The trouble with girls
This year has been one of the best and busiest ones for me and my motorcycle. The big 'official' BTB.C trips - Wales, Scotland, Italy, some 'unofficial' ones such as Harv's excellent Cotswold tour, not to mention pleasant weekends spent with Mr Edge, Carl and Adam pounding the highways and bars of the Welsh Marches - many thousands of miles spent largely without the company of my darling wife. Sure, she joined us for the Spring Welsh run, but due to family considerations (and possibly my inconsideration) always misses out on the others. Even a seasoned wife-neglecter like me needs to make amends sometimes, so accordingly I booked twin rooms at Bridlington and Hawes, and asked her to accompany me on the Coast-to-Coast.
My parents were surprisingly amenable to babysitting for a full weekend, my mum still can't come to terms with 'her little Johnny' being interested in nasty dangerous motorbikes, but things are changing, this time I even had to ask her to tell me to be careful - it seemed to give me good luck on every other run I've been on. The kids were dropped off on the Friday morning, and after a bit of payroll processing and cheque writing at the office we set off on the trek up North. I will omit the description of the ride up - it is more the territory of 'Ride' journalists comparing R6's to Fireblades or some other turgid test. We arrived at Bridlington, our home for the night at about 4PM.
The hunt for the hotel did not bode well, my wife's navigation abilities are approximately equal to her skill at gutting rabbits or car maintenance. Suffice to say, the piece of paper churned out by Autoroute with a perfectly sensible map made no sense to her, so we negotiated the Bridlington traffic from three different directions before I took over.
The hotel was perfectly adequate, with a four poster bed to boot, and no Carl to share it with. I looked forward to a night of marital passion, until fate intervened with a phone call from a certain Mr David Spencer, who luck would have it was also in this charming seaside town for the night. We arranged to meet later at a Weatherspoon pub for a drink and a bite to eat. In the meantime we went up to town to try to buy a bike lock, there being no secure parking available. We eventually found a car accessory shop - you know the type, with all manner of additional lights, performance enhancing exhaust tailpipes etc - an unkind person might have imagined that it was just my sort of place, except I'm not interested in cars. We found a worryingly lightweight lock for £9.99 and promptly bought it for a night of peace of mind. On the way back to the digs we spotted Tim & Jill's impressive black AT parked up in a driveway of another hotel, it looked nicer than ours, so we popped in to try to find them. They must have been upstairs shagging because the manager couldn't get them to answer. We left a note instead which read "We know where you live, see you in the bar later - TTFN Garties" Unfortunately, events took over, and we never did get to see them until the next day.
Teenage Dirtbag
We met up with Dave at the appointed time, and proceeded to do ourselves half to death with cheap Bacardi Breezers (Sue) and Kronenbourg 1664 (me & Dave). We also ordered some food which arrived promptly and was very reasonable. Time slips by when you are in good company, and Dave is never less than that. We ended up still dressed in our biking gear in a seafront theme bar, where the theme seemed to be 'get as drunk as possible and select one of the many teenage girls' - I know several BTB.C'ers who would certainly have given it a go, and one who would maybe have chosen a boy!
Brewers droop
I don't know about the randy duo from Guernsey, our four poster was too darned comfortable to rumple up and besides, me and the old girl were asleep as soon as we hit the pillows. We arose in the morning however, too early for breakfast, so we made our way from the hotel as noisily as possible. The bike was amazingly still there, but with a chip wrapper stuffed inside the fairing. It was fairly chilly as we rumbled up the coast to Flamborough and its famous 'Head', my heated grips were not working after a lazy summer, so I had to sort them out as soon as we arrived at the café by the lighthouse. A few of the more resolute ones were already parked up and negotiating breakfasts which looked like the amount of food I would normally eat in a week. As far as practicable, I said hello to everyone and introduced myself to new faces. Paul and John found me a couple of little jobs to do and the place gradually filled up.
At the appointed time, they began their introductory speeches, and we were handed our clue cards and answer sheets. It is always a bit of a shock to see the tasks for the day in black and white, and most of us either lit another fag or had another cuppa to calm us down. We offered to show young Adam around for a bit, as he looked all lost and lonesome in his big baggy camo trousers. The rest of the riders and teams of riders were manically marking up maps and planning cunning wheezes to get the maximum points. We calmed ourselves down and marked all the waypoints for the day, noting the gradual dispersal west and before very long we were on the road seeking the usual names of pubs/dates of chapel/colours of signs that have become a lovable hallmark of a PC/JB event. Hunting down an obelisk in Rudston provided a welcome distraction. Our PMR intercoms were proving to be the usual godsend - I was navigating and driving whilst Sue read the clues and wrote down the answers. Adam's was predictably not working, so we had to rely on handsignals and shouting.
