Just got back in after a great weekend. Pretty tired now, but have a big case of post Op Storm blues. Always depressed when these weekends are over.
Really excellent weekend though. Started well on Friday with a nice ride up to Settle with Ady and Flatty, on to Barnard Castle then Penrith picking up Al, Pete, Kev, Christine. Just about out ran the rain and stayed dry all the way up to Kircudbright to meet up with Ian, Mick, Stuart, Rob and James.
Set up the tents in a bit of a rush then straight to the pub for a great meal and a few beers.
Saturday we rode out after breakfast and again managed to stay dry all day. Top quality roads, very little traffic, no police, epic :-)
Back to the camp site on Saturday evening for a quick change and out again for tea at the chippie and more beer.
Sunday morning 4 of us (Al, Ian, Pete & me) had another ride out, this time through the forest and down the coast. Even better roads, again no traffic or police :-D
Al - thanks for leading the rides as usual. It makes my weekend chasing you through those twisties at that sort of pace, probably the biggest reason I come for the meets. Can't wait until the next one now.
Pete - thanks for back marking the morning. We couldn't have the ride without the back marker, but you showed what you could do later in the day, pushing up Al's butt into the twisties.
Ady - thanks for back marking the afternoon. Hope you're feeling better tomorrow. Great weekend again mate, will see you for a local ride soon?
Rob / James - it was a pleasure to meet you both. Great crack, great ride, though I still can't work out how you kept up with that back tyre sliding Rob, you must ride like Rossi
Nice looking yellow storm you have there. James can really ride that KTM like a boss. You would have loved the ride today, the roads were excellent. Hope to meet you both again at the next one.
Stuart - sorry I didn't get to say bye. Hope you made it back ok, and I'll see you soon.
On a slightly more sombre note, it was a 3 hr ride home, and I was thinking about what we had talked about during the weekend. Someone mentioned that this forum's first meet had like 100 people turn out.
Obviously they don't make the bike any more, so we're always going to be limited on numbers now, but, eventually, this forum will die out.
All of our time here is limited and there will only be a finite number of these meets. You likely won't know it at the time, but there'll be a last time each of us goes on one of these Op Storm weekends.
One of these days I'll probably be telling my daughter about the club I was once a member of and the biking weekends I used to go on.
It just makes me appreciate the weekend even more. Here's to the next one
I'll post some pictures up shortly.
