene when Mistress Garmin began to throw a wobbly for a couple of folk and we stuttered a little whilst she did her own thing, I came up from the back and took the lead slowly to allow Derek and others to rejoin when they could find a place to reverse their direction. I called out the few turns to the garage and went slow enough for the spread out group to see us and catch up.

Here is a perfect example of what I mean when I say to people Garmin is very good but you have to use HER and not let her use YOU, she is there as an aid and is not the be all and end all in spite of what she says, hence to me she is Mistress Garmin and wears black sexy boots! I pull over at the regular “topping up” garage on the Whitby bypass, I stood at the roundabout so folk can spot me and make ready to pull into the garage.We filled up, regrouped and pulled away as one again. The APPY WANDERERS were on the move again!

At the next roundabout we hooked left onto the fast A169 that runs to Pickering, it takes in the governments “Golf balls” listening station, those have actually gone now but what’s left is still run by the RAF. They probably have better smaller devices now and are probably still listening out for troubleThis is the part of the North York Moors that most folk recognise, they don’t know the half of it do they guys? The wind over here was really angry and battered anybody it could find, from left to right it came in a constant invisible sheet, any residue of damp crotch was now firmly blow dried! It’s not only old blokes that get it but us young bikers get it too! The Hole of Horcum is a magnificent looking piece of land to our right, unfortunately we all have the bit between our teeth and the harmony of fast riding as a group is kicking in, and we are all doing it perfect, as we always do at the half point of every rideout. This is just the ticket after a morning of slow careful riding through the enchanting “Dingly Dell” part of The North Yorkshire Moors. (Wow this sounds sooo good I want to go out and ride it again now!)

The roundabout at Pickering is soon reached and we hook right now onto the fast A170 towards Helmsley, it’s a regular run for the Sunday riders and often cruised by the police in unmarked cars, but hey we are on Goldwings and are incapable of eye catching manoeuvres arn’t we?

Derek picks up the pace a bit as the road widens and flattens out, the corners are long and open with excellent visability.Suddenly a tone of voice I haven’t heard since the Bulgarian trip when Barry encountered the first of the unbelievable bomb holes and other such man traps, “ OH Bastar….! GGRAVEL!!…fuc…gravel..jeez….Erm look out for gravel everyone!” Derek shouts.  I have to hand it to the man he composed himself quite quickly and had me smiling hugely as we came back down to earth! Oh well it was fun while it lasted and at least we had a good gallop across the moors.

About ten miles short of Helmsley we turned off the new gravel onto another gem of a sliver of tarmac I found last week, at least Derek was sounding a bit more like himself again. We poodled down the twisties passing Nunnington Hall before joining a bit bigger bit of tarmac called the B1257. Hoveringham was next on the list is another great looking place and worthy of a leg stretch at sometime, in fact they all are around here. The Howardian Hills are ripe for exploring and have so many little gems to find and they are only about ten miles north of York.

We passed the ruins in Sherriff Hutton, its church…”CASTLE” corrects Julie from the back. Nick shouts “Heard that Julie thank you” I was sure I’d said castle. Barry has his left and rights and I have my castles and churches it seems! There are more humans knocking now as we near York. We paused for a last leg stretch and begin to lose Wanderers as we pass close to their habitat, it was 18.00 hrs and had been a good long day so far.

Deryck and Jan said goodbye here and took their bent bike home to just around the corner, he thought his bike was six inch longer than it was, anyway after his encounter with the high curb in Whitby it is now the correct length! The Pudsey Trike also left us zooming of towards Leeds. Mick had parted company at Pickering to check over his newly acquired caravan but would rejoin us at the end at Squires.

On again we went on the last leg of the rideout now. We rode through the army town of Strensall, where  heroe’s are made. You could see the wire compounds and the green lorries parked in long lines, a few soldiers were here and there going about their business.

The ring road wasn’t too busy at this time and we joined the A64 past the awful bottleneck where the dual carriageway drops down to a single. A quick zip along here and we turn off towards Selby on the A19, “right turn coming up” says Derek and we traverse the flat lands south of York, going through Naburn first then Cawood and Biggin. It was dry inland now and the winds had blown themselves out.

In the early evenings often the day is much calmer as though resting after a hard days’ work. Well that’s how it appears to me. Do you recall when we return from a Dales rideout and head toward Skipton the fading light along the long swift A65 The day seems always to calmer and settled in the evenings.

The road toward Sherburn-in-Elmet allowed us to pick up the pace again for one last time before slowing right down to lurch over the huge speed bumps, we cleared them OK except for Telford who clouted them heartedly with their trike, I can just imagine Cheryl clouting him at the same time shouting “OI bitch be careful with my half of the trike”!! Telford mate this can only mean you were going too fast and you can’t use the excuse that Cheryl is a bit on the heavy side!