Cereal Killer
Some homicidal farmer had decided that today would be 'National Grain Spillage Day' Tons of the slippery stuff, which is very much like ball bearings, was heaped down the centre of quite a few of the roads, the birds hadn't noticed it so it was pretty recent, and I wouldn't be surprised that his entire load had been lost by the time he got to his farm - probably getting more-than-adequate compensation for it as well!
We spent rather too long looking for a pub that had changed colour at Staintondale, Sue asked the man at the Post Office, we must have been the first of many, as I gather from conversations with other riders that he got 'fed up' with being asked about this bloody pub (which was closed down anyway) and got all surly. I was pleased to note that the Llama farm was still in operation from last year.
Come on in, the water's lovely!
We refuelled at a petrol station on the A171 just before the turn to the first mandatory check at Boggle Hole. It is always well worth staying a while to watch the loonies and 'careful charlies' negotiate the shallow ford - there is always a drama sooner or later. Paul and John seemed much more relaxed this year, which was nice to see, and were having a chat and a laugh with everyone. Soon we were off again at top speed looking for more clues and starting to really enjoy ourselves. The navigation was getting smoother and very soon we were getting the problem of actually riding through a village before the clue was read out! We managed to get a few pictures of the 'Sir Nigel Gresley' at Grosmont - Sue's dad is an absolute train fanatic and he was chuffed to see them later. We stopped just short of the level crossing and noticed an irate Special PC head for us with a full head of steam. Being Garty I let him almost get to us and then drove to the other side of the crossing - naturally he couldn't be bothered to follow us!
Dick Dastardly
Another amusing incident was at Gillamoor, where one of the clues was asking for the date of the Village Shop. Unfortunately, the months since PC and JB initially visited have seen a veritable doubling of the ivy growth, and the sign was completely covered. Being closed as is the nature of village shops, Sue went across the street to ask a clueless local whilst I looked for practical ways to gain the information. Like most people who live in villages these days, the hoon who lived opposite had only used the shop once! I had found a long mop and a took down an ice cream flag, in moments I had lashed them together with insulating tape, stood on a bench and Sue read off the date whilst I carefully moved the ivy - so as not to damage it. With the info in the bag we roared off again - after I had hidden the tools of course!
The idyllic scenery was simply gorgeous in the fine weather that had been arranged for us. It was a great pleasure to show one of my favourite places, Rosedale Abbey, to Sue, we actually followed a wedding procession on the road up to it. What a great place to be married! We stopped at the village shop to ask about the 'chimney' the owner of which proved to be a mine of local information! He had a very intimate knowledge of all the pubs in his beautiful part of the world, and was most useful in saving us from visiting a few of them!
I am 'competitive Dad'
I don't normally regard myself as being very competitive in life, perhaps I choose to believe this rather than face the fact that I am in fact the opposite - exceedingly competitive along with all the ills that go with it. If I'm in a queue I want to go first, if I'm on my mountain bike I want to get down/up the hill first, if I'm on my motorbike I want to go faster than everyone else - with a couple of exceptions of course! And the Coast-to-Coast was going to be mine again. Over the course of the day Sue got quite heated about this, and I was beginning to wish that the intercoms were not so efficient! By the time we got to the next mandatory check point it was getting rather strained as we approached a full-blown domestic. The centre of Osmotherley was being chopped about by roadworks, and there were big 'no entry' signs blocking the logical way in. Obviously these restrictions were for other road users, not us, so we disregarded them and carried on past amazed locals and piles of tarmac. Very soon we met up with a petulant Mr Bramah, who didn't seem to believe us when we stated that we hadn't found the mandatory yet - he was convinced that he hadn't passed it either coming in the opposite direction and I think that the suspicion crossed his mind that I might be lying. My butter-wouldn't-melt expression must have convinced him otherwise, so we set out together and found Paul & co a few miles up the road chuckling about Tony passing them earlier! Adam had gone missing earlier, as he was running short on fuel, we were just about to leave and he arrived in a fairly ragged state.
Luv don't live here anymore
The rest of the afternoon was spent doing every one of the last 25 checkpoints in a methodical and fantastically quick manner. The navigation was going great, and Sue had settled down to her tasks and was too busy to notice the speed. This all came unstuck on the lovely road to Kettlewell, where I figured that we had time to do a bit of on-bike filming as I had rashly promised Paul earlier. This was fairly disastrous - I was riding way too fast on a chronically undulating (read big air-time) road and she unfortunately let go of her intercom lead, which was ripped off by the rear wheel. It was perhaps opportune, as she had long since run out of rude names for me, and I was still obsessed with winning and being inconsiderate. We stopped briefly to have a quick shout at each other and to try to fix the intercom, but to no avail. Meanwhile, our young apprentice, Adam, had zoomed off on his own - BAD!
