Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Matlock Bath & Arbor Low

Loz, Dean, Gaz, Cara and myself all met up at the Bowling Green in Lichfield yesterday morning for a ride out to the Peak District. After a five minute natter and another five minutes fitting the Pilligrip to Gaz's bike we were off.


The Bowling Green - More of a pub than a bowling green



Rig from Rigsville asked us if we could test a product called Pilligrip. It's basically a piece of rubber matting which is designed to fit snuggly over the pillion seat of any motorcycle, helping prevent the poor pillion's ass from skidding all over the place. Cara's first impressions after a hundred or so miles were positive.

Our first stop off was Matlock Bath, a favourite meeting point for bikers. We conveniently managed to find a parking space right outside a cafe that happened to have an empty table outside. Quite a feat on Bank Holiday Easter Monday!




"A nice cup of tea and a piece of cake Aunt Sally". Anyone remember Worzel Gummidge?


Matlock Bath main street


Sadly I'm afraid it IS a strawberry milkshake!

From Matlock, much to Loz's disgust, we headed off in search of a bit of culture and ended up at Arbor Low, a Stone Age henge built about 4500 years ago. After studying the undulating landscape of this fine piece of English heritage, Loz concluded it would make a fine motorcycle trials playground! As amazing as the henge is, I did secretly agree with him though.











With the culture over and done with we were just in time to enjoy a thoroughly unpleasant journey home in the rain (Moaning from Loz because he spent hours cleaning his bike the day before). Being stupid, I decided in my wisdom to ride in jeans and trainers yesterday, only to find when we arrived at the pub, it looked like I'd pissed myself. "That'll LEARN you." as Gaz so eloquently put it.

What else went wrong? Well my shoe lace came undone and decided to melt itself all over my exhaust GRRRRR, and Dean on occasions forgot what country he was in and decided to veer off onto the wrong side of the road, usually whilst trying to negotiate a bend.

That just about sums up the days events.

For those that are interested, there's an A road between Matlock and the A515 called the A5012 that is awesome on a bike. It's well worth checking out. It's also worth noting that there's a petrol station at the A515 end of it in case you're running low on fuel.

9 comments:

ellie said...

"Loz, Dean, Gaz, Cara and myself all met up at The Bowling Green - More of a pub than a bowling green....... thoroughly unpleasant journey home in the rain only to find when we arrived at the pub it looked like I'd pissed myself"

Sounds like a perfect day, starting at a pub ending at a pub and bikes in between. I'm jealous :(

Anonymous said...

Mike, are you sure it wasn't polygrip rigs wanted to test for holding teeth in on bumpy roads ?

Anonymous said...

Well guys I think I shown the few of you that my little 2006 R6 has got more than enough go for something on the road as long as you don`t mind having an active left foot. After giving it a bit of stick with it being its second season now it deserved it, yes I know I had gaz producing dinosaur eggs out his arse as I dropped the front end in a little late on two of our fast bends expecting me to be sprawled across the front of a wagon but I`m here and well, thanks for asking. If anyone is interested, my bike had 2118miles on the clock before I left on Monday and I`m pretty sure we did roughly 125-130miles and my back tyre has probably got 100mile left on it (Dunlop Sportmax)if anyone is considering having a set themselves, and I`ve been quoted £109 for the replacement by cmc of cannock. Great roads spriggsy keep up the good work producing these routes but I think that outing woke us all up after the winter as we all agreed in the pub afterwards it wasn`t slow!

Ant said...

The picture of Dean, Cara and Loz at Arbor Low reminds me of a scene from a Harry Potter film, Dean could quite possibly be the new Hagrid judging by the size of him, Cara obviosly the lovely Hermoine and Loz can be some Hobbit/Goblin thats wandered into the scene wondering if anybody would like to see his "precious ring"

ellie said...

Ref picture no 4

Why is Loz dangling a tampax in the teapot? Is it some sort of Jangle initiation ceremony? Grow your hair long and make tampax tea.
Is there a rule in the highway code that dictates the safe length of a motorcyclists fringe?

Anonymous said...

You are a bit like me Mike, not written for a while. Anyway the pics and story are great, looks like you had a great day. Worzel looks good. Like the pic of the viking lady. CAnt see any goats though, check my latest post.

TTFN

Anonymous said...

tampax in the teapot would have been much better than the god awful weak and puny teabag that was attatched to that string !

dave and mandy said...

hi, have a ninja and wife is always bashing me in the back, has the pilligrip lasted the test of time for you guys.

Mike said...

Hi Dave and Mandy, I couldn't really tell you for sure as Gaz and Cara didn't really use it for long enough. It seemed durable enough to me though and for how little they cost it doesn't really matter if you only get 12 months life out of it. There's a review on the thing over at Rigsville that Gaz and Cara did. You can find it here http://www.rigsville.org.uk/products/pilligrip.asp