SQUIRES Tea Bar.

We last twelve bikes finally arrived at damp Squires our final destination of the day losing four on the way from Whitby. Hold on here comes Mick, make that thirteen bikes. Not many bikers were here at this time of the evening, pasties and coffee were scoffed and the p*ss taking began as we chatted about the day. Our new tall blonde bombshell “Ginga” exchanged telephone numbers with Nick of all people in front of everyone and got plenty of stick for it, In spite of her explanation we think our assumptions are much tastier. I quickly got my name on the list for a Tuesday afternoon appointment! There ended the Captain Cook Rideout, it was about 8 hrs long and nearly 160 miles in total. I thought it went really well Geoff and Derek and the girls did a great job, I’m sorry we never got the biscuits Chris, I was looking forward to a nibble with you…Oh, did I just say that??  Mistress Garmin tried to “have us over” on the odd occasion but she couldn’t foil today’s three orange men.

Tillateronthen

THE SCRIBE.

PS

I would like to thank Heather and Christine my camera bitches for the extra photos, a great effort considering the drizzle and poor visability. Well done girls…..Come see me later x

It was after 08.20 hrs on MOTHERS DAY and it was time to go! We opened the throttle as we ran onto the Skipton by-pass down the Aire Valley at high speed, damp air was forced into the air vents and radiator of both Mistress Mable and Snowflake as we bounded along, stretching C.C’s and filling lungs with morning air, even if it felt damp, another difficult day to judge with tons of low bilious light and dark clouds, I felt certain it was going to rain around here, just as the weatherman promised last night. Slow we went now as we turned off the by-pass and travelled up into Skipton centre, rounding the last bend we saw a glut of shiny Honda Goldwings sitting under the statue. I think we both smiled at the high number of wingers waiting for the start of a good day.

Nigel and Denise from Halifax, Derek and Heather of Guiseley with 1800’s were the first I clapped eyes on and recognised, Mick and Evelyn from Leeds stood with Wakefield’s Tony “the pie” Hudson. Before greeting everyone I put a borrowed book back in the top box of Derycks blue 1800. Cheers mate! Through the bundled up people I saw the hugely grinning Lyn of Castleford, hubbi Mark was just behind. With them was their pal Colin from Doncaster.  Bill and Lorraine from Durham had come today too having stayed overnight at York with Deryck with a Y. “Spanners” and his gay..I mean great pal Alan Mason arrived and declared themselves to have done with the Blue Oyster Club crowd. Welcome back darlings!

The Pudsey Trike purred up slowly with Alan and Missus. Alan is an undertaker (yes he has one of THOSE faces too) But don’t let that lull you into thinking he is a slow coach..except perhaps between Monday to Friday and he is ALWAYS driving around at 1 mph with his other gang in big black cars so on our ride-outs he lets go of his frustration’s and makes the grey trike go like “Billy Fuck”.Wouldn’t it be funny if Alan got his days the wrong way around? To see a black Hearse tear arsing to the Crem and seeing poor old Grandfather Jones in the coffin rolling about in the back, spewing forth flowers and wreaths on every corner! That would be such an unbelievable sight! Mr Plod would eventually stop him with a stinger or three and put his size 10 in it by sarcastically (they all do) asking Alan “…And which fire are you going to then sir?”” Alan would point his thumb to the coffin saying “HIS you pillock” Now that would make the Evening News!

Cheryl and Telford of the bright yellow over “trews” were here again on their 1800 trike to carry on their learning curve and would be keeping with the Pudsey Trike, pushing their trike and themselves to even higher levels of competency.

With pleasantries, hello’s and welcomes done with it was time to mount up and move out, everyone moved carefully from Skipton’s cobbles and onto the tarmac slowly to roll left at the roundabout and away they all went or so I thought…A Gold 1500 Wing sat there on its own with flashing council light. “Barry” I shouted on the CB “Gordon is still here! I’ll wait for him and catch you up” I waited and waited, but still he didn’t show. Well I can’t wait forever I said to myself after all it’s not a school outing!  He knows we are going to Devils Bridge and will be there for 20 minutes to pick up the second group. He will turn up…or not!  So with that I chased after the family.

We made good time travelling nicely along the A65 from Skipton to Kirkby Lonsdale and the bikers meeting place at Devils Bridge to meet the second group. The clouds seemingly hung lower and lower and appeared to be resting on the shoulders of the nearby hills. The drizzle was with us now, I wasn’t bothered we had our wet gear stowed in the back, the temperature was not too low and the day was young.Parking up at Devils Bridge was easy because it was quite empty, don’t you just love Sunday riders? There are some who always call Honda Goldwing riders for being only out in sunshine, yet here we were, a bunch of old gits riding glossy expensive armchairs in the wet dirty cold! APPY WANDERERS do it in the wet…well Yah Boo to you soft pocket rocket riding winkers!