We found him a mile or so up the road stood looking helplessly at a horizontal bike with a Marlboro quivering between his lips. Although we feared that he had experienced yet another 'off', he had in fact dropped it whilst turning round to look for us! We picked it up before all the petrol had poured out and carried on to Kettlewell to confirm what I already knew about the name of the (closed) petrol station and another I didn't know, the name of a landlord at a pub. The last few miles were taken at a fairly leisurely pace, as we had sore bums, hands and a bit of making up to do. We also had plenty of time, and arrived at the final check for the day to sign off.
I could murder an Indian
We were booked in at the Fountain Hotel, and didn't speak much until we had a good long hot shower each (or the Fountain Hotel's lukewarm and fitful approximation of!) I made the first suggestion of the day that Sue agreed with - to go to immediately to the Curry House next door. Within a few minutes we were sipping chilled wine from the local Spar and on first-name terms again, with a huge and varied menu open on each of our laps. A long day in the saddle with no lunch, no tea stops and only a couple of nanosecond leg-stretches had given us incredible insatiable hunger, and we ploughed through several delicious starters and huge main course with extra nan bread and pronounced it one of the best Indian meals we had ever had. We pointed our distended stomachs back at the Fountain and followed them to the function room, which by now was crowded with noisy big and little trailbikers.
I have seen this movie before…
I was wearing my new and controversial 'Soft and Southern' T-shirt, and immediately fell into conversation with one of many friends old and new that I spoke with that night. I suppose that the ones I spoke with earlier saw me in a better light than the later ones, as I was very 'tired' and soon developed slurred speech. Big Paul was sat at his table conducting proceedings with a huge grin and never-empty glass of beer. I surprised myself with a clean run at the so-called 'Special Test' that in his article I note Mr Bramah maliciously accuses me of practising on beforehand. We slapped on an extremely long and largely unedited video of the Scottish and Italian trips, and passed photos around. Dave 'Blondie' Bolton had brought prints of us riding the Stella for each of us, which was a nice thought. The 'CrapCam' footage had to be replayed several times, as members of the audience were crying with laughter and couldn't see properly.
Voulez-vous couché avec moi?
The evening drew to a close as the final credits rolled on the Stella video, it had been a long and enjoyable day, and one of the best nights out with the BTB.C for a very long time. Our marital bed was once more the scene of an extremely hard-core sleep, and it was quite a shock to be literally blown out of bed by my nasty spiteful little alarm clock at the ungodly hour of 7AM. I unwisely attempted a shave, and turned soft semi-beard into bleeding and painful stubble, then went for a little walk through the town and took a few photos of the sun rising over the fells and contemplated the day ahead. Breakfasts are always good at the Fountain, and I chose kippers - as I never get them at home - along with a couple of other things! I spent most of the rest of the day regurgitating and burping fishy breath into the chinbar of my Arai
We taunted a few of the other competitors sat in the breakfast room for a while, and Paul never once gave any clues that we stood a chance of winning, in fact, by now I had decided that we stood no chance, and was preparing to use Sue as an excuse for a poor performance.
Wreckless Eric
The start was 'Le Mans style' - a bit like last year when PC dumped the route cards into a puddle, but this time the weather was too good and there were no puddles! The map was soon marked up and we set out on possibly the most manic and adrenaline-charged day of riding I've ever done. It's honestly a blur of half-remembered directions and well-remembered fear. Quite how we stayed upright on some of those roads I will never know - I have a special relationship with my bike and will never sell it because I genuinely feel that it looks after me. Two riders whose opinions I respect tell me that it is too tall, unstable, unsafe and virtually unrideable, but to me it's as comfortable as a favourite armchair and as natural to drive as the most thoroughbred machine. I am also told that it's considerably quicker than a standard Africa, even two-up. The crowning moment came on the long, straight but undulating (again, read 'big air') Roman road to Tan Hill Inn, surely a road to respect if ever there was one. Here is Garty and wife, parents of two beautiful daughters and with everything to lose, absolutely whipping the Llama's ass just to get a bonus checkpoint with a couple of minutes to spare. I'd never want to do that road again, as I would want the impossible, which is to do it faster.
The road to hell
A little later, we had an interesting interlude, being jet-washed by a couple of contractors employed to prevent Foot & Mouth travelling West, I also got yelled at for taking a pee in a field by some nasty little man who was too scared to wind his window down properly.
The spread of checkpoints was huge, our ridetime short, and there was much to do that day. The M6 was soon crossed and we nailed the Shap waypoints quickly, curtailing the reckless urge to continue much further north via Ullswater. Our available time indicated and insisted that we follow General Bramah and his special forces south at very high speed in order to cross the two most hellish and Godawful places on this planet - Kendal and Windermere. Why the great creator (not Mr Bramah) chose to place beautiful mountains and lakes so close to these endless car parks, tourist grot parlours and numberless outdoor shops (mostly selling overpriced outdoor gear to people whose only outdoor experience has been getting out of the car) I will never know, but to attempt to travel across them against a clock that appears to have been snorting amphetamines is a deeply stressful thing.
