The Feizor Run 17th August 2024
August has seen many riders off on holiday and many family events taking place so it was not unexpected to see a message from a club member highlighting that at least 6 regular riders were otherwise occupied on the 17th I had previously announced that I too would not be riding due to a painful back. However, due to the possibility that John would come all the way from Wigglesworth to find no one else at Auction Eats I decided that I could ride with the help of Ibuprofen to sooth the back. So I set out for Auction Eats and found John already there after his ride over. The Cafe was closed as they are also on their annual holiday so we just stood by the bikes waiting in the hope that some more riders would arrive. Peter arrived from Morecambe but by 10:30 we were the only riders so we set off for Feizor. The weather was great for riding with some cloud cover stopping dazzle and dry roads to ride on. We made very good progress over to Longridge , Waddington and on to Holden Clough Nurseries near Bolton-by-Bowland where we stopped for refreshments. As we walked in there was a ladies circle meeting in progress complete with John’s wife Pat in attendance. They all greeted us and had a chat as we ordered drinks.
The nursery has been re-vamped over the last couple of years and is now a very modern place. Unfortunately all the antiques and the reclamation yard objects have been removed so we didn’t have a nostalgic rummage out the back like we used to! It was lovely sitting out on the patio in the sunshine with our drinks having a good chat and remarking how little traffic we had encountered on the ride so far. Is everybody on holiday in far flung lands?
After another short chat with the ladies again we started our steeds and headed off to Wigglesworth and up to Settle and Giggleswick where John seemed to give us a guided tour of the town before taking a country road up to Feizor.
The cafe at Feizor was also quiet with very few people eating outside so we had the pick of the tables, ordered our meals and ate in the hazy sunshine. After the meal we set off back home. Peter decided to head for Bentham to get on the Kirkby Lonsdale road back to Morecambe whilst John and I headed back through the Gisburn Forest to Slaidburn and Waddington finishing our ride at 3:30 pm at the Myerscough Garden Centre Cafe where we sat outside with a coffee for a chat before the cafe closed at 4pm.
Although we were only 3 riders we enjoyed a lovely ride on very quiet and dry roads taking in the smell of the freshly cut grass the hay making season brings and a bonus, as John remarked, was the grass had only just been cut and the slurry tankers would not be out for a week or two to spoil the scent! Another bonus was we didn’t lose anyone!!
Thanks to John for leading the run.