New Year's Day
Ringing in the New Year
When you schedule ride outs you always, whatever the time of year, hope for a decent day's weather. But when you plan for a ride on New Year's Day, the best you can hope for is for it to stay dry. The cold weather and shorter daylight means we tend to stay more local and plan to spend as much time in a cafe as actually on the road.
So it was with this in mind Jon planned a short hop to a great diner on the A29, 'Billy's on the road'.
The magnificent 7
As luck would have it, the weather forecast on New Year's Eve suggested a break from the wind and rain that had been sweeping off The Atlantic for almost a month, ushering a welcome window of opportunity for a great day's riding. Plans were hastily arranged so those that were closest to our destination could meet earlier and take in a run of around 70 miles, a run that headed out towards the Ashdown Forest before heading south to Sheffield Park, finally westbound on the A272. Gary, Andy, Graham, Michael and myself all chose this option.
It really was perfect winter's riding, not only dry but not too cold, the overcast skies enabled good visibility as there was no harsh winter sunlight to dazzle us.
Meanwhile further to the north an additional 7 Howlers were assembling at Ryka's. Here the range of bikes were pretty diverse. Bill was riding his Harley Davidson Road King whilst for the first time we were able to see Jen's Kova 450cc dual sports bike. Stuart was riding his Royal Enfield, whilst the rest were on a range of Honda tourers (PAN 1100), adventure (NC750X), sports (CBR100XX)and a modern retro machine (CB1100RS). What a showroom that would be!
Billy's is a great place to meet up. Jon pre booked the large table, one that doubles up as a display case for a superb Hornby dublo gauge model railway. So there was plenty of room for the 12 of us to spread out. Cooked breakfasts were delivered to our table with military efficiency and extra coffees were ordered whilst the conversation flowed.
It is days like today that make a nonsense of taking a bike off the road for winter. It was as good a riding day as anything you could hope for in March.
L/R Stephen C, Michael, Andy, Graham, Bill, Jens, Dan, Steve H, Jon, Stuart and Gary
+ me