Hard Knott Pass from the East

CLICK ON ANY IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGEMENT

On Thursday evening our daughter and grandchildren left for home after and enjoyable (and invigorating) stay of a couple of days and it took only a few milliseconds, when Bill said he was getting his bike out, to ask if I could join him.

And we enjoyed a very pleasant evening ride, choosing a route into the Trough of Bowland and then eastwards, with the low sun behind us, through Slaidburn, Topside and than back along Cowshit Alley towards Clitheroe and homewards – timing our return perfectly so the setting sun was below the hills rather than in our eyes.  Only about 60 miles and all the brew stops were shut but nevertheless very worthwhile.

On Friday morning my appetite had been whetted and the sun was shining so off I went for a day-long solo ride out, with packed lunch but no particular destination.  It was a gorgeous sunny day and even the M6 was pleasant to ride as I used it to get north of Lancaster, which is terrible for traffic at almost any time.

I found myself drawn to a familiar route, leaving the M6 at the Carnforth exit (Junction 35) then through Burton to meet up with the A65 and then via this road into Kendal.  I stopped for a brew at the Lay By just after joining the A65 but it was uncomfortably hot in sun and I couldn’t even manage to finish reading their Daily Mirror before I was itching to get going again to cool down in the breeze.  The air temperature reading on the bike was 93 degrees F as I set off but I suspect that was an artefact of being parked up.  Once I got moving again with the screen vent open I was very comfortable.  Asda on the way in to Kendal was a suitable to top up in order to avoid paying premium prices in the more remote parts of the Lakes and then I was properly ready to start my Cumbrian ride.

A6 between Kendal and Penrith

The traffic in Kendal was unusually light and I fairly zipped through there to get on to the A6 towards Shap, which was also nice and quiet, with only the odd car to be overtaken.  The A6 over Shap is a wonderful biking road on which to stretch your legs – lots of fast sweeping bends, many of which are uphill so you can power the bike through them and on up the hill, really feeling the power and handling of your GoldWing.  No need to exceed the speed limit, just work the bike hard to stay as close a possible to it and it’s terrific fun.  Safe too, so lets hope the do-gooders don’t plaster Cumbria with 50 mph speed limits like they’ve done in Derbyshire.

I’m soon approaching Penrith but I don’t bother with the Town, taking the A66 to cross the motorway again to pop into Rheged for a call of nature.  They have plenty of parking and nice toilets with soap dispensers just inside the door  so out came my sponge and the portable bucket in lives in (a Tesco Pour ‘n Store bag) to wash last night’s flies off the screen, of which there was quite a collection.  It was the last day of half Half Term so I was surrounded by a crowd of children and I did this, answering the usual questions like “Is that yours?” and, from the Scousers, “Does it have any guns?”.   I did not stay long.

Then it was down to Ulswater, working my way past quite a few tourist cars as I went, taking overtaking opportunities as they present, which is what you have to do in Cumbria unless you want to ride very slowly in procession of tourist cars.  Fortunately I was able to take half a dozen or so in one bite as we approached the junction with the road to Pooley Bridge while the leading car was dithering; it’s one of the joys of solo riding that you can make progress among tourist traffic if you stay alert in a way which is not possible when you are group riding.  You take the motorists, who are not using their mirrors, a bit by surprise but it’s safe enough if you read the road ahead well enough and pick the time and place well.

Clean windscreen at Rheged

Kirkstone Pass from the north is a wonderful ride on a GoldWing because it provides fairly open views of the bends as you climb and therefore safe overtaking opportunities even if you are unlucky enough to encounter traffic slow moving traffic.  As it happens on this trip I came upon a group on bikers and was able to work my way through them.  It wasn’t quick or easy to do this because they were following each other with no expectation that anyone would overtake them and therefore paying little heed to their mirrors – so one or two of them got a bit of a surprise as I came alongside and powered through.

Their Tail Man wore a black open face helmet with “Fatty” printed across the back and a leather waistcoat but he looked distinctly more muscular than genuinely fat (like what I am) so it did occur to me that I might be about to invade the territory of a patch gang of some sort.  On closer inspection however they were just a bunch of cruiser riders cruising along, so I decided they were fair game to overtake without risking violent retribution – but I did resist the temptation to use my horn as I might otherwise have done as I passed, just in case.  A short toot is often very worthwhile as you commit to an overtake, to make sure the driver (or in this case riders) are aware you are there and coming past.

On the lower part of Kirkstone Pass there are a one or two longish straight bits where you can usually overtake several vehicles if necessary and these came in useful but I did have to work past some of the cruiser group on the twistier sections further up but thanks to the open view of what’s ahead that’s also achievable safely.  Kirkstone Pass is an easy ride, not difficult at all.  By half way up I’d got past the cruisers so I was able to enjoy the rest of the climb at my own pace.

I turned right at the top to  take “The Struggle” down towards Ambleside, most of which has to be taken at fairly modest pace, and I soon found myself stuck behind the slow-moving “Netty’s Bus”.  There are very few overtaking opportunities for moving vehicles no matter how slowly they are moving and none at all for a relatively wide minibus like this one.  However fate lent a helping hand and the minibus pulled right over against the drystone wall to allow an oncoming car to pass and this allowed me to overtake the minibus while the car driver was still scratching his head weighing up the gap.  I heard “idiot” from the minibus driver as I passed his open window, so presumably he had at least seen me at an earlier stage in his mirrors and decided to keep me stuck firmly behind him.

Towards Ambleside down The Struggle

And I sat on a bench to eat my sandwiches in the shade at the lakeside near the Wateredge Hotel near Ambleside I reflected on the minibus driver’s comment, to consider whether I had been idiotic in taking that opportunity to overtake him, of which he appeared to be so strongly disapproving.

In my experience only occasionally do car drivers pull over on single track roads to allow a following biker to pass and almost never do van or minibus drivers – which I’ve always assumed is because they are working men and want to avoid unnecessary delays for that reason.  They feel no obligation to show consideration for another road user who clearly wants to go faster than they do so they simply drive on at their own pace.  Some of them even take a little extra time or trouble to hold other people up when they get the opportunity to do so.  I suppose it’s a power/selfish thing of some sort.

My reasoning about overtaking opportunities like that one (when the minibus stopped) is that as an advanced rider I read the road ahead avidly, an overtaking opportunity presented itself and if its safe I’m entitled to take it, simple as that – providing I can do so safely.  This includes exploiting gaps while other road users are dithering.   In towns there are often opportunities for an alert rider to make far better progress than cars simply by keeping an eye out for empty spaces and opportunities to move in to them.

An opportunistic overtake of this sort will inevitably irritate the sort of driver who would prefer every other user to wait their turn (i.e. behind him) but I can live with that.  Likewise I can live with irritating those road users who think I’m mad for overtaking on what they see as a blind bend, because they have not been observing the road ahead as I have been doing and so failed to spot that there could not possibly be any traffic coming the other way on that section of road.

So I don’t see myself as having been idiotic in taking that opportunity to overtake the minibus, even if the minibus driver, in his blinkered view of things, did.  We riders should aim to avoid angering or alienating other road users unnecessarily when we exercise our agility to get past them but I don’t see this obligation as extending to submitting meekly to occupancy of the road which is fundamentally selfish or which amounts to being obstructive, which in this case I suspect it was.

Anyway after my lunch break I headed for Coniston, wondering as I did so whether I would be able to resist turning towards Hard Knott Pass.  I’ll just do the Wrynose Pass, I said to myself, and then take the left fork to Ulpha.

