Well, I thought it was fantastic, anyway. The Crown Hotel proved to be an excellent base for riding along the excellent roads of the North Yorkshire Dales and Cumbria. A great many thanks are due to Lee Winslow, who organised the meeting with military precision, and led the fast group on his old BMW thanks to the demise of his TL1000 days before the meeting. Also to the ride leaders Gary Enever, Ian Woolley and Grahame Smith.

This was the biggest get-together yet, with over 30 bikes planned to attend. One or two nearly didn't make it - Chris Chapell having to replace his wheel bearings in Scarborough on the Friday after an impromptu ride by those travelling up early for the meeting.

The Hotel is Egon Ronay listed, and provided us with really excellent food on the Friday night to get us in the mood for a spirited ride along the twisty Dales roads. The black pudding was also pretty excellent on the Friday morning, as we got ready for an early start. It was really good to see a lot of new Quacks present at their first meeting, as the club continues to go from strength to strength. There were so many bikes attending that we needed to ride in four groups, broadly designated Fast (x2), Progressive and Touring, although the distinction between them seems to get blurred, and the Touring group caught the Progressive group up more than once :-)

Even more impressive was the fact that the weather was dry, although not hot and sunny. In fact, ideal weather for the ride. We set off from Boroughbridge and followed some excellent roads to Knaresborough, then on to Summer Bridge, Ripon, Masham and Leyburn before crossing the Dales into Herriott Country where we stopped for scones and hot chocolate in Hawes. Tight, technical and twisty roads proved great fun, and we were glad to have been forewarned about the disinfectant mats in the foot and mouth zones. After coffee, it was a quick blast through to Kendal, and then Penrith along the A6 which is a wonderful fast road with good visibility. A petrol stop preceded the run up to Hartside cafe for lunch.

After lunch, we descended from Hartside, then took the B6277 to Middleton in Teesdale, Staindrop and Richmond for an ice-cream stop (the touring group taking a slightly unscheduled detour here, partly due to navigation error, and partly to deposit Doc Sarah's bike at the Co-Op car park to prevent her dropping it on the steep roads down to the falls). There was then a brief and brisk trip through Northallerton and back to Boroughbridge, for a swim, jacuzzi, lots of beer and another excellent meal.

Sunday morning saw the largest club meeting yet. We decided the next meeting would be in September 7-9th in Cwmbran. We also decided to make a donation to charity from our club funds, and to investigate the possibility of a longer tour to Scotland in Spring 2002.

Everybody enjoyed themselves, and I certainly got used to my new Thundercat very quickly on the wonderful Yorkshire roads.

Here's to the next meeting....