Stonehenge Run Out

Easter Saturday

The weather conditions as you all know, were drab, grey and drizzling rain but the forecast was for it become brighter. Speedy Eddie and Sue came to my house at 8.45 when we set off for the Elly.

We were all wearing our Gortex waterproofs and were boiling hot! But it would have been out of the question to wear anything else. When we arrived at the Elly it was 9.15 and we were first there. Jack and Carmen, with their new satellite navigation system, soon arrived and Jack was enthusing to us how he would never get lost again. It was a very neat system, which worked via his hand held pc, giving very clear and precise directions based on postcodes. I was impressed; I love gadgets of any kind but this was a really useful one and the maps covered all of Europe too.

Dave and Sarah arrived within another 10 minutes, Sarah on pillion duty as her bike was still not back the paint shop, nearly 7 weeks now! She was not amused, but we set off to meet Richard and Jackie in Basingstoke before meeting up with FffPete and a few of the gang from Oxford.

Richard and Jackie were nowhere to be seen at the meeting point and I could not have blamed them for not coming, as the weather was horrible. We pressed on with "I am a gold RoSPA rider"out in front. We stopped off at the first service area we found to wait for Pete who arrived with Barry and spouse, bang on time. It was time for a coffee and a quick warm up.

As we stood enjoying our refreshment Richard and Jackie sailed past us and despite our frantic waves and cheers, yes they didn’t see us. We soon caught them up and encountered an enjoyable bit of filtering, for about a mile. It was great, I love filtering. All those car drivers looking at you as you glide graciously past.

Stonehenge looked…. well like Stonehenge, except it costs you £5 to look at it from the other side of the fence these days, so after FffPete had finished arguing with the car park attendant over where we should park our bikes (the area clearly marked motorcycle parking was not to be used)

We dismounted and went to have the obligatory photos taken. This landmark challenge was not going to allow us to have bikes in shot of the camera, so we made do with our brave membership. A couple of the Centre 14 boys turned up (two actually) so Dave was pleased that the tables had turned and that Centre 12 was now in the ascendancy.

There is only so long you stand and look at an ancient monument so we decided to head up towards Marlborough for lunch. It had stopped raining by now and it was a nice ride winding through the country lanes. We had a good lunch at the Bat and Ball Hotel, intimidating Nigel Havers and his wife to leave earlier than planned. FffPete leaning across to Dave and Sarah and whispering look there’s Nigel Havers, just as his wife was looking rather disgustingly at the horrible dirty bunch of biker types sitting in the window seat!

Meanwhile, Jack had managed to lose his sat nav receiver, between the Henge and the Hotel, so it looks like he will continue to lose his way until his birthday comes around. Then Carmen might buy him another.

The final leg was a run along the A4, passing Hungerford, Newbury and Reading. Barry, Pete, Richard, Jackie, Jack and Carmen leaving at their appropriate exit points.

The day was finished off, with pots of tea, back at mine for the remainder of the group.

I am not sure how many points we can put forward for our landmark challenge, I will leave that to Dave and Sarah to work out but it was good fun and helps to get this year’s Spring events off to a good start.

Thanks to those that turned out, it made the best out of what would otherwise been a miserable day.

Big Rog!