The problem was that although I had ridden the Hard Knott Pass  seven or eight times on my various Wings, including my GL1200, I did drop my bike while climbing it on one occasion, so it’s become something of a psychological as well as a riding obstacle for me.  Dropping a GoldWing on the Hard Knott is not to be recommended and it’s definitely not the sort of thing you want to do twice.

But as most things to do with biking there was a funny side to that episode, so I’ll own up and tell the story.  I was a relatively new IAM Observer at the time, so I’d started teaching advanced riding but I wasn’t all that experienced at it.  And during my time as an Associate (i.e. a trainee) I’d found that going on ride-outs with the big boys (i.e. those who had passed their Test) was way outside my skill range – to the extent of being a bit scary, especially if you made the mistake of trying to keep up with them.  I’d therefore made a bit of a thing about the Group needing to cater more specifically for Associates by offering ride-outs which were planned to be entirely suitable for them – so I’d volunteered to lead one.

Pleasant spot for a packed lunch

And I suppose that in retrospect I had made a bit of a meal of planning and briefing it; for example I invited several other Observers along and got them to wear Hi Viz vests, to be conspicuous, while asking the associates not to wear one.  This did of course made me conspicuous too.

I led the ride into the Lakes uneventfully, taking care to ride IAM style myself including sticking scrupulously to the speed limits.  We covered quite a few miles and all had gone well as we climbed over Wrynose Pass and descended into into the bleak upland valley which separates it from the Hard Knott.  I had planned to take the Ulpha road but pulled over as we approached the turning, where there is a nice view of the east side of the Hard Knott, so that everyone could at least take a look at it.

I explained that this Pass was a bit of a sod to ride and we wouldn’t therefore be doing it today.  As I was doing this a group of bikers could be seen descending towards us and in due course they ride past where we were parked.   They were on Harleys, several were two-up and, even worse, one of them was being ridden by a girl.  “Why can’t we do it?” came the cry from all our group?  I really didn’t fancy it myself that day but I was completely cornered.  Off and up we went.

The road surface is but one of the challenges on the Hard Knott, the others being tight climbing bends with adverse cambers, precipitate drop-offs on the downhill side, sheep and cars, which can make life very difficult if they appear in your path unexpectedly because its a single track road and there are some places where, because of the narrowness, the unfavourable road cambers and the gravelly road edges, it is extremely difficult to make a safe stop on a bike.

Riders vary in their preference for going up or down hairpins and I’ve always been more comfortable going downhill – indeed I’m not really nervous at all when descending alpine bends.  It climbing up them that bothers me, especially very tight and steep right handers – they sometime give me the heebee-jeebies big time and this day was no exception.

There was no conflicting traffic as I recall, nor any problem with the weather.  I’m still not sure how I managed to do it but I ended up half way around a tight climbing right hander with too little power and too much lean.  I was probably in second gear rather than first and/or I was turning in too early but anyway I suddenly found myself coming to a halt with the bike leaning to the right and then, since I couldn’t put a foot down because of the steep camber, toppling over – indeed I suppose the bike and I went down like a felled tree.

There was quite an impressive bang as the bike hit the road.  And as this was happening and I fell off, rolling downhill to the right I can remember wondering, in a fatalistic sort of way, whether the bike was about to roll on top of me before I could get out of its way.  Fortunately I’m the right shape for rolling downhill and I was quite happy to keep rolling as fast as possible until the bike had stopped following me, which fortunately it did more or less straight away.

Wrynose Pass behind me, Hard Knott in front

The bike seems to have simply dropped onto its crash bars while also sliding backwards down the hill and then continued to roll right, grounding on the right mirror and the back end of the right saddlebag before coming to a stop, still resting on the tarmac.  At this stage I was feeling grateful that I hadn’t been crushed rather than worrying about damage to the bike but as I picked myself up I did start wondering how much damage the bike had suffered – surely it was going to be quite a lot after a fall like that.  Would it need recovery and if so how would I get a recovery van or truck to pick it up from half way up Hard Knott Pass?

Fortunately I was quickly surrounded by lots of strong young men from the group who had all stopped,parked their bikes on the road and gathered round to help out.  And I had the presence of mind, being moderately well experienced at dropping GoldWings, to ask these volunteers not to simply grab the first part of the bike which came to hand.    By being methodical about things like ensuring the bike was still in gear and someone was gripping the front brake as we lifted, we were able to get the bike back to the vertical without any morer sliding and without pulling anything off.

Those who had been lifting from the bike’s right hand (downhill) side, including me, were now standing with the bike’s saddle at chest height.  No wonder my right leg had not been long enough to put a foot down to prevent the fall.

With several bikers holding the bike in position I then walked round to the uphill side and climbed back on to it, or rather stepped down on to it, since my left foot, still on the road, was above the level of the footpeg and my right foot, now back on the footpeg, was still at least a foot above the ground.   I got the bike into first, pulled the clutch and started the engine and when everyone was ready, got the bike moving up the hill again.  The supporters let go of the bike as as I moved off,  rather like the clamps holding a Space Shuttle onto its launch pad release their grip as it launches.

A gentle pace of life at Eskdale

There are two nasty right handers on the way up the east side of Hard Knott and I cannot remember whether this episode of sub-horizontal parking took place on the first or the second one.  Anyway I rode the bike to the top of the Pass without further incident and stopped where fortunately there was room for everyone else to pull over, to take stock.

There had been remarkably little damage given the violent nature of the fall.  The right hand mirror housing was broken but curiously mirror glass itself had survived.  There were some palpable scratch marks on the contact points on the crash bars but not bad ones and the crash bars themselves hadn’t been deformed.  The trim strip and lower edge of the right hand saddlebag had been scraped as the bike slid down the hill a bit after the fall.  And that was it.

I was of course absolutely furious with myself for dropping the bike on this bend but there was no excuse, it was lack of control, due to lack of skill on my part, simple as that.  The bike was still ride-able, I was shaken but uninjured, so I set about pulling myself together and resuming leadership the ride.

Bikers being bikers, I was expecting to face some serious ribbing from some of them for dropping my bike in these circumstances, i.e. as leader of a training ride, but they let me off very lightly, perhaps out of sympathy for the money it would cost me to repair the bike.  One of the Associates asked with contrived innocence if was compulsory to a Hi Viz vest to drop your bike like that and I must have got my sense of humour back again because I laughed too.  How I got away without being presented with a Wooden Spoon of the Year Trophy or something along those lines at my IAM Group’s next AGM I cannot imagine.  I was certainly expecting it.

Clean as whistle, sound as a bell

However, that incident was long ago and I was riding a different GL1800 having gained a lot more experience riding alpine bends – and I had also ridden over Hard Knott Pass since then without coming to grief.  So on this lovely early summer day would I have the bottle to ride it again?

I stopped at the roadside in the high valley between the Passes to take some more pictures and then climbed back on to the bike and headed for Hard Knott.  It was something I just had to do, to try to lay the ghost.  The traffic was light, the road was dry; there was no reason other than common sense not to ride it.

The last time I had ridden Hard Knott the road surface had been awful and we’d had a very bad winter since then, so I had low expections and the possibility opf loose, failing tarmac and gravel was a concern.   My fears were soon realised because after only a few hundred yards as I rounded some rocks to encounter a tight-ish  left hander the raod was full of deep potholes where an impromptu stream was flowing across it.  There was a six inch wide bridge of tarmac in the middle of the road over which it was necessary to ride to avoid these big potholes – no mean feat at very short notice as you rounded the bend but somehow I managed it.  Was this a good omen that I was having a “good bend day” or merely beginners luck before the inevitable fall?

