The How, The Why, The What & The Where 
"I deliberately only ever use 1/3rd of my brain, I'm saving the rest for when I become an astronaut !"

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As the 1990s drew to a close, and my mid 40s rapidly became my late 40s, I reached that dreaded period  in any  mans life called, "The Mid Life Crisis".  Women have their menopause to contend with and they get  heaps of  sympathy because they're actually aliens and have strange plumbing that never works properly. To quote my good friend Wesley, "Anything that bleeds that much every month and doesn't die can't  be human" ....The thing is, that nobody takes us guys seriously,  so we're just expected to keep our gobs shut and get on with it. 

Our kids were growing up and we were finding lots of new ways in which to embarrass them and as a result they began to show a considerable reluctance to spend any more time with us than absolutely necesasry. So, my missus, "Wee Jimmy Krankie" and me sold the caravan and the 4x4 that we'd used to pull it and settled into boring middle age. Consequently she melded into life with her new menopausal hobby and I got on with my mid life crisis and did what a lot of men my age do.......went out and bought a motorbike. Hey, if you can't recapture your youth on one of those you never will

The FourTrack & Caravan, Lake District around 1996 

Travelling about all over the place had  always held a certain appeal for us and we'd found our way to lots of great and 
interesting places on holidays with the kids. In fact if I'd had my way we'd have become Mr & Mrs Pikey,  joined a jolly 
band of travellers and would now be living happily in a caravan on an Asda car park near you........ Probably! 

Now I had the bike though, I actually felt a Peter Fonda -  Dennis Hopper chopper moment  coming on. 

The Atkin's diet wasn't working well for Mr. Fonda -
 but his chopper was an inspiration to thousands

Moving on to a year or so later in my mid-life crisis, during a rare misalignment of the planets when Jupiter was on the cusp and Pluto had entered Uranus, I met up with a motley band of reprobates and we started to organise one or two bike tours.  For some strange reason we became known collectively as  "The Wrinklies" and our first run together in Spring 2002, was arranged when 4 of us got together for a 5 day run up to the far north of Scotland. We had such a cracking time that subsequent years have seen us doing more runs ..... with of course the alcohol consumption increasing in direct proportion to the number of trips.  But, the best thing about the Wrinkly tours? We didn't have to go in the bloody school holidays.  Well, we did sometimes but that was Dez's fault! 

Whilst out on one of our many sausage baiting expeditions, we picked up waif and stray Jack, the 5th Wrinkly, who we found sleeping rough in a tripe shop doorway just outside Dewsbury one cold & frosty November night back in 2003.  We took him home, gave him a bath and de-flea'd the beard, he was then invited on our first Euro tour in 2004 as a good luck charm. He fitted in quite well, mainly because he's a daft old git and like us worships at the altar of Beer.  

The bikes we've used for our tours have been quite an eclectic mix. There's been BMW's, Moto Guzzi ,  Suzuki, Kawasaki and Hondas, in fact we didn't give a shit what we rode as long as it got us there.  In Wrinkly Dez's case it usually did get him there...... but often didn't make it home again without the aid of a breakdown truck. 

In addition to bike tours, some of the trips have been done by car, and others by aeroplane, the more interesting of which have been included here. Some of the photos taken on our wee adventures are total crap and others aren't too bad, so if you're daft enough to stick with it then you'll have to accept us  "warts an' all" but the photos probably do get a little better with each trip. 

Along with details of some great places we've explored, there are recommendations  for good hotels & guest houses that we've stayed in .......... and others, that for the sake of our health and sanity (sanitary?) I wouldn't touch again with a long shitty stick........I will name names. You may also find some ideas for good biking roads, although some of the better ones we'll keep to ourselves if you don't mind!   

Our little webshyte has been put together on the off chance that lonely websurfers everywhere, suffering from extreme boredom will be desperate enough to look at some photos of our little ventures. Who knows? It may even be possible to pick up one or two bits of useful advice about bike, or any other type of touring along the way.......But I wouldn't hold your breath on that one if I were you.  If these pages serve no other purpose, then at least they give us somewhere to stash all our photos, so it's not been a total waste of time. 

Finally, I haven't really got too much time on my hands,  it's just that I need something to do to keep me out of the pub............  Now hang on a mo while I go fetch me another beer from the fridge...............!

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