It was here that we met the final group that would make up today’s APPY WANDERERS. We met with Ian and M Jones and their friends George and Millie who rode down from Cumbria. Phil and Pam Bowker came on the “Bowker Beast” with Ruby the little black spaniel dog, she had her little hut nailed to the back of their black 1800 trike and was extremely keen to say hello to anyone who showed interest…a bit like me really! A character with an old 1500 trike and sidecar joined us here too, we spotted him a few miles back, they had stopped to pull on their waterproofs, this was Mr Stephen Fenton and son Dan I took great pleasure in following from the back, just four bikes away as young Dan leaned to the left and right on every corner, they kept the pace up really well, the 1800 just behind dare not let a large gap form in front of him, I grinned all the way to Cumbria!

The showers came again as we set of up the squiggly A683, all the way up to Firbank we went before joining the M6 to go the rest of the way to Penrith. The showers cleared, the grey stuff lost interest in us to be replaced by windy wispy white clouds under a pale sky.

At the A66 just before Penrith we turned off and headed toward Keswick, all was going splendid even when the last six bikes got sliced from the group by an approaching police car from the rear with flashing lights but no siren, a rather odd thing I thought, I pushed through from the back trying to usher the guys to one side to help, but without his siren the guys must have wondered what the hell I was trying to do! I tried to keep the lead group in site telling Barry the score on the CB and hopefully hanging back enough to let the last group see and catch up. This worked a treat and once clear of Keswick we were as one again. Derek and Heather were doing a splendid job as the middle link for Barry and I. I could spot him frequently due to their orange bibs. This is one of several reasons why only Marshalls wear ORANGE dayglo bibs on our ride-outs. When you are there on the day its so obvious, right guys?

We were soon on the B5289 twisting and turning rising and falling on the narrow belt of tarmac, stone walls and overhanging tree branches were covered in green moss as time stood still, just the odd rambler or three passed through…..and eighteen Honda Goldwings! Derwent Water passed by on our right then we were climbing up. Here is some information of the pass and the mine.

The Honister Pass, also known as Honister Hause, is a mountain pass, It is on the B5289 linking Seatoller in the valley of Borrowdale to Gatesgarth at the southern end of Buttermere. The pass reaches an altitude of 1,167 feet (356 m), making it one of the highest in the region, and also one of the steepest, with gradients of up to 1-in-4 (25%).The Honister Pass is one of three passes that link the tourist area around Keswick including Derwent Water and Borrowdale, with the valley of the River Cocker including the lakes of Buttermere, Crummock Water and Loweswater. From north to south these passes are the Whinlatter Pass the Newlands Pass and the Honister Pass.
In 1870 very substantial underground workings existed under Honister Crag with lesser workings on the opposite side of the valley at Yew Crags. There were also smaller-scale underground workings on Dubbs Moor, together with a small opencast quarry — opencast quarrying had been carried on at Honister since the late 17th century. Slate from the Honister workings was at one time dragged on sleds down steep paths that traversed the cliffs to the top of Honister Pass (The Hause), but packhorse teams had been used to remove finished product from the opencasts for a great many years prior to 1830. In 1879 new owners installed self-acting inclines to serve both the Honister and Yew Crags mines; these were remarkable and costly feats of engineering but they enabled far more efficient production. The incline serving the Dubbs Quarry was cleverly designed to lift product up the side of the valley from the quarry, and then lower it down the other valley side to The Hause. The company leased and operated other quarries in Borrowdale.  In the mid-1920s, brilliantly engineered aerial ropeways served the Honister and Yew Crags Mines, though the external Yew Crags incline continued to be used until the late 1960s. Connection to the Hause/slate works from both incline and short aerial ropeway was by petrol-driven loco on a railway bridging the Seatoller-Buttermere road. This bridge was removed for scrap in the early 1970s.By 1891 production had reached 3,000 tons a year and more than 100 men were employed. Dubbs mine was ‘smaller metal’ (metal being the terminology for slate), in that smaller pieces of slate (thus smaller slates) were obtainable due to geological changes; this did give rise to some instability. Dubbs Quarry ceased production around 1932, largely due to the difficulties and slowness of transporting finished product. In 1997 the mine was reopened by Mark Weir who developed the quarries into a thriving tourist attraction, and at the same time producing small quantities of roofing slate. Mark was sadly killed in a helicopter crash at the mine on the evening of 8th March 2011.

