Jingle Bells!

The long anticipated bikers christmas ride was on Saturday. I was not well. Started with a bastard cold on the Thursday prior and decided not to chance a ride that night, instead having an early night to try and get better. The convalescence however was hindered somewhat by the arrival in my garage of a barrel of Flat Cap. 7 pints on Friday night was not what I had in mind to combat my cold.

The forecast also got it wrong, badly wrong, but more on that later.

The turn out was excellent, Toss, Pikey, The River, CW, JD, Weester and myself all present. My pathetic attempts to make the bike festive were put to shame by the others. Pikey, Toss and CW adorning their bikes with not only tinsel but lights too, JD even had baubles on his spokes and the River had a splendid helmet. CW even rigged up a speaker system in his backpack that played christmas songs all the way round!

After a few emails aimed squarely at CW telling him not to be late, he duly arrived early and proceeded to set up his bike. It was at this stage that he realised that he had in fact forgotten to pack his wheels. Frankly, I'm lost for adjectives that can adequately convey just how much of a bell end he really is and its not often that happens. So, fortunately Toss had his old stumpy that he could borrow, otherwise he would have been royally fucked.

With the storm clouds gathering, we set off up onto the moors heading for the Lower barn and tea. I was taking things extremely slowly an holding everyone up in the process, but I didn't want to stress my chest out too much. It was just as we got to Horrocks Fold that the heavens opened. We were blessed with the arrival of hail, rain and a headwind so murderous that I was reduced to a wreck.

Path of least resistance took us to two lads and then we slithered our way down Hole in't Wall and then the Dentist to the School. Quick muddy and wet spin to the Barn. Here, the outside jumberella's were up so we stashed all out gear underneath and went to get tea.

The fuckers had decided to close at 4.30 instead of the advertised 5pm. This mean that there was fuck all hot food on offer, the best they could muster for me was a cheese and ham toastie. Not only this, but while we were sat eating, one of the bastards went outside and dropped the Jumberella, in the pissing rain, so when we did get our gear is was even wetter. Great.

Next up, the climb over to Belmont. It was fucking horrible to be honest, horrible. I crawled my way up in the pissing rain, however our luck was turning, as the wind was behind us. We all flew down the road to Belmont and arrived at the Bull.

I have, during our absence, forgotten just how fucking great this pub is. We all piled in and dumped our soggy gear before Al arrived and told us to fuck off into the back bar, out of view of his more descerning customers. So we settled in for the night, all our socks lined up on the radiator while the rest of us started to smell like wet dog.

The Ale was fine, Flat Cap and Wainwrights, superbly kept as ever. Jase and Clarkey arrived with a cleaned off Pikey and a great night was had. 7 pints later and we decided to head down to the Tap. Me and Toss rode Al's steps and CW even jumped down the things! Fairly easy run down the road to Su's chippy.

Chips from Auntie Sue were spot on, she even let us eat them in the shop as it was rather tiresomely still pissing it down. We ventured accross the road to the Tap, only to be confronted with Jase, Clarkey and Pikey standing up. This despite the bastards assuring us that they had a seat before we set off from the Bull. Bastards. Still, this lead to some entertaining piss taking all night between the "riders" and the "slackers".

Rolled out of the pub about 1ish I think, cant really remember as the following picture clearly explains.

Excellent day / night out and one to remember!