Bike Wise 2012

Don't forget that Sunday 1st July is the date for Bike Wise 2012 show at Aykley Heads. DAM will be there in our usual spot, promoting our activities and recruiting new members. Call in for a catch up!

DAM does Chester

Eight DAM members took up Bill Blackledge's offer to arrange a weekend trip to Chester.

We met up at The Bowburn Hall car park on Saturday morning comparing notes on various weather forecasts with a view to picking a dry route to Chester.

Eastern route South was the decision, so we set off as a group to head for the first planned stop at Squires Cafe for Tea and refreshments.

Suitably refreshed, we headed West through West Yorkshire heading for The Cat and Fiddle pass.

The Cat & Fiddle is now well policed via average speed cameras but is still well worth the ride. Second tea stop was at the Cat and Fiddle pub itself. At this point the wind was howling but fortunately the rain was holding off. - just the right conditions to try and plug a nice small hole in my rear tyre! Fortunately my well stocked top box always has Plug & Go kit and portable compressed available.

Arguments with the Sat Nav and some laps of the roundabouts later we made it to the hotel in Chester.

The evening's activities were a pleasant curry and a couple of pints followed by a walk back in the rain.

Fortunately the rain had gone by the morning and the first run was through Liverpool and up to Southport Pier for a brew and rock shopping!

A cross country route then took us to the Embsay Railway near Skipton for some lunch before heading back to the North East.

Overall a very successful weekend, for routes, company and conversations.

Points learnt - Bill likes to see all exits of least one roundabout a day, Sat Nav data is never fully up to date and punctures never happen in the sunshine!

Thanks to Bill for all of the excellent planning and preparations.

June & July rideouts

I would like to thank the few intrepid riders who attended the ride on Sunday 10 June.  


Despite the threat of rain we headed off to Squires for lunch then on to Fridaythorpe.  


It only rained a little despite the ominous clouds and the presence of large puddles.

The ride on 31 July will be to Teasdale Motorcycles, to view the new showroom and facilites.  We will be leaving at 7:30 prompt to allow us to get to Thirsk. More details to follow.

Stereotyping?

Blow in the bag.

My french requirement Breathalysers arrived this week, the requirement is to carry 2 with you but the company I sourced them from supply them in 5s, so you can have a "practice" blow, whilst still having sufficient to be more than legal.

Break off the ends of the tube, inflate the bag and then connect the bag to the tube and squash the air out of the bag through the tube - not the same as the old UK Breathalyser (not that I ever blew one myself).

So, 2 & half pints of 3.7% real ale, wait 20 minutes then blow in the bag.

The result?

Well, I wouldn't dream of riding the bike after 2 & half pints (I certainly didn't feel "capable") 

but my breathalyser said I was OK!

To fail the test with this particular type of test, the crystals have to change to green over the red line - a little subjective to make an accurate judgement, but certainly an eye opening exercise!

Father, Son and .............

Latest certificates to be presented prior to the May 29th ride out were presented by DAM Secretary Bill McReady to father and son; Mike (Centre) & Daniel Fleming (Left) and Kyle Harris (Right).

Congratulations to the new full members on achieving the required standard of riding and thanks to the Observers for bringing them up to that standard.


Thanks also to Bill for stepping in and running the ride out without any preparation or notice!
The ride took a decent sized group of 21 bikes Esh Winning, Muggleswick and over the tops to Stanhope then onto the chip shop at Frosterly.