Trip to Yorkshire - May 2006 |
In May 2006 I had my first motorbike trip off-island since moving to the Isle of Man, so a bud and I went to Leeds (his home town in Yorkshire) - he passed his test last Feb and rides a 2000 Ducati Monster 600. His first time riding off-island too.
I packed up my new panniers on the Friday evening after work and rode over to his house in Peel on the West coast (I live in Douglas on the East coast - about 11 miles apart), so that we could ensure we both woke up as the ferry check-in was 6.30am!
Trip over was fine, little overcast but not really a prophecy of the weather we were going to have.
Loaded the bikes up (Pete's got soft panniers for the Duc, so we had to try and remember how they fitted!) Friday night, then got an early-ish night.
Woke up on Saturday to rain, and lots of it. I realised that I hadn't packed a coat for wearing off the bike, so aimed to stop off back at my apartment on the way to the ferry in Douglas - rode through a puddle covering half the road, and Pete realised that he'd left his vent zip open on his boot - oops, wet foot!
Got to the ferry right at check-in time, waved straight through to the boat and on. Being the IOM Steam Packet they're efficient in tying bikes down, using a ratchet strap and a rope. Quickly done and up we go for the 2.5 hour crossing
No other pics of the crossing as we both dozed,
We docked right on schedule at 10am, and were off pretty quick, into a light drizzle. Stopped for petrol on the way to the motorway, and then off we went
The rain really started almost straight away, but we kept our speed up, and sat on the motorway doing around 75-80mph, leaving nice gaps between ourselves and the other vehicles. We had to stop at services so that Pete could put on his romper-suit (1-piece waterproof oversuit), but my cheapo textile gear seemd to be holding out OK
Eventually got to Leeds at around noon, and the first traffic lights told me that my textile gear wasn't as good as I thought - foot down, and feel that cold water running down the back of my leg into my boot
Arrived at his parent's house where we were staying just after, and got them laughing with our drowned rats look
No pics of all this - too wet to take the camera out
We were planning to empty the panniers, and then ride down to the Hein Gericke clothing store to get me a new jacket anyway, now I had to add new pants to the list too! We got a lift down in the car and spent out
Sunday morning dawned sunny and bright, so tinted visors went on
Then came off again as it clouded over :baldy We took off, aiming to ride through the North York Moors to Whitby on the North Sea coast, then down the coast to Scarborough and Bridlington, coming home via York. All went well, going up over Sutton Bank (1:4 hill - a Toyota Yaris (Echo in NA) came to a halt on it ahead of us
Lovely ride over the top, with long sweeping corners and great views over the moors. Got to Helmsley and decided to stop for a coffee and a chat with the other bikers there. We were just deciding to push on, when the heavens opened again
Decided to call it quits as we'd be running out of dry stuff to put on. Rode back through the minor rural roads to the York ring road, then back to Leeds
Monday was dreary from the get-go with rain, rain and more rain - turning into a great break this
We had a day off and just went into Leeds city centre doing a bit of shopping and another trip to Hein Gericke for some new gloves for me, as mine were completely soaked through by now
Tuesday was our last day, and once again dawned sunny, but turned overcast. We decided to try and go the long way back to the ferry via Bolton Abbey, Aysgarth, Hawes, Ingleton, Lancaster, Blackpool and on to Liverpool. Bolton Abbey was our bail-out point - if it was throwing it down, we could cut across and try to get the earlier ferry home from Heysham
At Bolton Abbey, it was starting to look brighter, so we pushed on up a great road (except the flat-bed truck doing 30mph ahead of us for about 10 miles :puke1 Then it turned off and we could go a bit better, passing through lots of little villages and hamlets, with dry-stone walls surrounding us seperating all the fields
The first stop was at Aysgarth to go and see the falls - Aysgarth is where Robin Hood fought Little John in the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves movie
Pete pulled up at Aysgarth
After Aysgarth we rode on to Hawes where we stopped at the Wensleydale cheese factory - and no, we didn't see Wallace or Gromit in there, but we did buy some cheese
After Hawes we rode down to Ingleton, passing the Ribblehead Viaduct
then road into Lancaster, and having missed the earlier ferry, we continued on down to Blackpool (very tacky in the day time, and the Pleasure Beach was shut up still), then on the M58 past Skelmersdale (very windy, had to ride sat on the pillion area and crouched forward to make headway and dropped into Liverpool from the north. Arrived right on schedule for checking in, and got on the ferry for a very lumpy crossing home
I found that I could get 142 miles from the tank and still have room for 1.5 litres (0.4gal) of petrol when I filled up
All in all, due to the weather, we only did about 400 miles or so, but the last day was a doozy at 7 hours and 200 miles - lots of 3rd and 4th gear work in the Dales and town/city work too