We had lunch here and saw the first sunshine of the day, though clouds hung around by the dozen and threatened us with showers. “Spanners” began messing with the lights on his 1500 again, they first began playing up at Devils Bridge, he looked intent on fixing the problem now, his gay…I mean great mate Alan looked on in admiration as Spanners bent over to see what he was doing.

It was time to go but we had lost the W.O.T, where the hell was she, come to that where was Julie, she had vanished too! I went in search and found them in the “Tat Shop” buying some tat. “Wait a minute” was all I could get out of the pair of them, so I left them to it, eventually they returned and donned their lids and we got sorted to move on down the valley.

The exit is not the best of exits so some care would be needed so I pulled out and stopped on the road ready to ask the traffic to wait a minute until all the bikes had tottered off the bike unfriendly vehicle park, bumping down onto the tarmac on the brow of the summit before sharply tipping left and down the valley, Julie encouraged everyone one forward as it was safe and thanked the waiting mini coach driver for his patience.The next few minutes were spent craning necks left and right at the high crags and to appreciate this little part of Great Britain, the little road flowed like a stream down the lumps and bumps and round clusters of house sized boulders. At the bottom of the valley and just around the last bend we saw Buttermere. I paused for a minute to capture the atmosphere on camera, to see the light paint lighter shades of grey and green on the velvet like landscape just had to be captured! Between myself and Julie we managed this today, sometimes great shots are missed when on the bike as steep sharp stone walls and Sunday drivers take up all my attention!  Then of course the next ten minutes are spent catching up with the guys. Julie had air between herself and the seat once or twice over the next ten minutes as we bounced along at an exciting pace and she took several “great” photographs of nothing but the sky!

The valley soon flattened out as we moved north west  towards  Cockermouth. The next couple of villages were a peculiar lot. Practically every house sat along the roadside as if just made up of “The High Street” all had coloured walls, with wide cream edges atop the door and window frames. Some sported soft pastel shades some had garish colour schemes, a really deep blue and of course that bloody awful pink one. It reminded me of the houses in Ireland, though they seemed more in keeping with the area somehow. I have passed by here three times in the last two years, both during the week and at the weekend and never have I seen more than three or four folk in either of these odd villages. These were the villages of Rowrah and Frizington and Cleator if I recall. They were odd so very odd.Now we were on the roundabout at Egremont and going south on the A595 and passing the brightly coloured head gear of the FLORENCE MINE on the left through the trees.

The Sellarfield Nuclear facility dominated the skyline towards the coast near the town of Seascale. I gave a moments thought to the poor souls in Japan and thought for a moment…”nothing like that could happen here…could it?” We cut back inland to skirt around Muncaster Castle.

Derek began to get excitable now because we were near to the bridge that gave birth to a nickname of his…”Derek the Bridge Troll”.  During the Help 4 Heroes job in 2010 we had to put somebody substantial at a small bridge with traffic lights at both ends, the visibility poor as the bridge was smothered by shrubs and trees so not easy to control, hence we needed someone with the ability to project ones will on others….Enter Big Derek! He and Heather began to chatter on the CB as we closed in, other marshalls of that day remembered that mad busy day.

Remember it well because we are NOT doing that job again, however honourable the cause..and they all are..because APPY WANDERERS do not do charity jobs we are a motorcycle riding group, and that day was a one off!

Near Bootle we stopped for another tea stop with tea and cakes, it’s a quant clean little concern and run very well by a group of old ladies and schoolgirls, we do the done thing and stay outside, it wasn’t really cold and we were able to be free with our colourful chit chat! The old girl came out and took our orders with a smile quickly and efficiently. I for one am more than happy to return here. On a cloudless day unlike today the views are vast and soothing.

A farmer drove up and released a mother and two daughters into the field to join the rest of the flock, they were so small, in fact Ruby the dwarf dog of the “Bowker Beast” was much bigger than the two little sheepies, one black and one white! It was time for us to move again, the cheap and cheerful loose chippings and shale that made up the car park made for another careful exit, only this time the exit views were long and clear and we got out as one with no fuss, the approaching car slowed and beckoned us out. “Thank you” I mouthed and Julie waved too.

We turned inland again up the long hill and twisted down the edge of the wood and shrub dotted land at the bottom, and there  lay the infamous bridge, its local name is Duddon Bridge but to us it will always be known as “The Troll’s Bridge” Oh how happy to be home were our two Guiseley lovers Derek and Heather. “Though shalt not pass” takes on a different picture these days to many of the Wanderers!

