The Manchester Honda

Owners Club

Beverley Minster ride

The day dawned fine – maybe at last we will get some summer. OK, I lied. When I got up, it was heavy mist and drizzle. But the forecast was good, so I assumed a good ride.  Today was the first long ride for my nice new bike. It had all of 43 miles on the clock and I expected it to be almost run in by the time I got home. Yippee…. {apart from me dropping a bolt down into the innards somewhere as I was putting my old comfy seat on}

Anyway, on with the waterproofs and away to the start point. As I arrived, it got less misty and I saw we already had a few bikes there. As we chatted, more turned up until we were ready to go with 11 bikes and 2 pillions. We set off (20 minutes late as normal) and almost immediately I heard “someone has stopped for petrol”. So, a 5 minute wait on the hard shoulder while we waited for Paul (yes, lets name and shame) to join us. But we were soon on our way and zooming up the motorway to start our ride properly.

Here’s where it started to go wrong. Along with my new bike, I splashed out on a new Garmin Zumo 660. But I hadn’t loaded the maps correctly so it was insisting on taking us all the way to Beverley by motorway. I knew the first part of the route well, so it was easy to ignore the nagging, but we needed a better solution. And, here comes SuperRedVFR to the rescue. We had to stop to put waterproofs back on (the rain came down quite badly over the tops) and while we were doing that, Malcolm mentioned he had the route on his Garmin and volunteered to lead.  Great stuff. We were sorted. I stayed second to marshal the troops with the buddy system and Malcolm kept up a cracking pace so we could make progress.

About an hour out of Beverley, we stopped for some lunch and to divest ourselves of the waterproofs. By this time, it was scorching (sun cream and hats were in vogue) and we sat for an hour in the beer garden eating, drinking and generally chatting about nothing in general. Then, onward to our destination (Dark visor on, jacket innards off) apart from Keith, who found the excitement of a balloon race more interesting than our company (Sam just went along for the ride, of course). Once in Beverley, we found a convenient pavement to park on and dismounted. Well, most of us did. Geri decided the best way to get off was to tip the bike over and then jump off as it approached ground zero. Kevin was not amused…. But all was soon rectified (Pans are very resilient) and we wandered off for a look around the town. Still lovely and sunny. Inside the Minster, it was cool – very nice to get out of the sun for a while.

But soon it was time for the off again. We all met up and set off to the nearest petrol station – which wasn’t one (sat nav fails!). Oops. So, Steve suggested a nearby Morrisons and Malcolm led us straight to a Murco. Good communication, methinks. Then, off over the Yorkshire Moors and around some cracking B-roads to our first tea stop. A 30 minute chat and refreshments later and we headed down the back roads to Colne for a fish supper. No issues on the journey and we made it well in time. By 8:00, we were sitting down to eat and reflect on the excellent days ride. By 9:45 we were home and relaxing with an excellent glass of wine (at least, I was).

Thank you to all who came – and to the others, see what you’ve missed?