A lovely start to the day - sunny and warm. Not what you expect from the middle of April, but let's enjoy it while we can. Which we did! A quick breakfast and off to Birch Services for the start. When I arrived there were already half a dozen bikes and more arrived while I was there. In the end, we had 13 bikes including John who had only just arrived back from France and Roy who was on his first Manhoc ride. Sharon was there on her new VFR800 (a lovely red colour), Dave on his classic CBX and it was all looking good for a nice ride out. Gary was our leader today because Keith was tired (he was also on the French trip, but was not as hardy (or is that foolhardy?) as John.

So, off we go up the motorway to the junction to start our journey. All was well until we hit Littleborough. "Why are we going this way Gary?" came the cry. "Is there a better way?" came the answer. As it happens, yes there was - but we soldiered on anyway. Through Hebden Bridge and over the moors to Keithley. It's a lovely road over there and we made decent progress. However, after that, it was a bit slow until we had gone through Otley and, through a fortuitous wrong turn, found a really nice road to lead us onto the A59. We wandered up there for a while (at which time, we find out that Nicola quite likes men in Lycra) and, once we had had a quick stop to stretch our legs, arrived at a pleasant pub where a decent carvery was soon consumed.

Then, into York and on to the Railway museum. We parked up and commented at the outrageous parking charge (£9 per day) while we plotted our route out without paying (which wasn't necessary because bikes parked for free). Into the museum and a happy hour spent looking at trains and being told what was what by Dave who is something of a connoisseur of these things. A cup of tea finished us off and we wandered back out into the sunshine to prepare for the return journey. We seemed to lose Alan R here - but he seemed happy enough looking at the trains, so we assume he made his own way back.

Which was very good. We basically stuck to the A59 all the way back. It's a road which is made for biking - winding in places, plenty of places to overtake and very few towns to slow you down. We made good progress and soon found ourselves at yet another pub for our last set of refreshments (apart from John, who went straight home to let Judy rub soothing creams into his delicate parts) before we all went our separate ways.

So, another good run for the Manhoc crowd. I would like to make a particular mention of Joe Stapleton. He started riding last year and was very nervous about riding with us. But he stuck to it, has done some training and today he was as good as anyone there. So, well done Joe.

Click on this picture to see the route we took.

Here's a few pictures to finish the report.