To get things into proportion I should explain that most of the climb up the east side of  Hard Knott is not that difficult to ride as long as there is no conflicting traffic – and even then if you are observing the road well ahead you can probably find somewhere which is wide enough to pull over and level enough to allow you to put a foot down securely providing you plan ahead.  I was making good progress, I had stopped successfully to allow one descending car to pass, so things were going well.

Eskdale to Ulpha, fines biking raod, stunning scenery

Then I ahead again and recognized the fateful tight climbing right hander coming into view.  I changed into first year nice and early and approached at a steady pace with a plan to take as wide a line as possible in order to avoid turning early on to the very steep camber.  It didn’t work – or at least it didn’t work as smoothly as I’d hoped but I somehow managed to scrape round the bend anyway, with nothing worse that a bit of a wobbly exit.

And then the second one.  Not much better this time either but I made it.  And the road surface overall wasn’t as bad as I remember it being last time apart from the cluster of potholes at the bottom.  Flushed with relief I continued to the top of the Pass and, since there were lots of parked cars and I wasn’t feeling settled enough to do any tricky parking for photographs, I continued down the other side.

As I’ve mentioned, downhill doesn’t bug me, so despite a really fearsome left hander (right hander coming up) I descended in a relatively relaxed state of mind – enough to observe and recognise the grim expression on the face of a biker who was coming up to this nasty bend the other way, among a group riding old British bikes.  Please don’t get in my way his look said, or words to that effect; I’ve got quite enough on my plate just at the moment.

I rode on, now feeling much more relaxed, to Eskdale Station, the upper end of the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, which has a nice Cafe as well as a regular timetable of steam trains to watch while you’re enjoying a cuppa, although on this particular hot day I awarded myself an ice cream instead.  Eskdale is a lovely little place with a campsite (tents only) a pub and some very nice scenery, so well worth visiting, which you can do by looping back from Ulpha if Hard Knott doesn’t appeal.

Lakeland Circuit

Once you’re over on to the west side of the Lakes there are lots more nice places to ride to and pause at, including peaceful Ennerdale and awesome Wast Water, and there are far fewer tourist getting under your feet.  But on this particular day my leave pass was due to expire and it was time to head more or less directly home from Eskdale.  The satnav wanted me to go back over Hard Knott as the fastest route but I decided not to push my luck an further that day and chose instead the road through Ulpha to Broughton in Furness instead, then I joined the main road to get back to the M6.

The road from Eskdale to Ulpha climbs over the fells and presents, especially on a day like this one, some glorious scenery.  At this time of year the rhododendrons are in flower and you see those here and there throughout the Lakes where there is sufficient shelter near habitation, where someone has taken the trouble to cultivate them.  Incidentally Muncaster Castle, which is close to Ravenglass, offers an really spectacular display of rhododendrons if you’re into that sort of thing.  British Nuclear Fuels’s Visitor Centre at Sellafied is also worth a look – and it has a terrific cafeteria.

However on this day I rode directly through Ulpha to Broughton, overtaking some more Cruisers en route, which is always a pleasure when riding a Wing.  Then the A5092 and the A590 back to the Motorway and home.

The A5092 and A590 are not without interest to riders and both have some nice sections – and then there’s always the fun of filtering past queues of cars while they’re messing about trying to avoid letting anyone else get into single file ahead of them.  A big white Wing with headlights on looks not unlike something very official at first glance in those circumstances and filtering is never really a problem.

The circuit I did is almost 200 miles from Lancashire so it’s a full day’s ride even if you don’t let yourself get side tracked to any of the additional attractions nearby.  The Lakeland bit, from the Butty Van back to the nearby M6 junction, is under 120 miles.  And of course the Hard Knott Pass is not for the feint hearted on a Wing but it can be by-passed easily enough via Ulpha.  I wouldn’t recommend Hard Knott Pass for a group ride by Wingers, but on a day like last Friday, in gorgeous sunshine, the riding and the scenery were excellent, so it qualifies as one of my favourite rides.

A steam powered Carousel at Llandudno Transport Festival

The Blog was quiet last week, partly because I had poor internet connection while I was away from home but mostly, I’m pleased to say, because I was out riding my bike.

Four couples from my Club, GoldWings North West, were camping at the Llandudno Transport Festival over the Bank Holiday Weekend at the turn of the month and most of us then went on to spend the rest of that week at a campsite near Caernarvon, further along the coast in North Wales.  We were blessed with lovely weather throughout and although we were committed to a static display of the bikes at the Transport Festival, once we got to Caernarvon the shackles were off – and of course the mountains of Snowdonia beconned.

It’s worth mentioning the Llandudno Transport Festival in more detail because it is an unusual – and very enjoyable – event.  Llandudno is blessed with a fairly long promenade at the eastern end of which lie Bodafon Fields, a large open area which owned by the Council and used for various events.

It’s also used for grazing, I suppose as a way of reducing the cost of its upkeep, and so the ground isn’t perfect as a campsite but these fields nevertheless provide an excellent venue for a large event of this kind – and indeed the Transport Festival more or less takes over the whole town.

Never seen one of these before - a steam-powered bus!

As well as both static and parading vehicles of all kinds, the Town becomes a Victorian Resort again for the weekend, with lots of the locals dressing up in Victorian costumes and a large collection of antique fairground rides and shows filling the streets – it’s really quite a spectacle, especially when the Parade of marching bands and steam vehicles passes through.

Almost as if Fred was still alive!

To add to the variety and the sense of the weekend being really quite special a free bus shuttle service is provided between Bodafon Fields and the Town Centre – which is about a mile away, so perfectly walkable too, along the Promenade.

If you're into Showman's Engines, you'll go a long way to find more than these in one place

I should mention that exhibiting in this Festival, which is the only way you can get a permit to camp on Bodafon Fields for the weekend, is always over-subscribed and you have to get your application in very quickly indeed.  even if you cannot get a camping space it’s well worth camping on one of the commercial sites near Llandudno for this weekend, as indeed some of our Club members did this year.  Staying in a hotel of B&B in the Town is also an option but you still need to book early.

There were several of these too

Parades are always nice to watch

On the Tuesday we moved on the Caernarvon and since it was early in the tourist season and mid week the traffic was light.  We stayed at the Caravan Club’s Coed Helen Site which is superb but unfortunately this will be it’s last year of service because  the landlords will not allow renewal of the lease. There are other camping sites in the area of course, so I’ve no doubt that after the success of this year’s mini-holiday in North Wales we’ll all want to go back again next year.

So, back to the bike rides.  Snowdonia is of course a very scenic area and there are several good biking roads close to the mountain itself, so that you can  ride round it a couple of different ways without covering the same ground.

The map shown here illustrates one of the options, a circular route of just under 70 miles which takes in both Betws-Y-Coed, a pretty place with designated bike parking and lots of eating options  and Beddgelert, a small village which is blessed with an absolutely first class Ice Cream Parlour and Cafe.

The scenery on these Snowdonian roads is always nice and sometimes stunning.  There are some very busy tourist spots which are perhaps best avoided, including perhaps the steam railways of which there are several.  They are an inviting prospect for railway buffs or simply as a way of seeing the scenery in a different way but be warned they are not cheap; a family ticket for a return trip can cost the best part of £100.

The Ladies with the Menai Bridge behind

There is also a particularly ugly town in North Wales which, because of the huge mounds of slate mining debris which dominate every aspect of it, manages to look uninviting even on a nice sunny day.  Pity, because Blaenau Ffestiniog has such a nice-sounding name, one of the relatively few Welsh place names which an English brain can cope without tying itself in knots.