Kendal, with its pointless and frustrating one-way system continues to baffle and infuriate me. A sickeningly heavy police presence (mad rush of tourists to buy mint cake?) meant that Garty-stylee advanced filtering was impossible and as always, illegal. We just had to bimble along, slightly faster than the 'pouring treacle' traffic. The A591 soon offered a relief of sorts, the ability to vector forward at speeds approaching normal was the harbinger of the slough (pronounced 'sluff') of despair that is Windermere and its environs. The clock was now operating at double speed, we had several miles to go and not enough minutes as we dawdled behind a complete roadblocking asshole towing an over-wide boat trailer towards Bowness. At last the outskirts of Bowness beckoned and we overtook at least eight sportsbike riders in a middle-aged fluorescent clump obeying speed limits and appearing to be on some sort of IAM convention. I don't know how many miles it is between Bowness and Newby Bridge, but I suppose that Norris McWhirter would need to be sat on the back with a stopwatch and a blindfold to confirm any wild claims I might make.
Dead Mans curve
My insane competitiveness was now mentally draining me as I looked for opportunities to overtake, some very risky and others virtual bonnet-sprawlers, I remember overtaking even the legendary Jon Bagshaw - never a rider to hang about - on a particularly dangerous bit past several cars and a coach. Again, the great God of biking was on my side and with my Africa doing the riding for me we passed the valley of the shadow of death (and cheap outdoor clothing) and found the fresher air of Oxen Park with Blondie and Darkie & co in hot pursuit. We had long since lost our spiritual son, Adam, who had no doubt travelled a further 15 waypoints into Marlboro country in the time between. We picked up our last answer sheet and carried on, stopping a few miles up the road , we looked at the clock, did a few calculations based on ideal conditions and exceptional time-made-good and realised that a lot of Sunday afternoon was going to be spent keeping the loop short and avoiding the vicarious and time-consuming pleasure of Hardknott. The sensible money was on Broughton Mills and a long anti-clockwise circuit of Barrow-in-Furness. Here Sue ventured into the pub at Broughton to interrogate the locals on the location of the Church - they were all too pissed to help, and one of them told her she had lovely hair! Needless to say, we found it just up the road. Some exceptional good luck and a bit of lateral thinking provided the answer for another - the operators of a wind farm. The mapping that we carried was far too lacking in detail to tell us where it was, so I followed the power lines until we saw the rotating blades. A gaggle of startled and suspicious looking youths in small cars in the car park adjacent to it convinced us that this was not the place to leave the bike unattended. I took an executive decision to curtail the hunt for the last few, and we headed for Ulverston as the clock appeared to flash minutes as quickly as seconds. This is the bit I don't understand, we didn't have enough time to reach the Marina at Roa Island. There were speed limits, 60 mph bends, other road users to consider. Despite this, I rode like a man possessed with a wife doing an excellent rag-doll impression on the back, long past caring. I thought, no, I knew we had done really badly, with a crap points total and with one minute to spare we did a rolling stoppie as we ineptly missed the turn to the finish. Sue could hardly get off the bike to hand in our card as I parked up in the nearest convenient place - and promptly flaked out and spent a good few minutes lying draped over the tank with my head on the handlebars.
Glittering Prize
After a large cup of tea and wedge of chocolate cake made by Sue and Anton, the genial owners of the Villa Marina, I was feeling just about alive. Someone was asking me complex things about Garmin GPS's, Dave Edge was wheedling a website out of me, Adam was apologising for all sorts of silly stuff, everyone was talking and all of a sudden my name was called and PC plonked another bloody great cup in my hands. I was dumbstruck, and rudely forgot to shake hands with some of the other competitors. Nevertheless, receiving a prestigious trophy such as this aided my recovery in a miraculous way, and my strength returned. Like the other competitors, I also had a long ride home to face, but with a trophy to show the children, a wife on the pillion who loves me again - for all my faults, and a promise to do it again next year, it passed reasonably quickly and safely. If you can call 60 miles of carving and filtering 'safe' as we negotiated the 'rolling carpark' towards Birmingham!
And finally ..
Paul and John deserve the usual huge and sincere thanks from Sue, myself and all of the other competitors. The Coast to Coast is a top-class event, and a testimony to the hard work and care that these two guys put into everything that they do, they are a couple of real stars. Long may it continue to be the premier Big Traillie event in this country.
