it was fecking epic
the friday ride there with Bazza and pete from my house was wet. we met tony and flatty in Hawes and it was still wet ... but we had fun in north yorkshire despite the rain .... boy can you trust the Michelin pilot road 5s in the wet!..... got to the border and it starts to dry out so we had even more fun
bonfire, burgers, beer and banter were the oder of the day ... delivered to excess
saturday was almost all dry and the logging road was perfect, Fabio got off his bike and kissed the road!! . But The quote of the day came from Tony who declared "I have decided I won't sell the SP2, I will just buy a house here instead"
then we went past the Budhist temple but we did a detour to Hawick to see the Hizzy museum which was cool, then the run down past St marys loch and through the glen to the Grey Mares tail [waterfall] where Fabios phots are taken ..... when james and I got there, we just got off the bikes and fell on the ground to allow our senses to try and stop spinning ..... by christ that 701 supermoto [in the right hands] can fly .
the rain caught us for the run down Dalveen pass, but we had found our rhythm, so we didn't bother to put on waterproofs, we just kept the throttle pinned and enjoyed the sweeping shell grip corners.
it started drying out again so we threaded the needle down the worlds narrowest A road and then finished it off with a lap round Loch Ken.
by the time that was done we needed more beer and burgers ..... and Grumpy frog had also turned up so there was added whisky to reinforce the sore heads for the next day.
unfortunately the bonfire had been confiscated by a group of boy scouts. men with beer can't be near boy scouts incase they get corrupted!!!
then there was the fire wood incident that further soiled the relationship with Mrs Scout leader ... but we won't talk about that!
sunday was not raining, but roads were wet, most folk were heading home but Pete, GrumpyF and the NI crew did the run up to Ayr on the way to the Ferry. that left Pete and I to do a few more hours of cable streaching down to Newton Stewart then back over Clateringshaws to New Galloway, then to Kirkcudbright to spend the night ..... 2 beers and we were done!
Monday it was dry again, so we did the logging road again, went mental down the A6 to Kendal [pete got lost and told off by the plod] then we played round north yorkshire again before a bite to eat and the M6 home.
it was a roller coaster in every way.... seeing Normans new headstone for the first time, and riding past the site of his crash.... but I had a good team to look after me [and my sister], so it was 100 times more celebration than sadness.
RIP mate
. so many nice things to remember for another year 
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