Dave Smiths Do No 5

Saturday 4th April

In the beginning there where only muddy tracks. These where fine for walking along but not much else. Much later the Romans came over for their hols and built straight roads so they could a) follow crows, and, b) keep their boot dry. Road planning and technology more remained more or less at this standard until the invention of the motorcycle ...

Much later ...

Thursday night.
Ring ring, ring ring.
"Hello"
"Er, do you know about this gig on Saturday night"
"No"
"We're playing a gig on Saturday night"
"What gig, when can we practice? We ain't played for over a year"
"er ... practice Friday and Saturday afternoon"
"Fuck off"

Saturday.

The gathering started at the Holwick in Middleton St. George for Dave Smiths biannual motorcycle and beer extravaganza. After a winter of grey misery the sun was out, the skies where blue and I was happier the a pervert in a convent.

The usual suspects turned up on an assorted selection of bikes from the sublime (Steve the Apprentice's un-turboed, un-nitrous CB250) to the ridiculous (Danny's V-Max aka the High Speed Handbag).

The Green Dragon.
We would like to apologise to all those west of this point

The first part of the ride took the form of a reasonably organised migration to Leyburn before the slightly less organised charge to the Green Dragon at Hardraw. It took a fair while for the slower bikes to turn up and many decided this was a far as they wanted to ride.
This left Dav and Sue (TURBO), Dave and Lisa (CBR6), Glen (er... yes, er... Spondon thing), Danny (V- Max) and myself (RF900) for the run through the lakes.

The man responsible for all this - Dave Smith
Lisa voices her opinion on the matter ...

Now some might say this little cocktail would be a recipe for traffic violations, but not so. We are all safety conscious, experienced riders so we did the correct thing. All brains where removed, placed in small plastic bags and handed to a responsible adult for safe keeping before going any further.
I won't go into details about the rest of the ride except to mention Dav getting his panniers down on the A6 from Kendal to Penrith and a kamikaze owl up past the Hartside cafe.

Eventually, despite the the best endeavours of Farmer Fuckwit and his performing trailer, we all made it safely to the Strathmore Arms near Middleton in Teesdale. Due to gross incompetence there was no band so Shag took along his collection of CD's and kept us all well entertained.
Somebody give the man a proper rig cos he's actually quite good at this. Lyn and Olly kept the beer flowing and a jolly time was had by all.

Yet again another fine start to the year from the fetid sock that is Dave Smiths imagination