The Garty's
After last year's debacle, which saw Manchester BTBc C2C Squad almost destroy itself with various group dynamic, histrionic and profanisonic route planning and navigation difficulties I was hoping we would have it well sorted this time around. Team changes were forced on us, both unfortunately thanks to Cagiva's legendary reliability but the four man squad of myself, John "TDM" Boothroyd, Bob "Dominator" Johnson and Andy "AT" Rigg were looking for a good finish this year. So it was I dragged myself out of bed at 5am on the Saturday morning and hit the road for our 6 am rendezvous. Weather was kind and the ride to Flamborough Head was uneventful until a mile from our destination - I began thinking about breakfast a bit too early, a corner leapt out at me and I locked the back in an effort to avoid the only car we'd seen for miles. "Hmmmm…." as Carl or Dennis would say.
With my "moment" for the weekend out of the way I wolfed down my brekkie and said hello to the gang. Dave Spencer appeared, bleary eyed from his night before and joined the team. Unlike last year (where we spent an hour arsing around with a GPS unit, a map and a teapot) we soon had a route to the first mandatory laid out.
We got off, with one of my trademark crap wheelies for PC's camcorder and hit the road for the first check - wrong! The first check was back at the lighthouse, doh! Good job someone was awake and got the answer.
The morning was a gentle introduction, not hard to navigate and none too hurried. We had trouble finding a sign near some tea rooms in Ravenscar, but other than that did well with our four-man routine (Dave was excused duties at this point). One navigating, one looking for the answer on arrival, one writing and one checking the next destination - worked a treat. We got to Mandatory 1 with time to spare (unlike last year) and no one fell in the river (unlike last year) so it was going well.
From Robin Hood's Bay our road took us north over the Cleveland Hills and into Osmotherly, for a mandatory check. The check was nowhere to be found, and when we came across other BTBc'ers coming from the south we decided to turn about. Sure enough, there was the check, a couple of miles up the road with a laughing PC wondering how we managed to fly past, in hot pursuit of a sports bike.
John Gartside appeared, anxiously looking for his lost drone (Ikkle Adam) so with Garty stalling for time long enough to make a cell call (Mmmmm) we headed off.
The Saturday afternoon was to be our trump card, we had a route covering ALL the checks and as a bonus, the Kettlewell to Hawes road thrown in for a laugh. This time, though luck deserted us as John B picked up a spike in his rear tyre coming into the check at Coverham. Lacking bike-to-bike comms, we lost time regrouping and assessing the situation. John had plugged his tyre with a tubeless repair kit, limiting him to 45 mph (yeah right). We had to leave the Kettlewell section (shame, it's a blast) and head for the Ropeworks and the end of Day 1 via the fast A684 to Hawes. With the sun low and in-yer-face, this ride was a nightmare (for me) of too-bright followed by pitch-black, impossible to see the road ahead. I hate that. Still, with time pressing we managed to roast into Hawes with seconds to spare, signing off at 6.40. We met up with Marcus from Carnforth, who had kindly agreed to take our spare bed (and save us the embarrassment of the landlady missing out on another twenty quid). We set off to the digs, soon showered and ready for a lift back into town in the back of the Landrover. Mr Fawcett was kind enough to put papers in there for us, but they were old MCN's so we sat on them rather than read. The night was pretty tame for the BTBc, everyone feeling weary from their day's sport, but we had the Special Test to complete. Garty cleared it with the air of a man in form, I imagine those long winter nights in Ross must fly by as John spends hours perfecting his electro-buzzer wire technique. Being crap at most things, I managed to make a balls of it but did quite well at the Guinness, so that worked out eventually. Our three-mile walk back to the digs was soon over (torch and fleece jacket this year!) and John's bed had appeared so it was off to sleep for the lot of us.
I was awake early, and took the opportunity of a leisurely shower followed by a walk round the farm, watching the sun come up over the fells and shooting some cutesy pictures. It was going to be another great day for riding. I headed back to the digs and packed the bike, readied kit - the stuff I usually do (or leave) in a big panic as everyone else is setting off. The rest slept while I was busy. Today I had it all under control. I was still in control at 7.40 as I pulled the thorn out of my front tyre, controlling the hissss of escaping air. Bugger. Marcus was able to provide levers, pump and inner tube. BMW provided tools, Andy provided mass to weight the back of the bike down and John provided calm words to smooth the repair process. I was glad of the centre stand. A bit later, and I had managed to get 8 psi into the tube before the pump seals leaked in protest. That made the ride into Hawes a laugh. Praise be, Bob Johnson has a foot pump! Well done that man. The whole episode shamed me, as did my cable trouble in Italy - I manage to carry enough on my XR to be self-sufficient, I must try harder with the BTB…
Marcus was kind enough to join us for the second day, hopefully he would provide some much needed local knowledge for those hard-to-navigate sections in the Lake District. For now though we were on familiar Dales roads and roared off heading for Buttertubs and the Tan Hill Inn. A super blast, last year it was in cloud but this year brilliant sunshine... I wished I had been arsed to set up the on-bike camera, the sight of Marcus and Andy in front of me nailing all the jumps would have looked great. Hope everyone not familiar with the area enjoyed it. The howling winds by the way are ever present.