Another advantage of riding in North Wales mid week and early season might have been a relative dearth of speed enforcement activities.  North Wales became infamous for the keenness of its last Chief Constable on speed enforcement but he has now retired, a new guy has taken a softer line and really for GoldWing riders, only a few of whom like to ride a fast as possible, North Wales is unlikely to be source of hassle.

Frank at Betws-Y-Coed, practising for Thundersprint

Many Welsh words are difficult get into your head (or at least they don’t go into mine very easily) but the word for Police, which is Hedlu, I found easy to assimilate by word association.  I’d perhaps better not say why.

Nice roads, nice scenery

An added attraction of riding around Snowden for me was that David Williams, owner of the GoldWing Riders Forum, lives nearby and is welcoming to anyone who calls on a Wing.  I’d been there before but my two companions on the first ride we had that week, Bill and Frank, hadn’t, so up the winding track we went, not least so they could meet Muffin, David’s pet donkey.

I led them to TanY Gaer, David’s Home on the Hill, by following the satnav route from the West which took us through the particularly windy and narrow route I ended up using by accident the time before too.

It’s quite possible and safe to take this route on a Wing but it’s not really what you’d call enjoyable.  The last half mile to Tan Y Gaer is on an unpaved track which is even worse, so I suppose  doing the first part of the hill climb the hard way helps to get your eye in for what’s to come.

Nah, said Muffin to Bill, Frank's red bike is nicer than that flash-looking yellow one you came on

We parked up in what is currently still a building site, because the Granny Annexe which they are building isn’t quite finished, although it had certainly been coming on nicely since my last visit.  Mochin (the pig) was in evidence almost immediately but Muffin was nowhere to be seen.

He eventually emerged from the lower field and I must say I did enjoy seeing Bill getting to know Muffin and at the same time wondering whether his precious bike would be safe because Muffin can be quite frisky.  Neither Bill nor are experienced at handling donkeys, although I suppose that on the strength of our friendship of many year he might think differently, but anyway Muffin behaved and our bikes were unharmed.

Piggy in the middle

As discussion followed with David about, among other things, the difference in colour between his GL1800 and Frank’s, which are supposed (according to Honda’s colour code) to be the same.  There’s no doubt that David’s bike is now a different red but I fear it must have changed colour in the Welsh mountain wind and rain – or possibly because Muffin uses it as a rubbing post when he’s in need of a scratch.   Bill has no time for red bikes at all so he simply made his usual disparaging remarks along the lines of all red bikes being equally undesirable but Muffin thought otherwise.

Someone had a birthday!

The brews (made as always by the hospitable Lesley, aka Lady TanY Gaer) were excellent and I can recommend this place as a watering hole to any passing Winger.  Not that any sane GoldWing rider would actually pass that way by accident because you really do have to make an effort to find it – and sensible Winger who are out for a ride in the area would give up and turn round long before reaching the start of the perilous last half mile.

The Hotel Staff in Beaumaris insistent on borrowing the bikes for a photo

It’s a good job there aren’t any Welsh road signs to try to decipher on the approach to Tan Y Gaer because I found them really quite distracting.  Perfectly understandably, because this is a Welsh-speaking area they put the Welsh language text first on road signs, with the English translation below.  This means that at even gentle riding speeds by the time your brain has worked out that the text is (as far as your brain is concerned) complete gobbledegook, there isn’t time to read the English translation before you’ve gone past.  I tried to stop myself from reading the text at all but I couldn’t do it; there was something about the Welsh which made me try to read them and that was fatal.

BBQ weather

Whichever route you choose to ride around or near Snowden you are unlikely to be disappointed so you can choose almost any road and have a scenic ride.  Beddgelert is however well placed to be included on your route and a stop at the Pizzeria/Ice Cream Parlour is almost a must.

Wales is a lovely place to ride a bike and there are more or less endless possibilities.  I really look forward to doing some more of it.

Bowness Waterfront, not always as quiet

CLICK ON ANY PICTURE FOR AN ENLARGEMENT

On a weekday in April this year I had a whole day to myself and since the weather was set fair, it was the perfect opportunity to get out and enjoy some riding with no one to please but myself.  The combination of a GoldWing and some decent biking roads is a huge blessing for which I am always grateful and never take for granted, even for a moment.

And since it was some time since I been anywhere near Wast Water, the hauntingly beautiful lake on the western side of the Lake District, that was the place that came to mind to head for.  By virtue of its relative inaccessibility, it’s steep-sided and dramatic appearance and its lack of development, Wasdale and indeed the Western Lakes as a whole, are a world apart from the Lake District which most of the tourists get to see.  So that was it then, off I would go to the Western Lakes.

The English Lake District is a beautiful area, arguably one of the most scenic in the UK and it’s also blessed with some very attractive biking roads, some of which are not without challenge, even to a fairly experienced rider.

Avoiding the M6 Northbound

Generally however the roads provide easy and pleasant riding – or they would do if it wasn’t for the tourist traffic.  In summer and especially at weekends, there is lots of tourist traffic, particularly in the parts of the Lake District which are easy to get to and have immediate attraction to visitors such as Windermere.  If you are planning a Ride Out to the Lakes, especially at weekends, you need to give some thought to traffic and its avoidance.

Since I am planning some circular rides for a new type of GoldWing rally we’re organising for August this year, based in Kirkby Lonsdale, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and make my day out a recce for a circular ride starting and finishing there to the Western Lakes, where traffic is lighter.

Kirky Lonsdale is a lovely little town which is also handily placed for the wonderful choice of scenic biking roads with which the North West of England is based, which explains why one of the North West’s most popular biker’s meeting places is just outside Kirkby Lonsdale at the quaintly named Devil’s Bridge which crosses the River Lune and dates from the 14th Century.  At weekends parking near “The Bridge”, as it’s known to bikers locally, is reserved exclusively for motorcycles and a hundred or more will usually be gathered there, with a constant flow of bikes arriving and leaving.  Needless to say there is a well-used (and well run) refreshment shack on site too.  At almost any time on any day of the week throughout the year there will be at least some bikes at the Devil’s Bridge.

The A65 to Kendal has a Butty Van too

Needless to say the Butty Shack which lives there next to the Bridge itself does a roaring trade; it’s almost worth going there to watch the staff in action at weekends, so efficiently do they serve vast numbers of people with food and drinks.  How five or six people can work in such a small space, because it’s only an old showman’s caravan, beats me.  Oh, and the tea, coffee and food is good too, if a little on the expensive side by biker’s standards – but then the last time this Shack changed hands it sold for £240,000, and that was just for an old caravan and the right to take over the Council’s licence to sell refreshments from the site.

On this particular day however I gave “the Bridge” as it’s known locally, no more than a cursory glance as I rode past.  I had ridden from my home in Central Lancashire on the M6 to get past Lancaster, which is always worth by-passing because of traffic, leaving at Junction 34 to take the A683  North Eastwards towards Kirkby Lonsdale.  This is a good road with some nice bends but you need to beware of on-coming traffic, including from bikers who might well be over-doing things.  It’s that sort of road.

Still avoiding the M6

From Kirkby Lonsdale I took the A65 to head back towards the M6 again and then, with a brief stop for a photo of another, much cheaper, Butty Van on the route,  the old A65 into Kendal.  Kendal isn’t straightforward to ride through because they have a one way street system to make you go around the shopping centre and it’s far simpler to continue on the dual carriageway A591 towards Windermere.  But Kendal’s not too bad to negotiate and there’s something about the place which I like; its pretty and pleasant. Nice shops too so be warned; stopping there with a pillion passenger can be costly.

