‘Strewth, it delivers’
Swiping our new Indian FTR R Carbon test bike, Mike Armitage heads to Yorkshire on a 500-mile weekend road trip with like-minded fools
Last summer’s group excursion to Wales was, unexpectedly, a calamity-free success. We found great roads, didn’t misplace anybody in the mountains and there were no breakdowns, either mechanical or emotional. So, buoyed by our evident genius at road-trip planning, the Sons of Atrophy Motorcycle Club is heading on a two-day exploration of Yorkshire.
We knocked around together on bikes in our younger years, but as life tugged everyone in different directions – work, families, garden centres – we inadvertently stopped. The trips are a way to reconnect, share ace roads, take the piss and scrub off 20 years. In our heads. As self-nominated Squadron Leader, I’m guiding us up the A1 on our Indian FTR R Carbon test-fleet bike. It’s the blingy one with Öhlins and, er, carbon. Trundling behind are Andy Gurski, his Triumph Speed Triple 955i glinting in my mirrors, and Chris Tyrell. He has a Yamaha Tracer 900 and an oversize helmet that sits wonky on his bonce, making it look like he's preoccupied with the central reservation. We rendezvous with Dom Mattock and his KTM 990 Super Duke at the Barnsdale Bar Café on the A639 junction, push bacon-filled barm cakes into excited faces and aim north.
The plan is to flit across the North York Moors, slide into the folds of the Dales National Park, then overnight at Tan Hill before worming home via the Peak District. It promises some of the UK’S finest roads and hugely diverse riding. And strewth it delivers.
It may only be 12 miles, but with scarce traffic, ace visibility and top-of-the-world vistas the run from Hutton-le-hole to Castleton feels like it was laid specifically for bikes. The FTR’S old-school torquey V-twin romps over the heights, its chassis banking with reassurance. ‘That’s amazing,’ says Chris as we pause atop Chimney Bank. ‘It’s the best road I’ve ever ridden.’ Lying in the grass, bathed in global warming and listening to sarcastic banter from life-long mates, I can’t help thinking it doesn’t get better.
Yet there’s more to come. The cascading B1257 from Stokesley is brilliant, as are the beef-dripping chips in bike-heavy Helmsley. Our ears pop down Sutton Bank, and we swing along a dappled A6108 from Ripon to Masham. Despite dissimilar metal and different default speeds our group doesn’t get too drawn out; the joy is the ride, not the speed, with pleasure in sharing the experience. Cringy, cheesy, but true. We all take Low Lane to bypass
‘These trips are a way to reconnect and scrub off 20 years. In our heads...’
Leyburn, except Chris who glides past oblivious. I retrieve him and we head back to find Dom’s KTM won’t start. It’s having a mild meltdown: the speedo shows random numbers despite being stationary and there’s an idiot light disco. It’ll bump but stutters and glitches. Breakdown services arrive quickly, but the driver’s comment of, ‘oh, it’s a bike’ isn’t promising. The 990 won’t play despite much fiddling and repeated strong language, so Mr Breakdown says he’s calling a flat-bed truck. It’ll be two hours.
The only sensible thing is to abandon Dom, enjoy a sunset ride over Buttertubs Pass and get stuck into Timothy Taylor’s finest at the pub. We organise a party of hecklers for his recovery-truck arrival so he doesn’t feel left out.
Day two enters cloaked in mist but flings it off to reveal summer perfection. Our unexpert verdict is the tired KTM battery is perhaps shorting and confusing the ECU, and luckily the local Halfords has a replacement in stock. But ‘local’ means Kendal, which is an hour’s ride. Dom borrows the Indian while we perch in the sun, ogle all the bikes toddling up and ask Chris why his boots look like flippers. Turns out he’s a size ten but they’re eleven and a half. ‘They’re boots, so I buy them too big,’ he says. ‘Everyone does, don’t they?’
We hear the FTR before we see it – it’s 60˚ V-twin plays a different groove to a 90˚ – and after 15 minutes laughing as Dom struggles, the 990’s good as new. We depart at midday, and with the sun high in a flawless sky the B6255 from Hawes and B6479 to Settle show why this is God’s Own Country. Epic is an overused word. But it is. Dom-shaped delays and evening commitments mean forgoing the afternoon’s route to Derbyshire in favour of motorway. No matter. It means we have an excuse for another jolly nice and soon. Autumnal lap of the Peaks, you say? Can’t wait.