T5 do trees - John Coe 29/1/22

Windy or wot?!!
Wot?  Well it was the day storm Malik hit the UK and anybody might have forgiven JC for cancelling the ride with 40 mph winds, but not our Ducati John oh no, he kept the faith, (well poor chap with ice wind and snow etc. for the 2 previous Saturdays he was determined).
Bloomin ummers it really was a bit breezy, getting out of Squires heading for Sherburn was a bit of a struggle but a mere puff compared to what was to come.  Amendments needed to be made.
First of all in our briefing John did tell us we weren't going to go to either of the original destinations of Gliding Club and Whistlestop, as they were both closed, OK, we could go to the Sandsend cafe but the winds were promised 50/60 mph, so instead we were going to the Old Barn @ Balk and thence to Manor cafe @ Bellerby and both had been warned of our arrival, brave peeps.
Between Sherburn and Easingwold we were beginning to get the hang of the blustery nature of the wind, often fairly fierce in moving the bikes a foot or so and to try and work out the direction so we could aim to keep on the prevailing side of the road.
As we turned out of Easingwold to climb and then drop and climb again over to Coxwold the wind effect was rising and we realised that going up White Horse bank to the Gliding Club would not've been a very good idea.  So we were crossing over towards Coxwold through Oulston taking that strangely tricky elongated S bend down to Newburgh Priory when ERK! a tree had fallen right across the road!  The verge is pretty wide there and the front few bikes wobbled around the blockage but realised it wasn't for everybody, quiet rightly too.
There was an older guy in a pickup parked on the other side and I thought "ah he's going to clear it up a bit" so we all set to and started pushing the main branches and scraping the multiple twigs and small branches aside to make a way through but not the pickup owner.  It turned out that he was waiting for someone who was on their way to do just that!
Anyway we rode through the rest of the debris up to and through Coxwold past Shandy Hall (still never been there), hung a right to drop into Kilburn (of Mousey Thompson fame) just taking the pretty vicious left hander and eek, oh not again, another much larger heap of fallen tree was blocking the road again.  This time a coupla guys with a forklift were busily scraping it all up but encouraging us to go round on the verge again, which we did, just then occurred to me it was probably the same lot the pickup owner was waiting for, would've wrecked the ride ;-(  Well we did make it to the Old Barn, ate, drank and rested from our ordeal, lot of fun though ;-)  The piccy below is not supposed to be on it's side, it's the rubbish software!
So what would the annoying Malik have for us on the way up to Manor Cafe we wondered?  You can guess, more of it but getting more challenging the higher we went but the roads had pretty much all dried up what with the wind and positively balmy temperatures of up to 11 degs so we did actually enjoy a brill bend worthy run across to Dalton (Cedric's favourite cafe, the cheapest) and on to Topcliffe.  Oh my the run past Allanbrooke barracks, completely uncluttered by trees, hedges and everything was a reminder that young Malik was still in evidence, on to Busby Stoop and Skipton on Swale and then curving onto the road up to Masham.
At this point I realised that as there was no ice, mud and water etc. we were likely to be able to have the first decent romp up the good old B6267 to Masham we'd had in a pretty long time, and we did :-))  And what's more it happened again on the A6108 up to Manor, super brill :-)))
The ever welcoming Katie @ Manor duly served us up what biker fare we really wanted indeed needed ranging from fish finger butties to full English, much appreciated and devoured by all, excellent!  It was then suggested that not visiting Brymoors for pud would be rude to put it mildly and so about half of the dozen original starting group made for it, but wait what was JC doing?  By turning left into Bellerby confusion reigned, however, ever loyal to the leader as is T5 good practice, we followed to what was to be the windiest section uphill almost onto the tops towards Redmire and back on the A6108 to Mr Moos for, well pud.
Jude admitted that although she'd visited Brymoors before for a butty etc. she had never sampled the delights here of Guernsey milk frozen with such skill and taste and we all very pleased that Jude declared herself a complete T5er, all agreed and were very pleased and proud of the final conversion ;-)
To finish Chris lead us down through all the luverly curves to Masham, West Tanfield and across to Topcliffe and down another great favourite of wiggliness to Helperby.
Wow what a blast, literally, a brilliant ride despite the meteorological challenges, thank you John for keeping the faith and to Mark who doggedly held the tail end together.

Here's the route:


Incidentally Chris and I were running down to Kilburn after a wobblers ride on Wed and we decided to have a quick skeg at the tree scene and this is what we found, a coupla lads picking up the bits of trunk all neatly sawn up and in the trailer ;-))

Tootle pip
Pete