Maybe it’s also that the A65 into Kendal provides the last opportunity to top up with fuel at civilised rates at the Asda Store, which you pass on the outskirts as you approach Kendal on the A65 .  Generally speaking buying fuel anywhere else in the Lake District involves premium prices.  Not that I’m a mean about these things but I am a Lancastrian and Lancashire Thrift, while not as conspicuous or exercised with such pride as the Yorkshire equivalent, is built into my genes.

The A591 is the main route into the heart of the Lake District but traffic flows reasonably well along it even on Summer weekends,  at least for the first nine miles or so to the roundabout where it meets Windermere Road, coming out of Kendal, which is the route I took.  The rest of the A591 towards Windermere is mostly single carriageway and much of it is marked with double white lines; it’s a busy road, ill suited to enjoyment by a motorcyclist so it’s best avoided.

Worth following cars to see this view

A much better and more scenic alternative for bikers to the rest of the A591 is the B5284, which cuts  across country directly to Bowness.  This road  starts at the roundabout where the A591 meets the road coming out of Kendal but is easy to miss because the signs encourage the tourist traffic to stay on the A591.  The B5284, it provides a better biking road and usually carries less traffic.

But it is easily missed.  If you have used the A591 from the motorway junction nine miles later you will find yourself riding downhill towards a large, funny-shaped roundabout.  If you have ridden through Kendal as I did you will approach this same roundabout from the South East along Winderemere Road.  Either way you need to look for the relatively inconspicuous Westwards turn on to the B5284, which is also signposted to the village of Crook. This is a pleasant road which can be fairly traffic-free even in the busy tourist season.  There are even a few attractive-looking watering holes along the way too.

As the B5284 drops downhill towards Bowness it meets A5074, which you can use to turn right directly into Bowness Town if you wish.  But it’s better to take a left-then-right jink, following the signs to Hawkeshead Ferry, to continue further downhill towards the Lake to reach the A592, coming up the lakeside from the South.  Turning right along this road takes you directly to Bowness’s pretty Waterfront area, where Lake Windermere’s fleet of passenger launches are based.

Woodland as well as fells and mountains

Turning left into Glebe Road just as you reach Bowness Waterfront leads to parking opportunities.  Parking on the roadway is permitted and you might find somewhere to squeeze a bike in, but it may also be necessary to use one of the car parks further round.  Car Parks in the lake District vary in their hospitability to motorcycles and some are free, but there are also dire warnings about parking only within marked bays so it will pay to read the signs carefully in each case.

Bowness Waterfront is a pretty spot to pause to soak in the view and buy an ice cream if you can find a space.  On a quiet weekday early in the season I cheekily drew onto the pavement to take a picture and no one bothered me, indeed one of the Boatmen, who was having a quiet time, cam over for a chat.  But I wouldn’t bank on getting away with that at weekends or for a group of bikes.

From Bowness I followed the minor local roads, staying as close as possible to the lakeside,  by-passing Windermereand there are a couple of pull-ins which provide photo opportunities along this shore.  Eventually you rejoin the A590 heading North for Ambleside and when you get to Waterhead, which is Ambleside’s lakeside bit, there is another small pull in and a fairly large car park.  The Watereside Inn is litterally on the lakeside on the left and has its own (gravel) car park and is a pleasant place to stop for lunch.

Derwentwater,en route to Keswick

One of the options leaving Waterhead is to turn left toward Coniston but on this occasion I followed the signs for the A591 to Keswick.  On a Summer weekend the road between Ambleside and Keswick would not be much fun for a biker but on a weekday in April it was delightful and I had no difficulty overtaking such traffic as I encountered.

Keswick is another attractive place to stop for a break, as is Grassmere.  There is however a distinct shortage of space at the roadside to pull over and take a picture along this road.  I found the odd one or two which were big enough to stop on the bike for a picture but they all had No Waiting signs.  The Park Authorities like to keep this road clear and I suppose it would get completely clogged up if the tourists were allowed to stop for the pictures they would want to take.  There are some very photogenic views along this road.  The A591 between Ambleside and Keswick is stunningly attractive, especially the wonderfully named Pass of Dunmail Raise.

First glimpse of Borrowdale

And there aren’t that many overtaking opportunities on the Lake District’s roads either because they are often narrow and twisty with only limited view of the road ahead. Even to advanced motorcyclists who have learned to take best advantage of views of the road ahead to spot up-coming overtaking opportunities, those opportunities can be hard to come by.  But the Western side of the Lake District is different and even at weekends the roads are less crowded and more open.  While the lanes leading to the more isolated Western Lakes are still narrow and twisty, the main roads are more open, with faster, sweeping bends and the combination provides some excellent riding.

Borrowdale traffic, light and intermittent

The Lake District is a National Park and by British standards it’s quite a big one.  It consists of a group of large hills (or small mountains) among which are lots and lots of lakes in the valleys and there are also lots of tarns, which is the name given to the smaller lakes which form at higher altitudes among the mountains.  And mountains they are in the Lake District, even though by international standards they are of modest size and even in Summer they can provide a formidable challenge to walkers as well as climbers, so the local Mountain Rescue organisation is not there for fun.  Likewise there are several high passes on the roads between the mountains which are not straightforward to ride, so as well as being very easy on the eye, the Lake District can provide challenging riding too.

Approaching Honister Pass

To get to the Western Lakes you have a choice of riding around the mountains or going over a combination of two mountain passes which run East/West and more or less goes across the middle.  The Wrynose and Hardknot Passes are very scenic and they are also do-able on a GoldWing but they are not for the feint-hearted and they are not without risk.  I have ridden this route many times and it is always something of a buttock-clencher, even when you know what to expect, especially the Hardknott.

Car Park at Honister Summit

And last time I did it, during 2009, the road surface had deteriorated so badly that it made the challenging combinations of very steep turns and nasty cambers of this route too dangerous for my taste.  The Wrynose Pass is less severe and there is an alternative to the Hardknott via a jink South through Ulpha, but unless you really are into challenging yourself, the Wrynose and Hardknott are best left to the masochists of the biking community.  It’s not somewhere I would recommend for a GoldWing club ride out.

Honister Quarry/Cafe Boys Room

So on my ride to the Western Lakes, since it was early in the year and midweek,  I opted for the main road through the centre of the Lake District, the A591 between Windermere and Keswick, although I did make a diversion through Borrowdale to take in the Honister Pass, which is also scenic and steep but not particularly challenging or hazardous.  There is also a nice Cafe and car park at the summit of Honister Pass at a Slate Quarry, which is an unusual, useful and interesting refreshment stop.

I have distant recollections of being taken through Borrowdale and over Honister Pass in the early nineteen fifties as a young child in my Dad’s 1931 Standard Big Nine.  It was a box-shaped car with yellowed windows and already over twenty years old and its top speed was probably something like 45 mph, so an excursion of this sort was a major undertaking.

Wast Water

When we got the the climb up Honister Pass my mother, sister and I were all required to get out a walk while Dad reversed the car up the hill because reverse gear had a lower ratio than first and this was considered to be the only way to get the low powered car up it.  How times have changed; with 125 horse power at its disposal my GoldWing climbed the hill effortlessly in third gear, only sometimes needing to drop to second.

Keswick is another very nice place to spend an hour or two if you have the time and it’s not a bad idea to stop briefly anyway to check your map because finding the road out of Keswick towards Borrowdale is not that easy – but it is well worth the effort.  Borrowdale is an open, flat pastureland valley which is quite simply  beautiful.  Riding through it more or less on my own, with only the occasional encounter with other traffic was a real privilege.