On we went enjoying the clouded countryside, cloudy it may be but raining it certainly wasn’t. We turned onto the wiggle A592 and ran down the edge of Windermere, we travelled the last five miles or so under the green barked tree cover, a coach struggled to get out of the way of a couple of Sunday drivers, we waited patiently for them to sort themselves out and gazed through the trees at Windermere and the beautiful properties dotted here and there along the shoreline. Barry led us to a coach car park where the attendant let us park in a coach spot in the corner for our short stay here.

Ruby scrambled out of the “Bowker Beast” and stretched her four little legs, the rest of us stretched our two legs and the Mothers Day Rideout to the Lakes was declared over.

Ian and George said their thanks and goodbyes until the next time, they turned off with the girls towards Carlisle and home. Deryck had a long ride back to York so left also, he was to do over three hundred miles today, whilst Jan had a cooing day with the grandkids, well done that man!We went for ice cream and a short walk, others gathered round and chomped on supplies from their top boxes.

Today had been a great day and now we had to make our way home to the likes of Bradford, Keighley, Halifax, York and Doncaster to name just a few. A group of us headed toward Skipton. As we turned off the M6 to head back towards Kirkby Lonsdale yet more Wanderers left the group homeward bound we were loosing folk all evening as they peeled off to their respective beds.

It was a nice blast for the last group along the familiar A65 we got held up here and there as lazy traffic crawled home as though on their last legs! We zipped past them when safe to do so and probably woke the buggers up I’d wager!

The evening was quite warm and the sun gave justice to the view across Keighley Moor to our right and Rombalds Moor high to our left, we had said goodbye to the last of today’s APPY WANDERERS at Skipton minutes earlier and had skipped through the Vietnam bends on the A629, Barry, me and Nigel rode quite fast along it, we may well even have reminded folk of those spaceships on the road in that old Speilberg movie film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” We said goodbye to both Barry,Tina and the Corby’s at Keighley and we climbed away over the tops through Cullingworth to miss out Keighley centre, a few minutes later a UFO came up behind us, it was the Corby’s! They had come through the town after all.

We rode together a few more miles before they turned towards Halifax. Julie and I rode on through Queensbury, Stone Chair, before dropping down to the M62. Picking up the pace we rode the motorways to Doncaster and arrived home in Hatfield at about 2030 hrs. Today was a long but enjoyable twelve hrs on the road covering about 270 miles in great company along some of the finest English landscapes.

We complain about the many days of rain I know but to be honest it’s the rains that give us such lovely countryside isn’t it?It had been an easy eventless day for me at the back except when the police car cut the last half dozen of us up entering Keswick when I had to try and elasticise myself between the last man of the main group and the first man of the last six, if you know what I mean! All in all it had been a really nice day.
Tilateronthen

THE WANDERERS SCRIBE

P.S Thanks to Heather and Tina for extra photographs from the front and middle of the rideout today x

Snowflake and Mistress Mable sat side by side throbbing gently warming up, Barry and I were warming too and getting excited about the run today as Tina and Julie finally slipped behind us onto their seats. Snicking into first we rolled away from the kerb and down the hill, (Barry) “Testing testing 1-2-3-4”…(Dave)” 5-6-7-8, yeah, CB sounds loud and clear ” We rode the short distance to the shop and the meeting point for the day’s run. We turned the corner and there they all waited.

We cruised slowly through the thirty three parked bikes to a spot at the head. Wow THIRTY THREE!! That means there was over sixty people here today.Familiar faces waved and threw friendly insults at me, (why do we men do that then girls)? Geoff Smith and Derek Thornton greeted us and looked up for the challenge, both had agreed to help us this year and today was going to be our first rideout as a team. I bet it would be astounding to tot up the total miles we have done on bikes collectively!

I  greeted all the men and kissed all the ladies, I remember a while ago at a Yorkshire “Meet and Greet” my wife turned up in the afternoon and was welcomed by NOBODY even though she parked up in front of the event organisers, I’m sure many have similar stories?  It’s important to make everybody feel welcome especially on their first time don’t you agree guys? People looked really happy and were up for today, the guys happy to be out on the bikes and girls looked forward to the visit to GRANADA STUDIOS especially.

Peter Armitage was amongst us today on a rented 1800 and key to today’s event. Peter is a biker and an engineer…in his own words he says that he also does a bit of acting. Peter is a down to earth bloke and full of funny stories from his years on planet Earth, we have spent a few occasions supping ale and musing over worldly stuff and swapping stories! Peter plays Bill Webster in Coronation Street. It is through him that today’s unique experience was possible. Granada Studios does not let the general public in any longer so today was a special occasion,  also we would make a large donation to The Help for Heroes charity, something close to Peter and more than a few Wanderers. Peter looks a bit of a “rough arsed old Greebo” in his seasoned leathers, no poncy gortex bike kit for our Peter! He fitted amongst us very well.

