Another Northerly SKCC Run
So, what a great and varied turnout we had today for the latest Northern contingent run – 8 cars! 2 Zeros, 3 Tigers, 2 Westfields and a Locost. One of our local Westy pals, Tony, arrived at ours at about 9.15, and after the obligatory tour of the workshop, we set off to Stamford to the BP garage that was the designated meet point, taking in our usual route to Burghley House on the edge of Stamford, ‘cos that’s got a good twisty back road bit. Good start then. But it wasn’t long before the usual SKCC chaos set in. I thought Paul’s sat nav was playing up as we pulled over in the middle of Stamford, with him shouting something about being lost. We weren’t lost. He’d got a call from Niall, from the local Tigers, who really was lost with pal Donny.
Whilst Paul and Tony were pulled over to sort Niall out I decided to have a little detour as three cars pulled over in the narrow streets of an ancient town was a bit of an obstacle. I decided to get out of the way by detouring around them up a side road. However, I had to back out of that, literally, as the street narrowed, got more cobbly, developed nice high kerbs and then sprouted a large Beemer parked in the middle of it, which I couldn’t squeeze past, causing even more of a blockage. Sorry Stamford! By the time I arrived “back” – see what I did there – Paul and Tony were ready to head off, and we trundled the few yards to the meet point. Where Naill and Donny had already arrived. Also there were Captain John (Midszero), Alan (Rallyreason) and John (Kenjohn), who’d already driven 2 hours to this point! Well done that man. No photo of the BP takeover I’m afraid, I forgot, I was busy with tech support duties, transferring the days itn onto John’s TT. But, hey, you know what a petrol station looks like.
Off we set, and we all managed to keep together pretty well along the first of John’s chosen roads. Nice pace, interspersed by some villages and the odd overtake required to keep things interesting. Now, I mentioned satnav. Some of us had this, some of us didn’t. Paul did, but he forgot that Tony behind him didn’t. He was too busy chasing John out in the lead. The pair of them suddenly realised they were by themselves, and pulled in to a truck stop. Meanwhile, behind them, a bit of “whacky races, round and round the roundabout, all wave to each other as we meet on opposite sides of the road was going on”…. After following blattiquette, and following the guy in front, even though “sat nav said” do something else, I had to spoil the fun and collected everyone up from junctions everywhere with a “this way!” gesture, and we happened on the others in their layby.
Off we set again, similar progress to before, sun shining as evidenced by more bikes appearing. Then, all of a sudden, it’s time to pull over again. Here’s us taking over the lay by
Seems I hadn’t scooped up everyone, we were missing Donny who was somewhere down the road in Corby Glen. We weren’t. So, whilst waiting, we took the opportunity for a group photo.
Donny arrived. So, off we set again. Few more bikes by this time, bit more traffic, but the weather was stonking, so who’s going to begrudge anyone a slice of that. Good job really, because we then had our third stop. No layby this time, bit of roadside parking.
Why? John’s throttle cable had snapped. Second one in two days! And yesterday’s one had been replaced by GBS as well. Seems that a number of us had headed the lesson of cable failures, and quite a few of us had spares. However, they weren’t needed. A fix using the existing cable was attempted, by everyone at the same time apparently.
However, on this occasion, it proved not doable. So, the idle on John’s car was turned up, as the decision was taken to cut the run short and head by to his house for the planned post run Barbie. We were kind and let him have a head start. This proved to be an interesting episode for John, who suffered several bouts of abuse from fellow road users, the ignominy of being passed by a cyclist, and the very real concern that he wasn’t going to have enough oomph to get up the inclines in the road back home. But, he soldiered on, to live another day – and fire up the Barbie.
Fortunately John has his own private kit car park near his house, which we took advantage of.
Most of us stayed, Tony had to head off at this point, and much car related banter, some excellent burgers, pork leg steaks, spicy chicken – but definitely no salad! – was had by all. Many thanks to John, and Mrs John, for their excellent hospitality and putting up with us all afternoon. I guess that’s the Northern equivalent of the Southern Breakfast!
(Oh, John, just a word of warning. I don’t think you’re going to get your wish about Hannah turning out to be a lesbian. She was doing a damn fine job of trying to pull Donny’s lad whilst we were all on our way out to the cars at the end…. She’s clearly into older men