Welland Viaduct Ride

[Millietant]

After spending the morning focused on the Royal Funeral and mourning the loss of our monarch (who was a bike rider herself in her younger days!), I took the FJ out later-on this afternoon for a little 100 mile ride, with a new friend on his 89 FJ and some of my usual riding buddies, for a trip to Welland Viaduct - an 82 arch, 1.2km long railway viaduct built in the 1870's.

The ride there takes in some awesome local "B" roads that because of HM Queen Elizabeth's funeral this morning, were absolutely empty this afternoon.

The only down-side this afternoon was the weather. As we left home, the roads were dry and the skies blue. By the time we'd hit 20 miles, it was pouring with rain and the road we were going to take, was heading straight into the worst of the rain. So..... we did an about face and headed 10 miles back and followed the breaks in the clouds for a while until I realised that we could likely skirt the edges of the rain/storm clouds if we ran south a little before heading east again, and still get to the Viaduct while staying relatively dry.

Now, this is where you all find out how caring I am.......I was wearing my nice, waterproof 2 piece textile suit, so the rain really didn't bother me, but everyone else was in their summer, armoured jeans/cargo's and they were all getting soaked......and so I turned around and missed out on the best roads of the day, all for the benefit of my friends ! 

Once we reached the viaduct, we stopped for a coffee/tea and a couple of photo's. Just as we pulled up, another group of about 10 bikers on modern sports bikes (and 1 Harley) pulled up close by us and came over for a chat. As soon as they saw our 2 old FJ's, the FJ's became focus of their attention entirely.......we had an ad-hoc FJ fan club, who just wanted to know about the bikes and were full of questions. What a great experience !  You meet the nicest people on a Yamaha.

Great ride, great friends, rubbish weather 

[ribbert]

After spending the morning focused on the Royal Funeral and mourning the loss of our monarch (who was a bike rider herself in her younger days!).......

....and a mechanic, something she remained proud of all her life.