OAP Ride June 2021

Ten of us met up at the new departure point, the Shell garage at the A494/A5119 junction near Mold. Just as the gathering was about to leave, Colin rode up to John and announced he needed fuel (after chatting for 10 minutes at a petrol station!). Quite rightly, we roared off and left him behind!

John had chosen a torturous route uphill and down dale and going up one particularly steep hill my Bonnie was labouring a bit so I changed down a gear but ended up with a false neutral. The bike ground to a halt while I played footsie with the gear lever then began to roll backwards down the hill and into the throng of following riders! I managed to haul the brake on in time to bring it to a halt, the bike eventually condescended to get in first gear and off we went again.

With a few 1970s bikes on the run, John took it a bit easier than his usual frenetic pace. On arrival at the pub, for the first time in his life, John was told by one member that he regretted bringing a sports bike on one of his runs – normally it’s the opposite, with people struggling to keep up unless they are plastic-mounted.

Two members made their own way as their non-Triumph bikes weren’t capable of traversing John’s cross-country route.

The Swan at Pontfadog has featured on previous runs out and is a friendly hostelry with a spacious decking area on the hillside which we decamped to eat our jumbo-sized fish finger butties, washed down with a pint of Solstice.

We made our way back via the easy route, mostly on the A483, with a few of us having one for the road at the Thatch before heading for home.

Thanks to Dave Pearson for the write-up and pics, also David Malam pics..