Another view of Wast Water

It’s not a place to be riding through at pace, as I often enjoy in other parts of the Lake District when the roads are quiet, to exercise motorcycling skills; it’s a quiet and peaceful valley where you can mosy along taking in view after view in a most relaxing way.  If you are in any way up tight with life and its pressures I can recommend Borrowdale as a place to go to in order to unwind.  You pass Buttermere and Crummock Water on your way to Honister Pass and it’s only an extra 10 miles compared with the direct route from Keswick to Cockermouth along the A66, so well worth the diversion.  As you turn in to Borrowdale you are leaving the busier, tourist areas of the Lake District and it really should start to feel like a different world.

And no more beautiful places in the world, at least in my eyes, can there be than Ennerdale Water and Wast Water.  You can ride your bike to within a couple of hundred yards of the lakeside at Ennerdale and then you have to walk.  And there’s no pub or cafe, just a bench or two and a lovely, completely quiet and beautiful place. So this is where I sat to eat my sandwich, drink from my flask and soak in the peacefulness of it all for half an hour or so.

Approaching Ennerdale

And then of course, as a motorcyclist who has a wonderful bike parked only a few yards away, the urge to do so more riding came on.  It is possible to ride from Ennerdale towards Wast Water using the minor roads, at least as far as Calderbridge, but I chose to head for the A5086 near Cleator and then to join the A595 to Gosforth, to make better time.  The A595 is a very good motorcycling road with plenty of opportunity to ride at pace and to overtake as necessary if you are so inclined; this openness also made it suitable for coping with the Help for Heroes Ride too, as it headed Northwards towards Cockermouth.  But on a weekday in April I had it almost to myself and the ride to Gosforth where I turned East towards Wast Water was thoroughly enjoyable.

A bench with a View, and what a View

The narrow lanes between Gosforth and the more open countryside close to the lake are not for hurrying and neither is the winding road along the lakeside, so there’s no point in visiting Wast Water if you’re in a hurry.  But if you ride all the way to Wasdale Head and it’s a clear day you will be rewarded with some truly magnificent views and the opportunity to eat, drink or stay overnight at the Wasdale Head Inn, which offers rooms and self-catering accommodation and there is also a National Turst Campsite at Wasdale Head which accommodates motorhomes as well as tents.

Narrow lanes

The Wasdale Head Inn claims to be the birthplace of British climbing and nearby is St Olaf’s, the smallest church in England, where the graves of climbers killed on the nearby mountains testify to their difficulty.  For me it’s enough to admire the mountains from afar and then to enjoy riding on to somewhere else but Wasdale is a place where at the very least you have to pause for a while to take in the awe-inspiring spectacle of this dramatic place.  Wast Water’s steeply plunging southern side, seem from Wasdale Head is a sight to behold.

As with Ennerdale it is necessary to retrace your steps (or rather your motorcycle tracks) initially although you do then get the option to head Southwards towards Eskdale via Santon Bridge and if you have time this is a worthwhile diversion.  Eskdale is on the route down the West side of Hardknott Pass and you can ride up the road to see what you’ve spared yourself if you wish. The Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway is also worth a stop; there is a car park and a cafe and even if you don’t have time to take a trip down to Ravenglass and back (which is very worthwhile) it’s an interesting spectable just watching the steam engine arrive, turn itself around and head back down the valley.

Open road Southbound on the A595

This is a narrow gauge railway which was originally built to carry iron ore down to the coast for shipping but after varying fortunes eventually came into the possession of a Preservation Society and now successfully serves the tourist industry and runs a daily timetable.  If you are in any way into steam trains this is a worthwhile place to visit and even if you’re not its a scenic journey to take or a the very least a nice lace to stop the bike for a cup of tea. Whenever I’ve ridden the Hardknott Pass I’ve nearly always stopped here, if only to calm my nerves before proceeding.

From Eskdale it’s back through the country lanes to to A595 to resume what I always find a thoroughly enjoyable and usually a fairly brisk ride back to Broughton in Furness and then the A5092 and then the A509 back towards Kendal.  By the time I’m on this section of the route I’m nearly always running out of time and in need of making progress towards home in Lancashire without further diversions, because there is still 80 miles or so to go and this takes the best part of two hours.   This part of the Lake District is worth spending much more time in and it needs an overnight stop somewhere to pay a proper visit to Western Cumbria because there is so much more to do if you have the time.

The finest display of rhododendrons I’ve ever seen was at Muncaster Castle in late May/early June , near Ravenglass, and one of the best cafeterias I have ever ended up in on an organised bike ride was a few years ago when the Hercules Run terminated at the Sellafield Visitor Centre, which produced excellent food for a large group of bikers which was also very good value.   Their hours of opening are variable and they may not be open at all at weekends, so if you are thinking of taking a sizeable group there it would be best to ring them (019467 27027) to make prior arrangements.

But even if you can only spare one day for it, as I could when I rode there during April this year (so I had to be very selective about where I stopped for a photo or a break) a ride to the Western Lakes provides a wonderful day’s riding and some gorgeous scenery.

The best biking road (and the most dangerous one?) in England

CLICK ON ANY IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGED VIEW

The Cat & Fiddle is one of the most, possibly the most famous biking road in UK.  On the one hand it can provide a scenic, if somewhat twisty, route over the hills from Cheshire into Derbyshire, on the other it offers an exceptional combination of challenging bends which, if you try to make progress through them, will certainly test your riding skills.

For these reasons it attracts bikers galore – and therefore the almost permanent attention of traffic police.  This is no place to take any liberties.  If the car and motorcycle police don’t get you, the police helicopter will.

Leaving Macclesfield, the start of the open road

There is a speed limit of 50 mph too, although the bends are such that few if any can be taken at 50 mph and it’s not the end of the world if you have to limit your speed on the straighter bits, so I don’t think this speed limit spoils anything much.

The reason for all this police and line-marking attention is of course that the bends are dangerous if taken too fast and lots of bikers have been killed or injured on this road.  Overtaking is also dangerous except in a relatively few places, hence all the solid white lines.

An easy right hander

It’s the car traffic which is most likely to be a nuisance and get under your feet.  And there are, sensibly and also usefully, lots of solid white lines which restrict – and of course indicate – the fairly limited overtaking opportunities.  Of course there are lots of other bikers to contend with too and it has to be said that impatient sports bike riders, some of who seem regard the sight of a GoldWing in front of them as a particular challenge, to be overtaken as quickly and inconsiderately as possible, can also be a real pain.

Chevrons indicate a tighter bend

I have ridden this route many times and if I am riding from Lancashire down to Suffolk, which I do from time to time to visit family, I often take a cross country route and divert to include the Cat & Fiddle because it’s such a good ride.

It follows part of the A537 between Macclesfield and Buxton and from the outskirts of Macclesfield, where the fun starts, to the outskirts of Buxton, it’s only just over 9 miles – and of that 9 miles only the western half, from the outskirts of Macclesfield to the Cat & Fiddle Pub at the summit, has the  marvellous sequence of challenging bends which make it such a magnet for bikers. BY Alpine standards it’s not that exceptional but it’s pretty good and it’s in UK, so it’s well worth a visit.

Right then a tight left

And I rode it again this afternoon, in company with some other Wingers after our Sunday morning call on Knutsford Honda, where we had been treated to coffee and croissants. I led the group of bikes through Knutsford and Macclesfield and then, by pre-arrangement dropped to the back to take the pictures you see here.

There is an excellent diagram of the bends and a sequence of photographs showing the approach to every one of them on Derek Mobbs’s  website which I suggest you take a look at.

