Castle Howard 26/4/09
I had arranged to go out on the Sunday with my brother and a couple of his friends; as nothing was on with the club I thought 'why not'. As they don't use their bikes much it would be a good day out showing them Castle Howard. Terry had sent an email saying that he was planning a ride out on the same day. I offered to lead the ride out as I already had a route planned. So Terry suggested that I lead the run.
Well, it was a beautiful sunny morning at Squires Cafe and we had an excellent turn out and with good weather we set off. First off we went through Sherburn out towards Cawood. It was uneventful as we made our way towards the Garage at Escrick. Here we had a little bit of drama as Gail's bike refused to start after being filled up at Escrick Garage. However, Dr Dave came up trumps and diagnosed a flat battery, too many accessories draining the battery, after borrowing some jump leads the bike was fired up and off we went. I had planned to go through Wheldrake and on to the west of Pocklington; but that would clash with the route back so off we went left at Wheldrake and on to the York bypass. After a bit of white lining we turned off the A64 towards Castle Howard, we turned into the car park and lined the bikes up while most looked for the toilet. While we were chatting most made use of the lovely ice cream; Ken, did well with a three scooper!! Took some licking....
We set off back towards the wooden cafe at Fimber, and rather than stick to the main roads, lots of police activity, I took us back on some minor roads that I used as a keen cyclist, these were used when I went to the coast; and they avoid the busy roads. Now these are roads that don't see a lot of cars and as they wind a bit you can explore the sides of your tyres; however as they don't see many cars the middles tend to have grass and the bends do have a little loose aggregate (GRAVEL!!) still as the speeds are low it is rarely a problem. You can get all the way from Pocklington to the coast on these roads. As we arrived at the cafe at Fimber we all managed to get a coffee and unwind after the run, only one rider complained about the roads and he is the same rider who doesn't like bends on a bike! (my brother). Still I believe he is swapping his bike for a model train set!
From the cafe we set off back to Hirst Courtney. Terry led from here and I got back into the safety of the group. On the way back through Wetwang (sounds like a male skin complaint?) we passed a plod on a FireBlade; miserable sod didn't nod back, mind you neither do most sports bike riders do they? Well on through Beighton, we saw some sports bike riders getting a talking to from a plod, looked like he was having a rant at them! Hey ho! But a new development was spotted on the road from Middleton on the Wolds, on the right hand side about a mile out of the village there was a small furniture van with the doors slightly ajar... call me suspicious but I couldn't help but give it another coat of looking at and; yes it was a camera; the sneaky bleeders had got the doors pulled close leaving enough room for the camera to get a good view of the approaching bikes. Still the dear souls, bless them, hadn't bargained for the fact the van had a translucent roof giving us with eyes a good view of the heroes inside. Prats!!! And yes the old camera van was at Howden, wouldn't be the same if they weren't there would it? Well the ride back to Hirst Courtney went a bit wrong but we all met up at the end.
Graham