Chairman's Blog

Following a last minute change of plan due to the low number of Wingers available for a big planned ride, we had a change of plan to ride three of the reservoirs in North Wales, Vyrnwy. Bala Lake and Brenig.

As it turned out only Dennis, Jan and I were able to go, but what a wonderful day we had, particularly in riding new roads.

I had decided to change the roads normally used for getting to Vyrnwy and found some new roads on the maps to try, so careful plotting

them in the Sat-nav I looked forward to a trouble free ride, and it nearly was too.I decided to try a new road cutting across country from south of Oswestry towards the west and it was a very good decision as it was very good biking road.

We followed this road until due south of Vyrnwy then turned north to find a road leading to the reservoir. This was the only hitch in the plan as the sat-nav was not as quick in updating as the road was in turning so when told to turn right I did – down the side road just after the apex of the right hand bend in the road, and before the Sat-nav could say turn left with the road as it swung to the left immediately after.

Consequently we found ourselves off the intended route but heading in the right direction. We then travelled some completely new roads for me and eventually ended up at the reservoir.

Vyrnwy was proving to be a very popular destination to ride to this day as there were a multitude of motorcycles at the cafe parking area , and indeed after a stop for photos we continued around the lake to find many more motorcycles parked up in all the small lay-bys and parking areas.

Proceeding on our route I went across country along a very narrow winding route, which eventually bought us back to

civilisation at Llanuwchllyn, at the south end of Bala lake. A quick ride up the side of the lake bought us to the favourite bike stop at the north corner of the lake. Again there was a large number of bikers at this location and a caravan from Bikesafe who were doing observed rides. This was a perfect spot for a picnic which we had prepared.
It also gave me a good opportunity to have a good look at the bikes.

Following lunch it was a nice gentle run across country to Brenig, where I was quire disappointed in the lack of an Ice-cream van at this venue, as by this time I was quite warm, and I know that Jan and Dennis were also looking forward to an ice-cream.

After a pleasant stop at this location it was time to head off home and on leaving the Lake I was doing an overtake on a nice long straight when I spotted two police officers

in black in the shadows of the trees with the hand-held radar trained on me. Luckily for me, I hadn’t grabbed a handful of throttle for the overtake and a quick glance showed I was just on the limit, so a nice smooth return to my own lane while maintaining the limit and as I passed the officers one of them nodded his head at me.

Dennis split off at the top end of the Lake to head for home , while Jan and I carried on through to Denbigh and back home, in nice time for tea.

The weather for the whole trip was superb and it made the North Wales roads one of the nicest places to be riding.