Moving North from East Dean

On Sunday after a nice week with Kerry & Cheryl and the girls which finished with a cocktail party where all the men mixed their favourite cocktails, usually with much more alcohol than would be recommended. Unfortunately as we were driving next day Steve was stuck with flavoured water and tonic. Well I suppose that is a cocktail of sorts but Judy was able to partake in moderation, and enjoyed the concoctions immensely,.

After the usual chores we set off at about 11h15 heading for Derby but via Rugby to drop of of a Tyre monitoring system we had sold to another “Funster” from our Motorhome Fun Club.

We arrived at our destination, the Derby Velodrome at about 18h30 after a very nice drive without too much traffic being a Sunday. Steve had found a good place for an overnight stop a few miles away but we thought it was good to find our destination first. The car park of the Velodrome was enormous and doubled as a Park& Ride so we asked at reception whether we could park overnight. After explaining why, they were very nice and said it was no problem.

Now, why would we be heading for a Velodrome?  Well, our friend, Ray Root who is in our Country Dancing club is an amazingly fit cyclist who had decided to attempt to break the World Record for the highest distance covered on a bike in one hour by an 80 year old! Well we couldn’t miss supporting him in that, could we, so we planned our trip around being there on the day.

Unfortunately he didn’t quite break the record but the official time keepers said with a better

Ray Root's World Record Attempt

technique he would stand a very good chance. It turned out that it was only the third time he had ridden on a velodrome track which is a very difficult technique requiring a great deal of practice.
It turned out that the British team was there and were very impressed and lent him a pair of their super wheels and a special suit and other bits to help him on the ride.

His distance was 35.6 km which was almost equal to the 2015 record of 35.772 which he would have beaten except he hit one of the foam lane markers which caught in his wheel losing about 1.5 minutes. The 2015 record was recently broken in late September 2017 with a distance of 39km. So Ray’s first attempt was amazing.

One Small Guy in a Very Large Track

After a celebration meal  with all the family and supporters we headed for the parking place we had found in our database which turned out the be very nice by a rushing river and a pub in a 1000 year old ancient monastery in the grounds of Darley Abbey. So a leisurely beer was most welcome.

Still heading north as we had planned a rendezvous with our eldest son Nik & family, in the morning we headed for a motorhome dealer just north of Hull who had a special fanlight with extractor fan we wanted, in stock and did a great deal for us £40 cheaper than elsewhere.

From there we headed towards York which we have not visited in about thirty years when we

went there when the boys were small, we found a pub about seven miles out which let

The Shambles York

motorhomes park in their car park. A scheme called “Brit Stops”. They did good beer and had a nice restaurant so no need to cook after the

York Minster

long drive. The landlady was very nice and said we could stay a second night so we could visit York for the day. The bus to York stopped almost outside the pub which was very convenient. We had a great day finishing with a two hour free walking tour of the city. We had a super guide who gave a good tour and politely refused to accept any tips. The pub had a special “Steak Night” that evening so very welcome after a lot of walking in the city.

We were meeting Nik at the Falkirk wheel just west of Edinburgh on Saturday lunch time so found another Brit Stop at a farm shop in south Lanarkshire near Biggar which is where we are now unfortunately with high wind and torrential rain hammering on the roof. But we are very cosy in our super insulated new to us motorhome.

Till next time ……..