A good rideout dictates a few ground rules to complement the rules of the road. we had talked it over the previous evening about what we might expect. Then crapped ourselves at the prospect!! (kidding kidding)  Barry gathered everyone for the “team talk” of do’s and don’ts for today, speaking especially about closing up close at traffic lights and junctions with solos in pairs at such locations. We would see a few in Manchester city centre! We used our trusted trike formula, that is.. All the trikes and the sidecar outfit would form up behind Barry and the solos would offset in pairs behind, so then the solos dare not lag and create gaps for fear being accused of not being able to keep up with the trikes! Geoff and Big D would be around the middle working as the situations developed. Me? Well I’m at the back with Julie giving Barry a constant picture as to what’s happening, on more than one occasion folk thought I was talking to myself, especially the good folk of Manchester as they stood and gawped from the pavement. “Why is he shouting at me that he’s stood at the lights with six bikes…and who the F*** is Derek?

Ok it was time to go, everyone was buzzing with excitement, Peter paddles his way to the front  just behind Barry, some Appy Wanderers have taken to calling this “The naughty spot” I can’t think why!  Barry nods to me, I pull out and pause in the road the oncoming cars stopped, I mouthed “thank you” to the lead driver as over 30 bikes spilled out of the side road and zoom off west towards Haworth. Julie waved them on urgently then waves a big thank you to the patient Sunday morning traffic.

Folk often ask me and Barry why we do the Appy Wanderers thing, well firstly we are both in love with motorbikes! then of course there is the feelings of excitement, anticipation, the thrill of the spectacle, the occasion and the old feeling in the belly of the “Collywobbles” the sheer presence that a large group of beautifully turned out motorbikes has on all around and in spite of our differences we all become one of the same for the day and the satisfaction at the end of the day of knowing we had organised something well, and of course we are promoting motorbikes in a positive light. THIS is why we do it!

Our first film location we come upon is from THE RAILWAY CHILDREN, Barry tries to point out some features and houses on the opposite hill side. Unfortunately Mother Nature stuck her oar in and covered us in that shitty “mizzley” damp stuff that you can’t actually see or feel but wets you all the same and all we can pick out are vague square grey shapes. I wonder if maybe we are getting in the Manchester weather mode? Barry went a bit quiet,…”ah Bliss”….said the Mashalls!  Barry had flipped a switch by mistake but was soon back with us loud and proud…”bugger said the Marshalls! Our Barry’s is getting on so its to be expected, wait while he tries his left and rights!

This is a nice road all the same, it’s the A6033 and goes through wonderful sounding place names like Flappit Spring, Oxenhope and Pecket Well, riding high over damp Wadsworth Moor, this is all Bronte country, how the hell Heathcliffe ever found Cathy on the moors in this muck is nothing short of a miracle! Down we descended into Todmorden town winding slowly through, people stood and starred, children waved as the rolling jukeboxes passed by, finally some bloke at the back on a silver bike with an orange vest on who kept shouting to himself “Yeah, all together at the back no problems Derek” The APPY WANDERERS rolling jukebox just keeps on rolling. Can you imagine this lot at night it would be like Close Encounters of The Third Kind…on speed!  We rode through Littleborough town before riding close by Hollingworth Lake.

The car park was fairly empty so was one problem less for Barry and Geoff as we swooped in and parked. The drizzle was still with us as we visited the ablutions, the sound of ripping Velcro echoed out of the loos for the next fifteen minutes! The café and the water side and over the road did some brisk business, tea coffee and hot snacks were sampled, Hazel offered me some chocolate from her cake tin, thank you mum! The few visitors were treated to a free bike show and showed curious interest taking photographs with their mobile phones. Others asked what was going on and who we were. Thirty minutes later we moved off, once again I asked the traffic to wait a moment as Barry and Peter followed by thirty other motorbikes rode carefully up and out of the car park.

We thought it would be a good idea to adjust our marshalling as Manchester came closer, this is called thinking on the hoof! We adjusted slightly Barry would still lead with Geoff as his back man, D would now become my lead for when we got split with the plethora of traffic lights that one finds in cities. But first we had a bit of motorway work to do.

The drizzle splurged down as we hit the M62 and cranked up the speed, filtering into the traffic and heavy spray, we had just a few miles to do then we would be turning off again, my group of back markers were going a tad slow, we were spread out a long distance and I was losing radio contact so passed and urged the guys on a bit quicker, soon I was at the slip road and slowed to let the Hull contingent see our mass of tail lights, they joined us safely and we were all as one again and ready to hit Manchester.