Slower traffic can hold you up

There is also a video recording by an (anonymous) Advanced Motorcyclist on YouTube which takes you all the way up from Macclesfield to the Cat & Fiddle Summit and includes an excellent commentary.  This commentary is also a first class introduction to some of the techniques involved in advanced riding, so it’s we worth a look.

At the top of the climb is the Cat & Fiddle Pub where you can refresh or unburden yourself as necessary.

The Car Park can be very crowded

The Moorland Bar caters for bikers so it’s not the sort of place you’ll feel embarrassed about sitting down in wearing riding gear or even wet riding gear and they serve bar food and mugs of tea or coffee as well as alcoholic drinks. It’s not very big and so unless the weather is warm enough to sit outside it does tend to get crowded and there are only a few seats.

The food is wholesome but perhaps a bit pricey (sandwiches are £5.95) but this place is pretty remote and the toilets are modern and clean. There is even a “Restaurant” somewhere in the building if you want something more elaborate than a quick snack – or at least there is a sign pointing to one.

Sneakling admiration or smug disdain?

Being parked up among ‘normal’ bikers can have its rewards, and it amusements, for a Winger.  Riders who have never seen a Wing stretching its legs are often surprised how well they can move.  And of course although groups of sports bike riders will sometimes studiously avoid showing interest in a Wing among parked bikes, they will also often drift over to have a peep when the bike is left on its own. On this particular occasion one of them was even brave enough to come over and chat, so I took his picture as evidence.

This Sports Bike Rider thought a Wing would be too difficult use for Instructing

On leaving the pub car park we rode down towards Buxton and then turned around to ride back up again and back down to Macclesfield before heading home.  As I mentioned this route is less than 10 miles end to end and it’s a good ride both ways, so silly to waste the opportunity.

We had stayed together on the way up, held up for most of the way by a slow moving car but on the way back down we rode at our own pace and since I was leading, I got first go at the overtakes and managed to get enough space to make a bit of progress and scrape a footpeg here and there.

As I was about a third of the way down a police motorcyclist pulled out of a side road ahead of me and it became clear that he wasn’t planning to dawdle.  So I was able to follow him without worrying too much about the speedo, on the basis that “he wasn’t riding with his blue lights on Your Honour, so I just assumed he was riding within the limits”.  Which, give or take a bit, he did.

GoldWings North West Wingers taking the fresh moorland air

Police riders are all advanced riders and this one looked pretty good.  He was riding safely, so no silly risks and he slowed down early and enough when we came upon slower traffic, and he overtook with a decent margin of safety and without cutting in on anyone.  The overall impression, as it should be with every advanced rider, was of  being smooth and unhurried yet surprisingly quick.  His throttle control as excellent so I saw little of his brake light but he was nevertheless wasting no time and making good progress.

I thoroughly enjoyed following him and can highly recommend having a personal police escort when you are riding the Cat & Fiddle – if you are lucky enough to get one.  I had to pull over to wait for the group when we entered Macclesfield but they arrived fairly quickly and the policeman was held at the lights lower down, so we  filtered past the standing traffic to stop alongside him.

My personal Police Escort back down the hill

I thanked him for putting up with me following him; he lifted his helmet and, fortunately with a grin on his face, said he thought I had been pushing him!  I suppose I was a bit cheeky staying more or less on his tail.  He also remarked that he had never ridden a GoldWing but  he said “it looks like they handle quite well”, which I suppose might even have been a bit of a compliment to me as well as the bike.  Maybe there’s some life in the old dog yet.

This was a good ride on a great and, fortunately for a British Summer, dry biking road.  I can thoroughly recommend the Cat & Fiddle, it’s worth making a special journey to visit.

Photography Note:  The on-the-move pictures for this article were taken using a small digital camera mounted on a cheap tripod swivel head (£8 at Jessops) screwed to the brake master cylinder reservoir lid.  Despite being taken through the windscreen, they are fairly clear. I just drilled a hole in the lid (on the bench, from underneath!) and used a quarter inch countersink UNC machine screw.  The lid fits above a rubber seal, so there is no risk of fluid leakage.  The photos have of course been cropped to restore verticality; it would have been too much of a challenge to get my bike upright for photos as well as ride these roads safely and click the shutter!

Malham Tarn in the distance - and this parking angle was OK

CLICK ON ANY PICTURE FOR A LARGER IMAGE.

This 25 miles circular ride takes in some marvellous scenery and it is not a difficult ride, although there are a couple of fairly tight climbing bends which call for a bit of concentration.

I did it part of this ride a week earlier in company with some IAM rider friends I bumped into at Settle and it was such attractive scenery I couldn’t resist going back with my camera.

From the Market Square in Settle, where the excellent Naked Man Cafe will provide any sustenance you might need before setting off, head North past the car park and petrol station and under the railway arch.  After half a mile or so turn right along the B6479 (signposted Horton in Ribblesdale) and then after less than a mile turn right again on the unclassified road signposted (not very conspicuously) Malham.

The high ground above Langcliffe

This takes you North East through the hamlet of Langcliffe, which  is fairly level to start with, then up a fairly steep and twisty road up the hillside – on which there are a few nice slow bends including a climbing left hander which is tight enough to focus the mind.

The roads on this route are mostly fairly narrow and there are lots of places where you don’t have a clear view of what might be around the next bend, so you do have to cater for the possibility of oncoming traffic – it’s a route which other people may well be driving to enjoy the scenery on a nice evening, same as you are.  But apart from the one climbing bend leaving Langcliffe, this is not a difficult route to ride on a GoldWing.

Big lamb, shorn sheep

You do of  course have to beware of sheep because once you are across the cattle grids there are plenty about.  Although giving the appearance of being well used to tourist traffic and therefore mostly inclined to ignore you, sheep are capable of remarkable suicidal urges, especially the young ones, bolting across the road to join Mum, so you do need to proceed with considerable caution.  On the July evening I was riding this route the ewes had just been shorn and the lambs, several months old by then, had grown a thick coat; it took me a while to work out which was which.

Looking north east towards Malham Tarn

In no time at all you have climbed out of the valley and you are riding parallel to it along the high ground above, with a really spectacular view westwards towards Ingleborough Hill (2373 feet) across the valley.  This is the valley (it might be a Dale, this is Yorkshire)  up which the Settle to Carlisle railway line, the prettiest in England, climbs towards the Ribblehead Viaduct, which is the longest in England, so it’s quite a place.  From the east-side tops you get a terrific view of the distinctly craggy  limestone western side.  In the evening sun it was really quite dramatic stuff and I was so entralled I forgot to satop and take a picture.

The road towards Arncliffe

As you turn away from this Valley to the East and over  Henside Tops, Malham Tarn appears in the distance looking as pretty as a picture.  In winter it will often be a bit bleak up here but on a Summer evening with the sun throwing spectacular shadows across the landscape it’s picture-postcard stuff all the way.  Once I realised I hadn;t stopped for picture I couldn’t resist stopping several times.

Heading for Arncliffe

I bought a special camera bag for my DSL camera which works a bit like a gun holster, the idea being that it would sit comfortably on my right thigh whilst riding.  My wife thought it was a silly idea and worried that it would cause injury to me if I fell off the bike, so although I had had it for some months, this was the first time I had strapped in on holster-style – and I wasn’t brave enough to do that until I stopped for my first photo and realised this ride was the perfect opportunity to try it out.   I suppose it could be a lumpy handicap if you found yourself rolling down the tarmac, but that aside it was a great success.  I could stop and take a picture very easily and it was certainly a lot more secure and comfortable than riding with a DSL dangling around your neck.

