It’s Sunday , August 17th and the middle of the British Summer....
Up at 04.15…and it isn’t a good start, absolutely pissing down.
Bugger. I stand on the back step wondering and watching the bloody Summer stair rods coming down, drink another tea, wonder some more and then get my riding gear on. This takes half hour and I check the rain again. Yep, it’s still there, I have 20 minutes on e-bay and make two low bids on a couple of Ducati 916’s….I know they’ll go for more but it’s a cheap buzz while it lasts “You are the highest bidder ya daft Welsh Tvat”…How do they know that? Another check outside and I do detect that the precipitation is easing off. Another pot of tea and 2 laps of the Nurburgring on my daughters PS2, with the sound off of course passes a bit more time. 
It’s now 6 o’clock and still raining but easing off ( I keep telling myself it’s easing off, makes me feel better!) Bugger it….I’m off. So fully geared up for owt that the weather can chuck at me I step out of the back door. Feck!…no, not the toilet this time…mobile phone buzzing away…Some coont cancelling I’ll bet….Back into the house, gloves off, helmet off, search for fekkin specs, rummage for bastid phone…then find it’s a text off Sisco “Pissing down at Leeds, c ya L8r” Fekkin BMWkayonehunnerd wuss…prolly frightened it may break down in the wet bless. No news off jack and no news is good news aint it,
Gear back on and 15 minutes later I finally set off…Yes, the rain , I’m positive it’s easing off, I really am.
Well , this part of the ride was a case of getting from A to B quick, so it was a blatt up the M1 across to and through Bradford,,,fook, Bradford smells fantastic when you ride through towards Keighley,,The smell of spices from the Curry centres really is lovely at this time of the morning. Really exotic. Wonder why they don’t do Bacon, Egg and Curry sarnies at Devils Bridge?
…I digress. Onwards past Keighley to Skipton where I arrived at 07.25 to find jack waiting in the Little Thief Car park. Top man…..weather doesn’t bother us mature riders… 
The weather by now had really cleared up, honest….patches of blue skies too. It all looked promising.
From Skipton the ride started in earnest, taking the Grassington road up to Buckden
This is a really lovely road and once at Buckden we turned left across the valley. They’ve had a hell of a lot of rain up here recently looking at the flooded fields and bursting mountain streams, and at one stage crossing the valley, we had about a 100 yards of lane to cross that was a foot deep in water. Easy, until you get out in the middle and you realise ya on ya own…don’t know what’s underneath, any potholes, boulders …and ya can’t stop. Fortunately there was nothing coming the other way or we’d have been buggered.
By this time it was blue skies and fluffy clouds. We rode up the Wharfe valley alongside the river which was in full spate and boiling red and brown from the peat on the moors........
Further up the valley before Oughtershaw there were some campers pitched right next to the river at the same level. Nutters, they could have got washed away at anytime. Up we climbed, over the top and down into Hawes where we stopped for a bacon and egg ( no curry) sarnie and a tea. Sat outside at 09.30 with the sun on our heads we wondered if it was still raining in Leeds! Glorious. He who dares eh!!!
Over to Hardraw Force and up Buttertubs Pass….fantastic climbing twisty moorland roads…full of roadkill usually, but not too bad today. This road was once “voted”/declared by some Bike Magazine as the best Biking Road in the country…Well, it is very good , but not the best for Blackbirds,…..good fun but a bit hard work…and a fookin great big drop on ya right that doesn’t take any prisoners….and at this time of day it’s traffic free,… triffic. Down to Thwaite and then up another lovely valley up Cloggerby Rigg, what a name eh, up Birkdale Beck, hugging the river and climbing up to the top overlooking Nateby and offering fantastic views of the Lake District over to the West ........
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and Scotland and the Solway Firth far to the North West......
It’s got busy now as we have just passed the second car since leaving Skipton.
The peace and quiet and remoteness up here is wonderful....could just sit up here for hours soaking it in....but we can't ..Kielder calls..
Down to Nateby and then up to Brough , under the A66 and then up and over and down to Middleton in Teesdale. As we were climbing from Brough there were ominous dark clouds scudding from the South East towards where we were going . This road over to Middleton is a cracking road, lots of moorland twisties to test you with the occasional Muslim
trying to take you out in a suicide mission. The more you get to ride this road the more you enjoy it obviously, and I have “done” this road at least a good half a dozen times now. As we entered Middleton the rains were there to meet us, but by then it didn’t matter in the slightest. 
Waterproofs on and heated gloves…riding the best bike in the world over fantastic roads in fantastic scenery with ya mates, favourite music playing on the ipod…it doesn’t get any better than this. 
We followed the road to Alston for a while before turning right and heading up again onto the moors and down to St Johns Chapel....traffic has now eased off to NO cars whatsoever....this is a cracker, even though a bit damp....We followed the B6295 again up and over the tops to Allenheads .....
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...and then Hexham. From Hexham it was a nice lazy ride to Kielder, all the time the rain following us on our right shoulders as we rode the edge of the rain clouds.
At Kielder Centre, jack got off the Beemer and immediately slipped on the muddy grass bank and fell flat on his arse and back. I had the camera already to hand but was laffing too much that I forgot to snap him !
Kileder is a beautiful remote place but todays weather didn’t lend itself to riding around the lake and exploring. I would have liked to have ridden to the NE corner to look at the Castle and Visitors Centre, but rain had now set in and time was getting on.
Refreshments were taken in the Cafe, including jacks home made sandwiches the tight arsed Yorkshireman had brought with him,
and then it was time to set off back.As we headed south we veered off to the West through Haydon Bridge and climbed up the valley side up onto the moors towards Alston on the A686. What a cracking stretch of road this is
…just right for letting the Bird stretch her legs. Same sort of road as the Middleton to Alston road…twisting and winding and hugging the valley side, visibility for “miles”, dry and wide…whooooooo hoooooooo!. We’d also left all the clouds behind just South of Kielder so by the time we got to Hartside Café we were both grinning….( blokes over 50 don’t giggle…they grin a lot O.K.). 
At Hartside we drank some tea and yakked and drank some more tea and looked at the fantastic views and then drank some coffee and took some pics, but all too soon the Police moved us on as the crowds that had been gathering to glimpse, nay photograph my Titanium Blackbird had begun to get too big too control safely.
So it was off down Hartside Pass….good, but not half as good as riding up it from Penrith....another day I suppose. We then had a glorious blatt down the A6 Shap road,…. what a road for a Blackbird, down to Devils Bridge for yep, another coffee. By this time we were both shattered and the day was getting late…So jack headed east towards his Sunday Roast..and me, I headed down the M6, before cutting off and up and finishing off a great day over the Snake Pass.
It’s January 2009 and I have only just got around to typing this out, having had it written down since the ride. The following/last paragraph I have left untouched cos that’s what I hoped for at the time.
“Bloody great ride thanks jack, it’s about time we started getting some miles under our belts this Summer” !!!
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Alas the mileage under belts didn’t really happen….until Germany. Let’s hope for as better riding year.. like 2006 eh?….if I can afford some bloody petrol...
so be glad to repay them with a 