We rode through Prestwich, an area our politicians would probably describe as “a colourful thread of our modern society” I can see a little more from the back compared to you guys in the pack, we were riding through a poor grey district of “Run-down-villa” not a white face in sight, the roadside was dotted with stalls selling drab looking clothes, it looked really dirty and run down compared to the mixed and vibrant colourful Southall I remember from my recent years in London. As if by a miracle the rain stopped as we headed into Manchester city centre the clouds stayed on the M62.

The traffic lights mauled our convoy severely but not as bad as the infamously quick traffic lights of Zurich city on the 2006 European tour! I remember Barrys fading voice calling CHUR Dave just take the sign for Churrrr…… Id got cut aff from the trikes at the lights and took the lead with all the solos but didn’t have Mistress Garmin in those days, so was stumped as the CHUR sign up ahead pointed in both directions on the next junction, so I took the LEFT had turned right and just caught sight and shouted “Wrong CHUR Dave!” I quickley called the then back man came to the front and readjusted his Mistress Garmin and we eventually rejoined with Barry and the trikes some miles down the road, all very exciting stuff! Hence we were a little nervous today.

We managed to stay together as two groups now and crept slowly towards the centre, passing the now revamped area of Strangeways and the railway station. Tina stood at the obscure Granada Studios side gate corner like a splendid little orange traffic cone, so easy to spot and home in onto, bless you little woman! Peter mentioned the cobbles, they were real enough in “Corrie” wise passengers dismounted as firm hands wrestled the wings up and onto the set, I sat back and waited, then shot around the back of  Websters garage, up a back street around the top and parked up on the corner of the pub. Oh how lucky was that! Everyone else was still buggering about, it took a few minutes but eventually everyone was happy and we set about exploring the famous street with the famous pub, shop and cafe that are part of our lives..like it or not! A door was open to a building, a few of us ambled in and found ourselves on the nightclub set, stepping carefully around the camera equipment I made for the bar and posed for the camera, through another door we found a long hall with a dozen more smaller sets, they were the kitchens and living room sets and the inside of Roys café. I have to admit I didn’t know whose house I was in, I only used to watch it with my mum when I was a teenager, so no I couldn’t find Hilda Ogdens ducks on the wall! It was very interesting all the same. We left as a security guard locked the set behind us! I thought they had left it open for us but seems it was out of bounds. We had ambled onto hallowed ground as far as “Corrie” fans were concerned I guess. We met up with everyone at the bikes and donated £10 per bike to Peter to be presented later to the Help for Heroes Charity, posed for photographs with the flag brought by Phil and Pam Bowker on their black trike. The Granada management were a bit slow and kind of forgot we were coming (hence the studio doors being left ajar) But eventually a reporter and film guy came round and interviewed for Granada local news..they presented it as  “Peter and his bike group”… Charming thought I, oh well that’s show business!Coronation Street was 50 yrs old in 2010 and for me the most iconic shot qas of the back alley and the cat sleeping on the roof. I went exploring with Mark around the very ally’s, we found the remains of Jack Duckworths pigeon shed with the chicken wire pulled open but no sign of the pigeons. Peter told us the set had moved around quite a bit and the alley had moved three times to his knowledge which was amazing as it was all real bricks and mortar.

The most amazing is the scene looking through the railway bridge with the other street going off into the distance. This is actually a huge photograph hung on a wall thirty feet back from the bridge. The illusion is very convincing, you only know it’s a picture when you go right up to the bridge and look around the corner to spot the edge of the photo hung on the wall, it really is that convincing.John and Lynne tried a house door, it opened to show tins of paint and named racks containing wallpaper one rack had the name of Emily Bishop, “Hey I know her!” I blurted out, “She was the quiet one”! We stood for a moment in a piece of TV history before quietly backing out and smiling.Just about everyone had their photo taken in front of the Rovers pub, Chris Smith produced a questionnaire for people to do, twenty questions of “Corrie” for folk  with a prize for the winner. Julie and I declined, We didn’t know anybody after 1970 for gods sake! The winners were Tony and Hazel Walton, Hazel I might add was a child actress in her youth so no surprise that she won! Peter presented the prize and we all booed..I mean cheered, also today it was Evelyn’s birthday so she got a hearty rendition of “Happy Birthday” on the street a  personalized birthday card from APPY WANDERERS and a snog from the men. Yeah go girl! Peter was interviewed for 5 minutes by GRANADA NEWS and we lounged around a bit more eating and drinking our packed lunches, except me thanks to Peter who ate my sandwiches..thanks you fat bs’atrd! I made do with an apple and a cup of tea. All too soon it was time to leave and continue on to part two of this extraordinary rideout.

