Ever have one of those weekends when everything just seems to go right ?.... and more !
Well, my mate's just had one.
It started when the local Honda dealer phoned to tell him that his long awaited Africa Twin was ready for collection, so we headed on down there yesterday (Saturday) to pick it up. He had a good ride home and then,just as he got back, but not before he had chance to get the bike into his garage, it started to piss it down. He then went into the house..... only to find that the £20 e/w punt he'd had on the Grand National had come in at 50/1 ..... and netted him a cool £600 plus. We then made arrangements to head out for a ride the next day as it was looking good on the weather forecast - he had a new bike to play with and I've just fitted new chain and sprocks to my 900 which needed testing out - so the Lakes was earmarked... and it turned out to be a glorious day.
We set off early to miss the traffic and had wall to wall sunshine for the whole day....
..... we took a route south of the Lakes on the A590 and round to the coast from Bootle to grab a lungful of sea air and then on to the A595 to Muncaster before turning inland roughly following La'al Ratty to the station cafe at Boot for lunch. From there we took the road over the Hardknott Pass, the steepest road in England,.....
..... before descending down to the really picturesque road that follows Cockley Beck and then on over Wrynose Pass (another steepy) eventually to pick up the easily missed turning on to Side Gates which took us past Blea Tarn and up to the cattle grid at the head of Langdale Valley to my favourite view in the Lakes... (which I successfully managed to NOT get a decent picture of, doh!)...
....At this point we swapped bikes so I could try out this new 'wonder' bike from Honda - and a good bit of kit it is too. I took it through Langdale Valley and then on through Coniston to the Church House Inn at Torver before handing it back.
We made our way home from there, a total round trip of 229 miles, and what a cracking day it was and a good prequel to our continental trip which is coming up in June
Dan
Edited by tr7dan, 25 September 2016 - 04:01 am.