Since I have a week or so off work I thought I would give the Blade a little run out. I have wanted to go over the past couple of days but other stuff kept cropping up, but as the wind seemed to have dropped off today I thought why not. Ok the sun was shining and the forecast was for reasonable conditions, it was actually quite mild when I set off.. But, this being northern Britain...I got 4 seasons in one trip...yep even sleet/hailstones :-(. Still it was a nice run... From here in Middlesbrough...out on the back roads to Darlington, then down to Northallerton, Thirsk, across to Ripon then down to Harrogate. Stopped for fuel there, but only £9.50 worth of Shells finest V-Power from a full tank. Then off down past Harewood house, where I got hit by the sleet/hailstones into, Leeds outskirts to pick up the road to York via Tadcaster as I was going to stop off at Squires for lunch, but as the sky was black with rainclouds in that direction I thought I'd keep on going and try to stay ahead of the rain. So round York and onto the road to Scarborough, lots of heavy traffic on the single lane out of the York ring road...3 bloody tractors plodding along, there must have been 2 miles of tailbacks behind them, filtering past felt so good . Anyway...onwards past Malton, where the rain caught up with me in a heavy downpour, blended lovely with all the mud and crud on the road to coat the bike in a muddy film. Stopped again at the Shell garage at Staxton just before Scarborough for another £9.60@65miles. Then into Scarborough where I did consider stopping for some chippies, but the schools had just turned out and the traffic was heavy and I didn't fancy getting flattened by a 4X4 mummy who was more concerned about getting the kids fed before getting ready to go out for the night out that she was discussing on her mobile whilst driving erratically. So headed up the coast to Whitby, by now the rain and clouds had gone and the sun was blazing again . By-passed Whitby town and took the back road through Ruswarp as it's got some nice twisty bits on the way in and some interesting uphill corners on the way out. Then the homeward leg across the Whitby to Guisborough moor road which is usually a nice fast blast, well it was, but the hurricane like side wind blowing across the road all the way back made for some hairy corners....oh and the copious amount of slurry that a helpful farmer had felt it his duty to dump on the road at every right hand bend for about 5 miles didn't boost confidence either. And so finally back home, 111 miles reading from the fuel stop at Harrogate, so about 170miles at a guess all in all. I very dirty Blade put to bed, might give it a wash over the next few days, I need to investigate the oil leak that's persisting from the filler cap some more too. But it felt good to get some miles done for a change Looking forward to the next decent day to do some more now
Sounds like a good time was had,know the York to Scarborough road we'll,in fact was in Scarborough on Sunday so glad I was on a bike,traffic was a 'mare
Isn't it a nice feeling when you see the cars backed up and you just slip down the middle of traffic. I hate being stuck in the car.Gotta love being a motorcyclist
Yep, just being able to filter past. The thing that annoys me is the tractors causing the hold up are probably running on agricultural tax, which means they're only allowed to drive 1.5 miles on the road between fields. Not 5-10 miles