Descent toowards Arncliffe

Before you reach Malham Tarn the route forks left (signposted Arncliffe) along another very narrow, i.e. single track road.  But it has a reasonable tarmac surface and presents no difficulties to a Wing.   There are several quite marked changes of scenery along this section; it’s a very pretty road to ride.

There is aslo a fairly steep climb over a spur before you drop down again to approach Arncliffe and this has another couple of climbing turns – not seriously difficult ones but tight enough to force you to remember to look where you want the bike to go as you go round them.

At Arncliffe you ride through the village and then there is a T junction and when I rode with friends we turned right towards Hawkswick and beyond, as part of a full day’s ride.  But this time I was only out for an evening, so I turned left, up Littondale, towards Halton Gill. Another change of scenery as I rode up this lovely valley through the village of Litton, after which of course it’s named, to what turns out to be the tiny settlement of Halton Gill.  There are a couple of houses and a Bunk Barn and that’s about it.

Arncliffe Cote

No traffic up here of course, so my engine was making the only sound competing with the guitar which someone was playing outside the Bunk Barn, while his friend listened, sipping a beer.  They both looked up as I passed and although they must heard the sound of the engine in that quiet and peaceful place, I hope it was the visual impact of the bike that kept their eyes on me all the way.  If you want some real peace and quite to enjoy with a bunch of friends, this Bunk Bern offers plenty of it.  I felt I was intruding on their peace, even on a Wing.  Imagine the look I would have got if I had been on a Harley.

Littondale

I took another left turn at Halton Gill, heading back towards Settle up the steep side valley which shoulders Pen-y-Ghent Hill (2231 feet) which always strikes me as a hill which, with a name like that, ought to be somewhere else, like Wales.  There was no real alternative to turning left here, the road up the valley above Halton Gill is a dead end.

Feeling the need for a photo of Halton Gill, I pulled over to the side of the road, which was how I got myself into one of those little difficulties I seem to create for myself these days.  It was a steepish hill but the real problem was the camber; even though I adjusted position of the bike before dropping it carefully on to the side stand, making sure the side stand would be on solid tarmac, the bike went a long, long way over. The grassy moorland verge fell away from the roadside too, so the overall effect, as I discovered trying to dismount, was that it was very difficult to get off  – I more or less fell off, wincing as my dodgy hip objected to the manoeuvre.  It was going to be difficult getting back on.

Looking back towards Halton Gill - and the steep angle of lean

So I took my picture, admired the scenery, thought about “easing springs” as we used to say in the Navy but decided I was still too much in the view of the Bunk Barn.  So it was time to approach the problem of remounting, which would have been difficult even without a full bladder.  Getting astride the bike again turned out to be achievable;  it wasn’t quick or stylish, but I managed to get back on board the bike without too much difficulty.

Those of us who have dropped our GoldWings when nearly stationary, foot or feet down, will know that there is an angle of lean beyond which the bike suddenly gets very much heavier to pull back upright and eventually impossible, so there is no option but to get it go down.  All you can do is break its fall.  The angle of lean at which I had parked my bike turned out to be just about there. The side stand was only just on the tarmac and the grassy verge slopped away. As I tried to pull the bike up I realised straight away that I was in trouble; it wouldn’t budge; I just didn’t have the leverage.

I spotted a lumpy bit of verge which I could put my left foot on to gain an inch or so of height and tried again.  I might just have had the leverage this time but I found I didn’t have the stregnth.  As Bill and I have taken to saying to each other these days, it’s a bugger getting old.

It passed through my mind that in this isolated place my mobile phone probably wouldn’t work and even if it did, could I really ring up a breakdown service to ask them to come and help me get my bike off its side stand?  Having felt rather smug about cruising smoothly past the two guys outside the Bunk Barn in magnificent Wingly style, I didn’t fancy walking down the hill to ask them for that sort of help either.  I decided to have one more go.

With the help of the grassy mound and a really sustained heave, I got the bike to start lifting.  The heaviness diminishes as the angle of dangle reduces (or whatever it was they taught me about moments of force in physics all those years ago) so once the bike had started lifting, thankfully it got easier.  I had discovered that if it looks like it’s too steep a camber and too sloping a verge to park safely, it probably is.  I made a careful hill start and went on my way.  Happily after all that straining, my bladder was still full too;  it’s a bugger getting old.

Stainforth Foss

The descent back towards Settle is via a village called Stainforth, which held childhood memories for me as a place where we used to visit my uncle in his caravan by the riverside, where there was, and still is, an unusual set of three waterfalls called, long before Starwars was thought of, “the Force”.  Or at least that was what we called it as children.  I suppose we had misunderstood; its proper name is Stainforth Foss.

A shallow, rippling river flows towards a narrowing rocky shelf to form a powerful waterfall and then another and another.  The first one drops only a few feet into a shallow pool but the second drops further and maybe on to softer rock because it has formed a deep pool, perhaps as much as ten feet deep, the water spilling over its brim to form the third and final waterfall.  This time it drops over a much higher shelf and into a much bigger and even deeper pool.  It was a children’s dream of a playground and we paddled in the shallows, swam in the first pool, duck dived to try to reach the bottom of the second and were too frightened to dive over the waterfall into the third.  The big boys did that – and swung out on a rope from an overhanging tree to splash into the middle of the pool.

On this evening ride I made no attempt to find it, although I think I did see the small side turning which leads down a really narrow and steep road to the bridge which crosses the river just above my childhood playground.  This could be a challenging route to take on a GoldWing; I’ve yet to try it.

So I rode down through Stainforth village on to the main valley road and back into Settle.  The Naked Man Cafe was closed but the Fish & Chip Shop was open.  I resisted the temptation without difficulty because my ride home from Settle, about thirty miles, is a favourite, with some really nice bends, even though the principal section is called, crudely but not without justification, Cowshit Alley.

Settle is a popular calling place for bikers and not only because it has a cafe with an intriguing name.  It’s got lots of cafes; it’s a nice little market town and there is usually plenty of room to park a GoldWing in the Market Square or outside the Town Hall, on the No Parking bit which all the bikers ignore. And if you are in that area with an hour or so to spare, you could do worse than ride past Malham Tarn, Arncliffe and Halton Gill, not to mention Stainforth Foss.

A postscript, written on August 18th: I rode this circuit again last weekend leading a pair of GoldWings.  We were staying at Kirkby Lonsdale with GoldWings North West and determined to have a ride out in spite of the blustery and showery weather, so off we went.

The ride to Settle along the A65 was pleasant enough on drying roads but as soon as we got above Langcliffe on to the high ground the weather took a distinct turn for the worse.  It wasn’t too bad across towards Arncliffe but as we turned for home at Halton Gill the wind and rain really picked up and it became one of those days when you ask yourself why you set off at all. This route is excellent on a nice day but in marginal weather, even in Summer, better stick to the valleys.

We got back in one piece and just in time for the weather to start making a spectacular improvement.  The marquee had nearly taken off and self-destructed during the afternoon while we were working hard to keep our bikes on the road in the squalls.  But a couple of hours later we were able to enjoy our barbeque in warm sunshine and clear skies.  Once darkness fell we had a spectacular view of the night sky, complete with shooting stars.  We even had an amateur astronomer to tell us what we were looking at.  Away from the light levels of a twon, which on the Rugby Ground we were, makes a huge difference.  The mixed joys of a British Summer; who would want to live anywhere else.

If you would like to read a report on the Kirkby Lonsdale Weekend, please visit the GoldWings North West Website.