Itchy's Ride Report
My day started out not as great as it should have. Late to bed because I was guilt-tripped into staying up because family was around, woken early by the dog whining, then woken again as the missus forgot to turn the alarm off her phone for the Bank Holiday Monday!
Never mind, thinks I. I'll soon be on the road and having a whale of a time.
Well, the ride to the meeting place was fairly uneventful.
Actually, scratch that. There were a couple of incidents that shouldn't have happened. Like me racing away from a set of lights only to see a camera van at the last minute. Luckily, he was pointing at the other side of the dual carriageway and as I saw him I'd just hit 70, so that could've been worse.
And at Ashbourne I plainly sailed through a red light.
Was paying attention to the road, but just the tarmac bit and not any of the signs or furniture around it. I was far too busy thinking "Why does this place look so familiar?" to notice the two bright red lights staring at me!
(Because I went that way to Dovedale last year, in case you were wondering!)
Anyhoo, about 10 miles or so out from the rendezvous I see a familiar shape filling my mirrors, then pulling alongside me and giving me the thumbs up. Our very own Kwackmeister General! Ride into Buxton. Kwacky clocks Monty stuffing his face with a nice looking breakfast. We dump the bikes nowhere near a parking space of any description and order ourselves a bacon butty and a drink.
Just like my meeting with Pitty and Moonwitch a few weeks ago, I hadn't seen any of the gang for about a year, but straight away we're all shaking hands, big grins and war stories as if we'd only seen each other yesterday. I love this biking lark!
Off we go. Bank Holiday Monday has provided us with some decent weather with which to explore the local roads. Unfortunately, this applied to everyone else in the area, so there was a little congestion. This, however, is my secret weapon when doing a rideout with such speedy lads as it allows me to keep up when they get stuck behind traffic. Well, until they bugger off again!
After the initial burst of fun we come up into a line of stationary traffic at what I presumed to be the start of Snake Pass. An elderly gentleman coming from the other way takes the time to inform us that the road is closed due to an RTC involving a motorcyle. Or as he finger-waggingly put it to Rocket, "one of YOUR lot"!
Piss off, grandad.
So Blade gets us to slip up the queue and into the Snake Pass Inn car park. Deciding to wait it out until whatever has happened gets cleared, we grab a drink and empty our piss-bags.
The queue...
Rest time...
Kwacky with all his mates...
After a while the Air Ambulance fired up, and we realised that it wasn't far away. It pretty much took off from here...
Good luck to whoever was in this chariot...
As we ride past the scene, which can't have been more than half a mile away, police are controlling traffic. I don't know if anyone else clocked the blood on the tarmac. I did. There was a lot of it. I didn't feel right for a bit after that.
Still, on we press and my thoughts soon turn to playing catch up again. Then we hit a clear-ish patch, I think it was still Snake Pass, so the lads buzz off to play whilst I do my best to stop holding Blade up!
Then we turn around and do it again.
Then we, er, turn around and do it again.
And again!!!
Then Monty takes us down some fan-frickin-tastic roads. Bends, bends and more bends. Hills, gorgeous scenery, bikes everywhere, and what's this? It looks like the brow of a hill, maybe I'd better roll ooooooooooooooooooooooffffffffffffffff...
As the wheels go over the peak, they follow the road. I however come out of my seat until my legs are at full extension on the pegs. As I sit back down with a thump I squash my knackers and thank the stars that I'm in one piece and still going straight!
(I have a recurring dream about doing this, however in my dream I'm going so fast that I get 20 feet of air, the bike falls away from me and I either fall to earth and wake up, or continue to fly like a superhero and land in some super awesome action hero pose. I fear in real life this would not happen as I want it to!)
Monty doesn't hang about in his playground. Like I said to you Monty, I don't know what you've done to that 650 but it sounds brilliant. Really throaty and sharp. Bit like a race bike! Anyhoo, after more and more awesome roads we finally come to a halt and fuel up, and exchange knacker-squashing stories!
And then Kwacky goes to put some air in his tyres. As I watched him pull out the hose I thought "this'll make a good photo so I can make some humorous reference to Kwacky fiddling with his hose etc..." so I whipped out the camera and click...
...I put the camera away and hear a crunch.
We all look up to see a bike on it's side on the deck and a look of disbelief on Kwacky's face. It's a sickening feeling when you drop your bike, and it's not much better when you see it happen to a mate.
Still, if there's any consolation (and I know it's a small one mate) it's that you already had a project in the offing.
We split up, me, Kwacky and Rocket head for some cake (or curry
) back in Buxton, then start to make the journey home. Kwacky introduces me to his own particular style of filtering, which one can best describe as a "f**k you I'm coming through whatever" sort of style.
It works though, we decimated the traffic like some kind of ninjas, and only once did I nearly end up seeing what Kwacky had for breakfast because I squeezed into a gap that was not really big enough for the both of us!
Great day. Great, great day.
I try and take something away from every ride out. (Tips, advice, ideas etc...) I've had so many things to take away from today, I need some time to reflect.
Peace out, y'all!
its going to be a great day 
