Well, where do we start? Probably the shortest, most attended and most eventful ride Manhoc has had for years.

The day started OK – in fact better than that because Norma was coming out on a ride. She appeared clad in leather (a vision in itself) and announced she was ready to go. So we did.

We set off for the meeting point in plenty of time. A quick trundle up the A56 and we were there. Except we weren’t. The council had closed off the road to the services and there was no way (we could see) to get there. No problem (I thought) – Norma could nip over to Winfields car park and I would wait at the roundabout and point anyone there. Sounded good and it seemed to work but I only saw 3 of our crowd in the next 20 minutes. By 10:30, I’d given up and joined the others. Then someone (Judy?) suggested I call Mark who we had heard on the radio and see where he was. I did that and found that there was a whole bunch of them sitting in the services car park having negotiated a way around the roadworks. Oops – red faced to match my bike. So we togged back and headed off to the services the long way round (about 4 miles to do 200 yards).

When we got there, there was a sea of bikes. Not only the regular Manhoc riders but a refugee (Richard) from West Coast Riders and Jean and all her friends who had wanted to get out for the day. Over 20 bikes, I think (I lost count with them all milling around). A quick chat, apologies for being late even though I was 20 minutes early and we set off. We actually left about 30 minutes later than planned but never mind.

With the radios working fine (at least 5 of us had them at last count), there was little fear of anyone getting lost so we made progress up the A56 and over Sabden onto the Clitheroe road. By the time we got to Waddington, we were getting split up so I arranged for us all to regroup at the car park at Slaidburn. This worked well (apart from Pete complaining he didn’t have enough time for a fag) and we set off again in formation to head North into the Trough of Bowland. That is a lovely road if a bit narrow and has great scenery to look at. After about 20 minutes we reached the end at High Bentham when suddenly over the radio “Stop – we’ve had a faller”. I couldn’t really understand this since it was a straight road, but I pulled over at the next convenient space (double yellow lines, but the cars could get round) and waited. Peter (Medic) turned back to see if he could help and the rest of us awaited instructions from the people behind. [The radios were a brilliant help and worked well].

It turned out that Pam had braked too hard when negotiating a parked car and had been flipped sideways when the front wheel tucked in. She was conscious but hurting and an ambulance had been called. Once I knew this, I got all the ones with me to move over to the nearby pub (the Horse and Farrier) and wait and I said to Norma that we would use the mobile phones once I got there (more on the pub later). There was no point in us going back, there were already quite a few people at the crash site and more would only have got in the way.

We all parked up (eventually, the car park had quite a slope on it) and went inside to get food and drink and await reports. No phone reception inside (unless you were at the window) so every few minutes I went outside to check on progress. About the third call I got an excited Norma – “Guess what – an Air Ambulance has arrived”. Yes, that’s right, a helicopter had drifted in on the breeze to help out. Wonderful stuff and very quick. It turns out he was in the area anyway having attended another call. He got there about 20 minutes before the ground based ambulance, but soon there were two of them looking after Pam. Everyone else was contributing in their own way including Mark and friend directing the traffic and the rest giving advice and consolation.  Norma called out the RAC (more on this later) but we didn’t wait for them. The bike was wheeled into a helpful neighbours drive. An RAC van turned up but since they thought they were picking up a car, they went away again.

Meanwhile, back in the pub, food had arrived and was being consumed. It turns out the owner was learning to ride and had a 125 in her garage, so she was very supportive. She was also the chef and the portions and quality were superb. Highly recommended and we may well go back there on a future ride.

Finally, we heard that the Air Ambulance had taken off with Pam and that some riders were coming to the pub and some had gone over the Lancaster hospital to check on Pam. So, I ordered some food for Norma and waited for them to arrive and regale us with the latest news and gossip. Sure enough the tales started and the conversation carried on for a while. Eventually the subject came around to where we should go next. By this time it was around 2:30 and too late for a visit to the Wild Boar Park. We had a discussion and decided to just have a bit of a ride along various country roads and see how we got on.

As it turned out, the ride was great apart from me leading everyone around a village with no exit road. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and quite a few came back to our house for a last brew before heading off home.

Further updates on Pam and her bike:

Pam had a punctured lung and was being kept in until it had settled down. She eventually came home on Thursday. She is still dead keen to go out on a bike again, but probably not a cruiser.

The saga of the bike: At 8:30pm that evening I got a call from the gentleman (Pete) who had got the bike on his drive. No-one had been to pick it up. He offered to store it until the weekend but we thought that was an imposition and said we’d deal with it. I rang Jean who contacted Pam to get her address. Norma then rang the RAC and told them in no uncertain terms to get it sorted (that was the short version of the conversation!). We thought the situation was resolved and went to bed.

At 12:03am, I got a missed call from a Blackpool number. On Monday evening, I rang it and it was Ffylde Motorcycles who were supposed to pick the bike up. They had got the bike, but no-one had signed for it and they had not taken the keys because Pete was in bed (we had asked them to ring him first but that message had not got through. Norma asked where the bike was and they “thought” it was at Pams house.

Wednesday, Pam rings me to thank everyone. I asked her whether her bike was home and she said it wasn’t.  I explained what had gone on and she said she’d ring the RAC because she was bored and wanted something to do. Friday, I log onto Facebook and the bike has been found, but I don’t know any more of the story than that.

So, all in all, quite an adventure – but one I don’t want to repeat. Loads of pictures (thanks to Jean and Derek for theirs)