Easter Day 1 North England TET

The weather is supposed to be great over the east holiday and i'm excited about it.
I'd spoken with Jason the day before and agreed i'd be ready at about 8am,  he turned up at about 10:30am with a Costa in hand laughing at his time keeping.  He said something like 'the queue was massive and the costa staff were shit, the only thing that kept me in the queue was imagining your impatience in bike kit sweating in the sun'

After a bit more faffing with kit and bikes we were ready to roll.

We were staying at my (lovely) step mothers house near Halifax, so the loose plan was to cover the TET from Chesterfield as seen below.

We had to cover about 50miles of road to get to the start, but green lanes are available for riding in the Peak District.  Due to the hot weather and picturesque setting the first lanes were busy with walkers. We were respectful and always passed slowly and with a cheery thanks.  Cant be giving bikers a bad name!

As we left the peaks behind the distance between lanes stretched out and theres a lot of road work involved.  The TET linesman has done a good job with what he had to work with, the roads are small, the traffic very light, you dont pass through large towns and the scenery is nice. 

Approaching Yorkshire...

A camp picture of me thrown in for good measure...

We hadnt stopped for anything other than a quick a fuel stop when Jason noted the petrol in his tank, which on the freeride, is above the engine and below the seat was bubbling. He asked me if it was boiling?  I said 'nah, of course not!', but i refused the offer to dip my finger into the hot liquid to test. I was secretly thankful it wasn't my balls resting 3 cm over the bubbling & highly explosive liquid.

We filled up and set off...

Nearing our destination we stopped at Sowerby Bridge for some much needed refreshment.   Taking a pew next to the bikes, pint in hand, resting in the heat of the sun it was lovely.  The bikes were drawing quite a bit off attention with the locals, who were friendly, albeit a bit rough looking.  Resplendent as they were with skin heads, vests and tattoo's.  One particularly outgoing pair came and joined us. They explained it was a birthday celebration and they needed to roll a joint, which they promptly and deftly did, and offered it around.  We politely refused, said our goodbyes and left them cleaning cocaine off their nostrils.

We reached our Halifax destination and stopped at the local pub.  Whilst outside in the beer garden,  and much to my surprise,  my step mum rode by on the back of her boyfriends Harley!  :)  They waved and then joined us for beer and food and good conversation that got funnier the more we drank:)

We ended the night back at Burton Mansion where Dave set off lantern and Jason let the fairy magic happen, this was his room...

Thank you Caroline and Dave for a great night!