From Tan Hill the route leads west, between the Brough/Kirby Stephen gap from where the view over Westmorland to the massif of the Lake District is breathtaking. Swooping down into Cumbria, we hit trouble as the area is awash with FAM restrictions.
We have a fine blast along a section of the A6, a truly grand old trunk road and one I plan to explore more fully some day. Shap is a strange village; obviously once a major stopping point, now reduced to lurking in the shadow of the new road higher up the valley.
There then followed the worst part of this year's (and last's come to think of it) Coast-to-Coast; getting around the honeypots of the Lake District. After the day and a half we've just had, exploring quite villages and deserted roads, I wonder why on earth the rabble choose to cram into the Windermere valley - still, let's hope they stay there and leave the good stuff for us…
Marcus's local knowledge was invaluable getting round Kendal to Newby Bridge; he got us lost much better than we managed ourselves last year. The Oxenpark check is a b*st*rd to find, the Travelmaster map is just not detailed enough round here to be useful. Note for next year - bring the Lake District Tourist Map and make life easier.
From here we had an uneventful ride around Ulverston, a part of the world I have never seen. I knew we were near the start of one of the sands roads across Morecambe Bay… maybe some other time!
We were soon pulling into the finish at Villa Marina and a much needed cup of tea. I was met by friends from Barrow, hopefully Paul will take the hint soon enough and swap his Fazer for a BTB! I let him have my finisher's tee shirt, in the hope it will push him in the right direction.
Leaving the finish I hoisted a couple of great wheelies that my mate at the side of the road managed to miss with his camera. We left, looking for fuel only to find we had left Dave Spencer behind. Shit! Oh well, he knows where he lives; he'll get home OK. After the fuel stop we managed to loose Bob as well, the traffic was bad and I was filtering like a courier. Once at the M6 our game took us further east, home via the Trough of Bowland. The road is a blast, with tight turns, bumps and jumps and some great scenery, if you dare look… into Padiham and the big road home, back into Hyde for 7.30. Tired, trophyless and smelly but it's good to get back to a warm welcome. So, that was that - another bloody good do. Lessons? Chill out, take more pictures, be prepared for all eventualities and stay loose!
Tony B.
My day started at 4.00am on Saturday morning when the alarm clock woke me from a light doze, you know what it's like when you're too excited to sleep properly. My plan was to leave home near Chester at 4.30am and blast the 170 miles across to Flamborough in time for a 7.30 breakfast. The M62 trans Pennine route was deserted at that time of the day and apart from stopping once to put an extra jumper on and change to winter gloves to protect against the night's chill, I made it in one hit and rolled up at the Headland café shortly after 7-o-clock .
Paul and John were already there setting up the signing on table and hanging up sponsors posters etc, myself and a handful of other early risers tucked into one of the largest cooked breakfasts I have ever seen! It even included chips! The cafe soon filled up with some 65 riders and pillions and as Paul and John were giving the welcoming brief Sharkie could be heard munching away in the background on the second course of his hearty breakfast - a huge slice of chocolate cake and "squirty cream"!
Bill Naismith and I had decided to ride together along with Robin Dawson, who had heroically decided to ride the C2Con his little XR250, his 900 Elephant still being in dock after its Bardoneccia gearbox breakdown. We knew Robin would have no problems keeping up even with a 40hp deficit, as he is a very good rider.
Compared the experts, the sum total of our map reading brains wouldn't produce enough wood to build a small shed, so we were all well suited . So with shed loads of enthusiasm if nothing else, we hit the road. The first few miles were a frantic dash around with big trailies zapping around in all directions, but we soon settled into a system of sorts and the crowds of bikes thinned out as riders chose different clue finding routes. The route to the first checkpoint passed quickly and our only mishap came at Ravenscar when a bewildered Bill and I wondered why Robin suddenly tear arsed off up the road without us? Robin himself was soon wondering why as well , It transpired that he had followed the wrong Africa for about 3 or 4 miles thinking he was behind me!
Reduced to a duo, Bill and I set off for Boggle Hole and the checkpoint. Unfortunately we had set off down the worlds longest dead end which as the crow flies was only about 2 miles from the checkpoint. To retrace our steps would have had us incurring a time penalty so another cunning plan had to be hatched. I noticed earlier that we had crossed a bridge over a disused railway line. It probably wasn't entirely legally kosher, but we had a look and after a quick "shall we?" we took to the track. It was the most unbelievable stroke of luck, the railway line took us straight to the lane that led to the river crossing and the check point . Re-united with Robin, we swapped our stories and set off again to find a few more clues and some lunch .
