White Rose ToursLakes & Dales 2014
Last weekend saw our tour season draw to a close.
As is often our way, we chose to centre our tour at one of our favourite hotels between the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District. We were pleasantly surprised with the amount of bookings, but it was great to see so many new faces amongst many of our regulars.
With a dry if rather dull weekend forecast, we had a choice of destinations, but decided to use the first day to do our Lakes tour. Avoiding running down the hordes of oriental visitors we passed through Bowness and along Lake Windemere to Grasmere. The cloud was low and obscured the mountain tops but did nothing to detract from the scenery, if anything making it more atmospheric. Having got over the shock of having to pay 20p for a P, we continued on our way with the cloud eventually lifting to show the countryside at its best. Leaving the Lakes behind we had a run up to Alston via Hartshead café, introducing some of the great roads we have, to the riders that have not had the opportunity to ride them before. The group returned weary but smiling in time for a few beers and our evening meal.
The Yorkshire Dales were our destination for the Sunday, again a mixture of narrow scenic roads and the faster ‘bike friendly’ ones. All was well until leaving Hawes when Graham acting as tail-end Charlie broke down, (new GSA – what can I say!) fortunately he fixed the fault (side stand switch) and we re-grouped only to find he had picked up a nail in his back tyre. Confined to the ‘naughty step’ he returned to the hotel and Charlie was promoted to tail-end Charlie (well he has the right name). Unfortunately his promotion did not last long as a misunderstanding led to one of the markers moving and we lost him!! Undaunted, but now out of orange tabards, we continued our tour through the Forest of Bowland with Richard resplendent on his new Aprilia Capanord (rather like it) going to the back and threatening dire consequences for anyone going wrong !
But you just know when it is going to be one of those days, and our way was soon blocked by an accident making us re-direct via Lancaster. Now why the whole of the North West of England were trying to get through there I do not know, but the traffic jam was horrendous and we crawled through there, emerging with great relief back to civilisation and a welcome beer. So an eventful weekend, but very enjoyable. Lots of laughs, great riding and a fitting end to the year.
We are presently working on the 2015 schedule but it is going to be a little while before it is complete, However, I know many of you have to book your holidays well in advance, so although not complete, If there is a tour that your are particularly interested in, please contact us and we will advise you if it is on our itinerary and the actual dates.
Comments (5)
Graham and Carol:
09 Oct 2014 at 09:57 PM
As always a great end of tour season tour Dave. Bike stand switch now fixed. £71.00 but the puncture that we plugged is still holding good and allowed us to ride the 250 miles home from Kendal at our usual pace. No problem. So much thanks to Clive for supplying the plug from his repair kit and for Archie supervising the repair operation in the hotel car park with beer in hand, but he did supply the air gen to re inflate the tyre. Must get the name of the repair kit from you Clive as it something to add to my back box when travelling, thanks again mate.
See you all soon.
Love to all
Graham and Carol
xx
Dave - White Rose Tours:
10 Oct 2014 at 09:00 AM
Hi Graham and Carol,
Glad to hear that you got home safely. I feel pretty sure that the repair kit that Clive used is the one that we recommend and carry. It is American and called 'Stop and Go' and is available on eBay for £28, there is a slightly more expensive one at £32.50 which has Co2 canisters to blow up the tyres but I have them left over from other kits. I also carry a mini compressor, mine is a 'Gloop' one - but there is a lot more choice now, once again available on eBay.
cheers Dave
Brian Seymour:
12 Oct 2014 at 11:35 AM
Dave, really enjoyed my first tour with yourselfs and my new GSA which didn't have any problems.....!! Just how did you find all those fine routes.?
Hotel was excellent and it was a pleasure meeting everyone.
Looking forward to next year and some European touring, probably Spain & Portugal or maybe Italy...!!
Brian.
Clive Neely:
12 Oct 2014 at 12:38 PM
Graham,
Dave is correct, it is the "Stop and Go" repair kit we used. I am pleased to know the tyre held out having never used this product before...not that you would know as 3 of us tried to make sense of the simple instructions in the car park at Crooklands. I bought the slightly cheaper kit and it came with gas cylinders but you cannot use the adaptor on spoked wheels. You need the flexible adaptor which, I think, comes with the one costing a few quid more.
Dave, many thanks for the tours this year, good to see you are back in the saddle again and we look forward to meeting up again next year.
All the best,
Chris and Clive
dave - White Rose Tours:
12 Oct 2014 at 02:28 PM
Hi Brian,
Thanks for your comments, delighted that you enjoyed your first tour with us, also glad you enjoyed the routes, we have had plenty of practise riding them!. We have tours to both Spain/Portugal and Italy next year so you are going to be spoilt for choice. Hope to have the details out shortly.
Dave
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