Report on June 2007 activities

Hi Wingers

The wettest June since records began! The mis- erable weather appeared just as the biking sea- son got into full swing. All around the country there are burst riverbanks and floods but as the saying goes "the show must go on" and so the various Wing Dings and ride outs go ahead as planned.

On the 9th Nigel and the gang met the German Wingers that had earlier in the year contacted him asking if NWW's could show them round the beautiful North Wales countryside. The meeting was arranged to be at Betws-y-Coed at 11am, as the visitors had to ride their bikes 70 miles from Newtown just to meet us As you can imagine, the whole day turned on to be a great success as can be seen from the pictures on our website, and our new friends rode back to their digs very tired but very happy.

On the 18th Kath, Stu, Jan, and Dave set out for a holiday ride to Spain. Spirits were high as they headed away from home toward the sunshine, but the trip soon turned bad as a sudden braking of the cars in front had Stu and Kath slamming into the car in front and launching them both onto the tarmac, in Kath's own words: I was in a land of my own, smelling the flowers of the countryside until I suddenly heard 'oops' through the intercom, did a smashing somersault and finished up in the road cuddling Stu. The bike was in a bit of a mess but luckily a check up at the hospital revealed the damage to our NWW stunt team was only minor, and of course Stu's plaster with the thumb sticking out may come in handy for 'thumbing' lifts, as riding his Wing won't be possible for about three months. Typical of Kath and Stu, they encouraged Dave and Jan to carry on the journey to Spain, but the mad June weather continued to plague the intrepid pair, in a letter to us Dave wrote, "Crap weather, crap crossing on the ferry going (and no – Jan does not want to go on a cruise for our 30th Anniversary next year!). Poor Kath and Stu smashing themselves and Wing upset Jan and made her nervous, then I dumped us and bike into a ditch in Spain after hitting pea-gravel on the apex of a sharp bend – luckily only doing 15-20mph or could have been a lot worse. No sun to get a tan and had to wear fleeces every day. Lovely scenery! Nice people. Hundreds of noisy Harleys on the way back (about 450 of them returning from HOG meeting in Fuengirola). Very noisy in the hold of the ferry when loading the bike – hearing likely to return sometime this week".

Of course there were good bits to the trip as you can see in the picture (see front cover of WingSpan).

On the 22nd Loopy and I set off in the pouring rain toward Manchester Rugby Club to take part in the Pennine Wing Ding. A few weeks before Loopy had bought a new tent off the Internet telling me we needed a new one. What she did not realise was the size of the thing – it is huge, and took up most of the inside of the trailer.