Railways featured again in our day when we arrived in the village of Grosmont, the level crossing gates had just closed to allow the famous loco Sir Nigel Gresley to pass. We stopped in a café near the station for a leisurely lunch and planned our afternoon route. The rest of the afternoon took us on some brilliant scratching roads over the North York's moors into the Cleveland hills and the checkpoint at Swainby. We bumped into Sharkie ,Lloyd and Harv and swapped a few clues. I some how got the impression that they also weren't taking this too seriously! We handed in our answer sheets for marking by "sir" and headed down into Northallerton for petrol and then headed West towards our overnight stop at Hawes. Time was getting on by now and it was decision time, Robin's arse had fallen out big style with the "seat" on the little XR and I had by now spent well over 12 hours on the road. Was it worth going on and risking spoiling the day for the sake of getting a couple more clues? We all decided not and high tailed it to Hawes to sign off . Bill and I were sharing a room in the Fountain Hotel and Robin set off to find his b+b. We were all showered and sinking our first pint as some of the more committed entrants began straggling in.
The night, as is the norm on BTBC do's, passed by far too quickly, I am convinced that time passes by at a speed in proportion to one's alcohol intake . There was a sort if informal "swap shop" of folk exchanging photo's from the Stella trip and I was given a great picture of myself ascending the Stella by Dave (Blondie) who had thoughtfully taken pics of us all on the climb. The night wrapped up after the video show of action from the Scotland and Stella trips, with Garty's hilarious " Bog cam " footage of Fraz in Scotland being encored 3 or 4 times by public demand.
I suspect that there was a subdued atmosphere in more than one dining room at breakfast time on the Sunday morning . It was a cool start but with brilliant sunshine much the same as Saturday's weather, we really were very lucky the whole weekend! It was an awesome sight to see 60 odd big trailies lined up for a Le Mans style start in the Old Station car park. We signed on and headed North, and didn't spare the horses over some stunning moorland roads and over Tan Hill . I'm sure Garty Had fielded a few ringers because he and Sue were everywhere you looked - man, machine, wife and map in perfect harmony!
We had been lucky so far that the foot and mouth situation hadn't troubled our routes too much but all this was to change. After splitting up to find a few clues we re-grouped in Crosby Garret , Bill was missing for what seemed a long time. Unfortunately Bill had gone to Waitby where a f+m case had just been confirmed that day, the villagers had manned barricades and actually chased Bill off waiving sticks and brooms at him! We visited the lovely little village of Orton which has a hand made chocolates shop where I bought my wife and daughter some scrumptious chocolates as a present. ( 10 brownie points ). Time was again pressing on and we had to abandon our planned route and dashed to the next checkpoint in the Grizedale forest with only minutes to spare.
The route planning committee convened again and decided to find a cosy little Lakeland pub for a well deserved extended lunch. Bill had just taken his helmet off when he walked straight into the world's lowest pub doorway, the brass "Mind your head" sign leaving it's imprint on his forehead, It was at least a minute before he had collected his senses enough get off the floor!
Knowing we had little chance of troubling the upper end of the points table we had a nice ride down the twisty coast road to the finishing point at Roa Island. Everyone was drinking coffee and eating cakes in the garden of Villa Marina as they chatted whilst waiting for the final scores and awards. The housewives favourite if not the bookies was Garty and he duly obliged with his second win in as many years, he and Sue had worked hard enough for it!
What a cracker of a weekend ! It has , and will be said a thousand times by other people, but I can't thank Paul Clarke and John Burkinshaw enough for the zillions of hours work that must have gone into preparing and organising this brilliant event. See you all next year!
Paul Atkin
From: Geoff Harvey Subject: [bigtrailbike] C2C Ta very much
Harv
From: "Lloyd Glitherow" Afternoon All
Lloyd
From: Knut Kristiansen Colette and Knut
From: AdamAtkins@Skim.com
Date sent: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 09:52:29 -0000
Adam.
From: Paul Atkin All the best , Paul.
From: bnai@talk21.com
Date sent: Sun, 09 Sep 2001 22:09:08 -0000
Bill
From: "Dave Spencer" Dave Spencer
From: "John Gartside" John Gartside
From: "Paul C." PC
All
Back in the office having had a good nights sleep!
Just flicking through the mails both on the main BTBC list and some
direct. Enough thanks and praise to the organisers will be difficult, it
was a top event and was very well thought out. So here are my personal
list of thank you notes, with apologies to anyone Ive missed: 1) Paul C
and John B, a very worthy top spot on the thank you list. 2) Lluverly Boy
Lloyd for drinking with me, buying his round, breaking bread, and
generally slowing me down enough to stay upright all weekend and, I trust,
for not blabbing about my sideways style when under heavy braking. 3) Andy
G for the company, the maintainance with a rock lesson, lightening my load
by throwing the less useful parts of my toolkit away and generally keeping
good spirit in the face of adversity! 4) Bill Naismith for lightening my
wallet by several pounds prior to the off, for the adrenalin rush whilst
aggrevating continental plated cars on the A1, and generally being a good
bloke. 5) ............. and of course the Shark for being .............