Waving goodbye to the solitary and overworked security guard we gathered at the exit, got ourselves sorted into the appropriate running order through the centre of Manchester, trikes at the front. 22 glittering jukeboxes two by two behind them and this solitary idiot at the back! Mark and Chrissy said goodbye here and took Phil and Pam Bowker towards Blackburn, we on the other hand headed back towards the right side of the Pennines.

I thought the centre of Manchester affluent, clean, open and roomy but dotted with piggin red traffic lights! More than once pedestrians looked at me as I shouted “Yeah, stood at traffic lights with six bikes Derek!” Mistress Garmin led Barry and Geoff way ahead of us, big D picked his way after them getting a helping pointer  from Geoff now and again about following signs for Ashton.

One has to get to grips with Mistress Garmin because she has a naughty habit of telling you literal and plainly wrong instructions has she never heard of road works and stuff for gods sake! So sometimes you have to remind her who is actually in charge! It takes a while but once you both reach this mutual understanding Mistress Garmin is good to have along, mine is a mature buxom brunette in latex and six inch heels, what’s yours? The long road east out of Manchester was long and slow for a while due to lights and road works, crawling by Romley the road went quicker and got empty around Staleybridge, I remember some dirty dull grey speed cameras hidden in the tree line just Manchester side of the zebra crossings, so underhanded they are that I’m surprised they haven’t been torched yet. Soon we passed by Wooley and got some speed up, by now I could pick up both Barry and Geoff on the CB just about a mile in front of our group. At Hollingworth we peeled left and climbed up into the Peak National Park.

The low cloud had long gone it was now a very pleasant ride along the narrow stonewalled roads gently I rolled Mistress Mable  to the left and right through long and short corners, I glanced at a small dam or two away down to our right. I had spent 16 years living in London, and Manchester just reminded me how boxed in it left me feeling. I loved it for what it was  but I love the countryside more, I seemed to relax a bit more.

After Tintwistle we turned left onto the road to Holmfirth, we climbed high and went into a flock of damp grey clouds, at the top everyone stopped at the radio transmitter and the Holme Moss summit sign, it stated we were at 1719 feet above sea level. It didn’t state the bleak grey mistl wet conditions nor did it warn of the cold wind that shot through ones very bones!

We stayed here a few minutes only, the clouds stayed behind as we began the descent into Holmfirth and the location of  LAST of THE SUMMER WINE and SID’s CAFE in particular. It warmed up quickly as we negotiated the tiny road, cars waited as we streamed past, as last man I  shouted “THANK YOU” as usual and offered a thumbs up, most drivers waved back and smiled.

This is where we ended todays rideout, some went on with Barry to Huddersfield, some split here including us but not before we caused a bit of mayhem in the Café. This series I do know and can happily recognise Me and Barry in some parts of the characters! No comments thank you girls please! The young girls asked us last time to go into the garden round the back as we were frightening the hikers and ramblers, so today we went without prompting to the tables round the back as the girls brought out our cream teas.

The W.O.T (Welfare Officer Tina) got a bit agitated when I got my scone before hers and didn’t know what “We will bring them out and put them on the top table” meant…this is where her cream scones were sat waiting! Naturally I took the rise out W.O.T and yes I got a thump for that, at least we didn’t end up wrestling on the floor on this rideout! We ambled back to the car park where we all kissed and said our goodbyes before splitting to the four corners of Yorkshire. I think today went as well as it was extraordinary, unusual too that the rideout was only 70 miles. Today was a far shorter ride than we normally do. I was really happy to see so many new faces join us, some from well established circles who fancied a change of scene and hopefully enjoyed their day,

I’d like to send regards to Neville and silky scarfed Jill. The Hull gang came today again cheers Chris, Brian and the girls and of course the ex Harley folk Kev and lovely Kim. The trike gang managed to keep up with Alan (Rossi) Penrose and Chris of the Pudsey trike, he is sooo damn nippy! Small world it is too, because along came Mark and Lynne of the huge smile on the other Zanussi Fridge (White 1800cc) Mark I found out services my dads fire! I’d like to say hello and goodbye to my extended family members it’s always nice to see you all again and see you both Mark and Chrissy at the wedding, it will be OK mate don’t be nervous there is nothing to it I’ve done it three times! Holly was todays newest and youngest Wanderer and brought mum and dad in their Zanussi white sidecar outfit, she laughed a lot enjoyed her day and the silly frolics of the old ones! In the car park too I joined the WMC club at Guiseley where a growing number of Yorkshire Wing members are now getting together, organised by Derek and Heather Thornton today so there is now another watering hole to explore in the summer months as well as the many park benches Barry me old mate!

Don’t forget to left click on the photographs to show then larger, there are more photos than usual to go with this write up and I wanted to show you how beautiful you all really are!

TILLATERONTHEN

The WANDERERS SCRIBE