Road Crew Bonding Weeken

2/3rd April 2005

Why do the Road Crew need a bonding weekend?  Well we need to bond and find out what makes us all tick; it would also be an opportunity to learn - who are the Road Crew;

Back Row: Dave Cook, Chris Malkin, Graeme Turner, Graham Nicol (Lead Road Captain), Jon Ince, Dave Vardy, Tom Cooper

Front Row: Greg Holmes, Me, Bev Muizelaar

AWOL: Nige Collis, Jeff Stevenson

The Road Crew is built up of Marshals and Road Captains.  Each Road Captain has at least passed an IAM test and passed a two day First Aid course and taken appropriate First Aid certificate up-dates.  The idea of the Road Marshal is a unique post to Geordie HOG, it was brought in to encourage riders who aspired to be Road Captains as a route to this position.

Graham Nicol as our new leader had organised the route from our breakfast meeting in Just Harleys to Leaplish Site at Kielder, he decided to test his new Garmin GPS2610; he asked me to act as back marker.  We also tried the second man drop off principle which worked great; especially as Graham slavishly followed every turn as instructed by the Garmin, we checked out many housing estates in the Consett area before heading out across the moors.

The lunch stop was at the biking mecca of Hartside Cafe, it was full of the usual suspects riding all sorts of motor and mountain bikes.  The ride to Hartside Cafe had passed by Kilnhope mine which had been a fantastic Sunday ride organised by Tom Cooper and I would not be surprised if you saw the name Kilnhope on a ride out schedule.

Heading on towards Hawick I received a cell phone call from Jeff Stephenson who had to work on Saturday morning and was racing to join us he was in Brampton and we were close so we decided to rendevous at Longtown.  Having completed an arduous morning in the employ of the NHS Jeff was ready for this weekend and whilst waiting on his parked Fat Boy partook of Guinness but the local CCTV spied this indiscretion and dispatched one of Cumbria's finest who sweet talked Jeff into the back of his squad car for a breath test!  He had been very nice, chatty and friendly and got Jeff into the back of his patrol car leaving Jeff with the feeling he had been hoodwinked into a bad situation.  Of course Jeff was well in the clear but had a re-enforced poor opinion of the motivations of those who protect and serve.  This was not Jeffs' only encounter with CCTV!

The billet at Leaplish was a revelation (Graham is now thinking that I have omitted the geographic irregularities of Hawick!) we had Reivers Log Cabin which consisted of two double rooms, a family room an 8 bunked boys dormitory and an 8 bunk girls dorm, which Greg and I purloined plus toilets, showers, drying room and kitchen, spot on.  It was not long before we were all ensconced avec Pils (cheers Greg) and let the bullshitting begin.  Main topic of course was the three ride by's in Hawick main street.  We had earlier that day hit Hawick as a group and left as a rabble!  The local populous was treated to a herd of Harleys executing 'U' turns (feet up of course) riding back and forward and back again up Hawick Main street, Graham still sticks with his assertion that it was second man drop off in an urban environment training; of course we all knew he had misinterpreted the Garmins information.  As an experienced Garmin 2610 exponent I had realised early on so only did one and a half ride bys before leaving town on the correct 'B' road, I had Chris and Bev in tow so about three miles South of town we waited for our fellow Road Crew members and then they came and onto Leaplish for and end of day amber nectar!

The facilities at Leaplish are fabulous.  We had our Powerpoint GPS presentation (a day late for some of us!) and Greg trained us all in the very serious topic of helmet removal in an emergency situation; then onto an evening meal that tasted all the better for all the fresh air we consumed during the day.  We had to show the local country folk how Geordie Chapter can party and help them raise funds for the NE Air Ambulance just before we retired to our communal kitchen for a presentation of the Joke file on my lap top, some of which shocked me!

Sunday morning soon bustled through the morning mist laying over Keilder Water and our very own Combat Chef took charge in the kitchen soon had the full squad eating their way through a mountain of cholesterol!  Bloody marvellous.  Graham even had time for a moody shot of our vista.

Whilst some of us did our morning kinesthetics in the form of YMCA!

The run home was a route that two of the Road Marshals would control.  Chris Malkin took the lead and the first order of the day was to find and open fuel stop and Kielder Village has one.  We all started to get in the groove and appreciated the late morning start that meant we all had an opportunity to get our shit together.  We rode some fantastic roads in brilliant bright sunlight, it was perfect.  Lunch stop at the Black Swan, Culgaith, just off the A66, 2 miles East of Penrith:

You can see from this our ranks were somewhat depleted.  Dave Vardy and Nige had been called away, Tom and Jeff had gone straight back to Tyneside.  So suitably refreshed we started out on the final leg of our adventure.  It was a run through the North Yorkshire Dales, taking in Hawes and Appleby etc. through to Richmond and it was there the group started to disperse to our respective homes.

All in all a very good weekend and I personally offer a great big Thank You to Graham Nicol for organising such a stupendous time with such good routes and on behalf of Geordie Chapter members offer a Thank You to the road crew for their time and expenditure to ensure Geordie Chapter Harley Owners Group have a well trained expert Road Crew.