The Shark! 6) All those I spoke to at various stages of the weekend both
on and off bike. Finally, congratulations to Garty for the win, from what
I saw it was thoroughly deserved. Hope everyone got back safe and sound.
Subject: [bigtrailbike] Home at last
Just arrived home after stopping and extra night in The
peak District with Harv and Andy G. Firstly Paul C and John B I cant
believe how much work you guys and your helpers must do to get the C2C up
and running, Thanks very much.
The roads and scenery where awesome and even after frazzling my brain on
the ride to Hawes on Saturday evening I was still looking forward to
Sundays Brunch time start, ( no petrol ).
From Fridays Drink up to today its been fantastic, To all the new people
I met and the old ones Thanks for making it a great trip. A special thanks
to the southern softies for the ride up, To Harvs training school which
not only gives you tips but pays for your Hotel !!!, Excellent.
And well done to everyone for taking part, And to Garty and Sue who
seemed to be on everywhere, Much deserved.
Finally a big thankyou to the person who wrote " Please Pass" on the back
off my crash Helmet, And to just about everyone who obliged.
Next year I come prepared ( yeah right )
Hope too see you all soon
Subject: [bigtrailbike] C2C, 2 full days of enjoyment
First of all, John B and Paul C, you're the stars!
And second, thanks to all members and competitors for
making this weekend so special. Colette and myself
thoroughly enjoyed it from we left the doorstep on
Saturday morning till we arrived safely back in Leeds
at 0715 pm.
An event full of nice scenery, nice roads, a nice do
and all the rest of it. And if I may add, no
incidents/accidents of any sort on our behalf anyway.
Look forward to see you all again soon.
Subject: [bigtrailbike] Are we there yet? C2C.
Morning All.
Got back from the C2C last night at 23:30 after a very very long ride home
– 358 miles to be exact. I'd like to say a massive thank you to the big
PC and John B for organising yet another great event. I certainly enjoyed
myself despite dropping the bike on the Ketterwell road and being the
first of the 7 people to come off on the slipperiest ford in the world.
In fact it was so slippery that when I walked back through the ford after
stacking it, I fell over again!
As always with BTBC runs, it was great to see the old faces again and
fantastic to see some new members.
I'd also like to say a huge thank you to John and Sue Gartside for
allowing me to tag along with them for the majority of the weekend. I
really did try my hardest to slow Garty down but despite my best efforts
he still won. I'll bring the stingers along next year!
Well I'm off to straighten out my crash bars and disinfect my boots.
Thanks once again.
See you on the next run.
Subject: [bigtrailbike] While the cat's away!
Hello all,
Arrived home from the c2c safe and sound at
7.00pm, only to find my wife had taken advantage of a
"golden oportunity" and bought a pony for my daughter
Heather.
I can honestly say without fear of contradiction that
this is the most expensive weekend away I have ever
had!
Mucho thanks to Paul and John for a brilliantly
organised event, thanks also to my riding buddies Bill
and Robin we had a great laugh.
Nice to see/meet old/new faces and hope every body
got home o.k.
Subject: [bigtrailbike] C2C
A big thanks to Paul and John for another great weekend!
Home tired but safe @10.25 PM.
See you all soon
Subject: Re: [bigtrailbike] C2C Top weekend
Just been settling down with a couple of Stella's reflecting on the
weekends fun. We turned round more times than I can remember, but I think
it was a Manchester Group master plan to ride all roads in both directions
to test their true quality. Personally I think it was a fine plan, we saw
some fantastic scenery, crossed fords and rode some truly memorable roads,
all twice. No wonder we didn't win, great laugh though and I think we were
all winners anyway. I must congratulate Garty on winning, but also Sue,
Lynn and all the other Navigators for hanging on..... The nicest thing
though was being able to finally applaud Paul and John for organising not
only a great event but also the finest Bike Club in the Northern
Hemisphere. ( Arse Licker Trophy to me next year )
I've got a few pics if you want them email me and I'll send 'um
spen4js@leisure4u.freeserve.co.uk
Subject: [bigtrailbike] Tired and emotional
Bloody hell! Just arrived back in Ross with a huge and heavy trophy
(again!)
Huge and heavy thanks to all who took part - Sue and I had a really
really enjoyable time.
Friends old and new - you know who you are
Wife Sue for putting up with my temper tantrums (I want to win!!! Rant
rave etc) Dave S, Bram and co for an exhilirating ride down to Kendal. My
bike for looking after us and not crashing or breaking down. Adam for
carrying my oil home (now don't go using it!) (Mmmm)
Paul and John for just about everything else, Good grief, what a
brilliant weekend. Time for bed
Subject: [bigtrailbike] C2C
Just got in. Hope you all got back safe and sound. A good doo I
thought. Be good.
ps, please, please write something and send it in for the site