Sat 24th March Dyno Day

Now then

Fri 23rd March
Home from work by 17:30, tank bag already packed, straight on the bike and Lesley and I were on our way to Freddy and Marilyn’s. Traffic was pretty normal for a friday night on the A1/M1, quite busy. Overhead motorway signs from Wetherby onwards said the M1 was closed at junction 28 - 26. I'm not too good with my junction numbers, where they are etc but had an idea this would affect us. As we got closer I decided to go off at junction 29 to save filtering through possible standing traffic at 28. Came off at Chesterfield junction but next roundabout heading west was closed turned South and guessed the rest even though the sat nav was trying to get me back on the M1 at every turn ended up on the A38 then A52 back onto a deserted M1 South bound which was a bit eary but great and we pressed on. Made it to Coalville by 20:30, changed, introduced to Fred and Marilyn's lovely daughter Lucy and out to the pub for our evening meal. We met up with a friend of their’s ‘Trig’, who we’d met last year and is a biker, in the 2nd pub and had a drink with him. Fred and Marilyn's pup, Molly is absolutely georgous by the way but a little too big now to fit in our tank bag so we couldn't bring her home

Sat 24th
Up at daft o'clock, again showered and downstairs. everyone else got up one at a time and Fred and I set off at 07:15. A mile from Fred's the Fog descended and made the first 20 miles of our 100+ miles morning journey to Oxford, cold, damp and slow. Poor Fred's visor was misting up something rotten and when he made the fatal mistake of lifting his visor his glasses steamed up too and blindness set in Eventually the fog lifted and we had bright, warm sunshine for the rest of the ride . We didn’t do too much dual carriageway riding and the traffic was nice and light at that time of the morning. Fred had planned the route and he’d found some good A roads and we even had a traffic light race at one point

We arrived at H cafe and there was already a good gathering basking in the beautiful morning sunshine. A leisurely hello to old faces and introductions to new before we sat outside for our breakfast’s. More XJR’s arrived and those going on the Dyno trouped next door to find out what their bike’s were putting out. Highwayman had the most, 134 with the NOS and Paddy had the least 97, dodgy aftermarket pipes and everybody else was in between














Akirasan, Hairy, Lou Lou, Diego & Philco








MickSP and Mates













Lisa, Philco, Diego and Lou Lou

























Plenty of Yellow about






More chit chat and a couple of coffee’s later we said our goodbyes and Fred and I set off back to Coalville. We decided to avoid Motorway’s and highway’s on the return journey so set the sat nav to do just that and found some great roads on the way home but also went through some large, built up, busy areas which was frustrating. One sports bike tagged along for a few miles but didn’t try to come past Freddy, I think he was learning a thing or two from the Legend that is ‘Freddy’ Virtually no police prescence on the roads back to Coalville, which was nice apart from one fully stickered up astra in traffic which Fred's radar missed as he trotted past filtering between him and oncoming traffic oh how I laughed
There was a lot of double white lines I noticed on some of the fast A roads we rode but they didn't bother Fred, I think he must have a 'Get out of jail free' card from life's monopoly game and motorists are definately getting better at noticing bikes approaching fast, as they are making more of an effort to move over and not halt our white line progress
Most of the road surfaces where in decent condition too, which is a big help when you're banked over at speed on the 'Bouncy Belle' just busy town roads with their constant heavy traffic causing holes and subsidence are still a pain.
We arrived back at Fred’s about 14:20 and sat in the garden in the late afternoon sunshine eating a couple of sarnies made by our attentive hostess Marilyn before Lesley and I set off on our 124 miles journey home. We had a good run and after a stint with a blue XJR around Bolsover and a couple of races, one with a cooper S and a stop for fuel at Doncaster we arrived on our drive at 17:10.

As ever it was great to meet up with fellow XJR riders old and new to the club and as Glider said What better way to spend a bright, sunny Sat morning than with like minded mates

Cheers

Great write up there JT, sounds like a cracking weekend.

I haven't been to H's for years now, it used to be a great place to meet up and some brilliant roads around there. We used to meet up on sunday mornings in Maidenhead, a mad blast to H's for breakfast and then tearing up the countryside for hours, they were the days when I used to ride like a nutter on a Kawasaki 636, that was a mad bike for the road, constantly...

Sounds like a bloody good weekend mate. Your 3rd pic threw me, the helmet in the centre of the pic when I enlarged it, looked as if it were part of the bike in the back ground, then it dawned on me - Doh! Some nice bikes there too. Love Aki's T shirt.