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Good luck with your journey.

VTRDark wrote: ↑Mon Apr 30, 2018 12:17 pm Nice to hear somone still writes directions down on a post-it note. Fingers crossed the weather is better by then. It's like Winter out there at the moment.

I know they've rewind it for us that use a fag packet making them all black

hope the weather hold up for you. there are some fun roads in there but a few may be narrower & windier than you expect so take care and stop often to eat and drink

I hope all goes to plan for Friday, it sounds an interesting trip

Chris.

Had to postpone for various reasons. Hopefully in a couple of weeks or so now

Good luck with it, do keep us posted,

Chris.

It happened yesterday. Thanks again for the input/interest guys.

Interesting day. AMCQ was right in biting off more than I can chew. Tried to memorise the route! Just followed my nose mostly. Decided to head up the M1 to J26, A6 to Chapel-en-le-Frith (via Matlock, Bakewell etc) coffee in Buxton, tried to get to Skipton via Chapel, Glossop, Woodhead and Holme, Hebden Bridge etc between Huddersfield/Halifax/Rochdale (shitting nightmare and total crap waste of time), up the Dales, North Pennines and by the time I got to dinner it was 8pm so took the motorway from Carlisle to Glasgow.

Left at 9am, arrived at 11pm.

In short - bloody fabulous day of two-halves, southern bit shite - too crowded, road works, towns blah blah, northern bit awesome - roads, weather. Having been off the bike for a couple of years it was a test and it took a while to rebuild confidence, hopefully it's on the way back. I loved the day and feel great today

Best bits:

• the Dales, then the little road from Askrigg to Muker over Tan Hill to Brough (where there were a gazillion travellers of all kinds). Awesome.

• North Pennines - tremendous. Brough to Middleton the road was empty and on to Alston (dinner) to Brampton (nice road but the sun going down was a problem.

• The weather

• The bike - was a dream. Feels a bit rough at times but motored beautifully. We're in love again

sh1t bits

• The whole southern bit to Skipton - apart from Glossop to Holme. Wasted an hour and a half getting across the M62 - Ripponden/Sowerby/Hebden every couple of miles the roads were being dug up.

• New Frank Thomas gloves. Bought some kit the day before - BKS stuff awesome. The knuckle protectors on the gloves though are so unforgiving that every bend of the hand became more and more painful as the day wore on. Just had to forget it. They're going back to J&S

• Getting wombles old - arthritic thumb joint not used to the clutch became a site for ibuprofen overdose

Some pics of the day:

Left at 9am




Went 1.2 miles - stopped for fuel and some light fuel for me


Coffee in Buxton - thankfully I was wall side of the bike as the stand was on the only small piece of tarmac among the stone, chatting with some crazy lady and the tarmac suddenly gave way.



First decent bit of the day



Always good to get some rock in when on holiday



A lovely bit of the land



Thought of Lloydie when testing the brakes for wildlife in the road



Somewhere near Tan Hill i think before it dived down a beautiful little pass/valley



Another lovely bit of steep land



Dinner in Alston



Back at 10:50pm a few miles later


Welcome one of these

Nice.....did you see any tarts in Bakewell Argh that bit about leaving the South makes me want to get out. People are genrally more freindly up North and away from the big cities too.

Good to see the pic's, thanks for posting

Glad the weather was good for you. Impressive mileage,

Chris.