With the weather promising to be dry and a barmy 11 degrees, ten bikes (including an Associate on his first Group Ride Out) and one pillion braved the road conditions to join Martin Jones on his planned ride out to Langrick Station Café near Boston for the second of November’s Sunday Ride Outs.
After the briefing from Martin, Gary Reynolds volunteered to don the Pick Vest for TEC Duties, we geared up ready for today’s adventure.
The route of 60 miles was to take around one and a half hours, with the seasonal road conditions, as Martin had included some “off road” style roads, which would prove to be interesting for those of us, not on adventure bikes.
The ride out started with a familiar route up to Wansford and then on to Ufford, following some lovely twisty roads out to West Deeping, taking in some back roads out to Gosberton Clough, Hubbert’s Bridge on to our destination Café at Langrick Bridge.
The Lincolnshire back roads, proved to be interesting, with the farmers to thank for the excess of mud added to the recent rain, with potholes and floods, the conditions, whilst not ideal for a naked bike (which Bill and I ride) were easily tackled with our IAM training.
The Station Café at Langrick Bridge was busy but had on offer plenty of choices of hot food, we had to sit outside, but with the unseasonably warm weather, this was not a hardship.
Suitably fed and watered, some of the group left us to make their own way home.
The route back was a short 26mile ride to the planned stop of Applegreen Services, Spalding, Martin managed to find us some more interesting Lincolnshire back roads, before stopping for fuel and coffee.
The ride out was great fun, even on a naked bike!
Conditions of the roads where not ideal at times, but its good to be pushed out of your comfort zone and ride in different conditions.
I am not sure our bikes agreed with the conditions today, but after a good hose down and clean they were back to the shiny, gleaming machines they started as.
Thank you to Martin Jones for the ride today and the interesting Lincolnshire back roads, great destination café and thank you to Gary Reynolds for his TEC duties.
Now do I need to think about getting an adventure bike??………………………….