June 2005
York Cycle Show

  The Rally at York Cycle show has been a part of Dave's life since he was rather smaller and younger than he currently is. Having a father and an elder brother who were both keen cyclists and living only 40 miles away, the show was an annual pilgrimage from an early age. During the teenage years, motorbikes were more interesting but a return to cycling during the early 1980s resulted in fairly regular visits to the rally, although usually for a only one of the days. A quick look around the trade tent, buy a few bargains, watch a bit of grass track racing and off home again. We did once buy a tent for use with the car at weekends, far to big to carry on a bike. Several hours later, we remembered that we'd cycled up for the day on the tandem and somehow we had to get the tent home. We bought some elastic straps, shared the tent around the available pannier racks and made it home, but only just, we shan't make that mistake again, no more buying things at York Rally...

  For 2005, we decided to camp over the weekend and actually enjoy the rest of the show, evening entertainment and the whole atmosphere of being surrounded bike a group of like minded cyclists. It was great and we'll probably be back for 2006. The evening tandem pub run to Acaster Malbis didn't happen, so we went there anyway and enjoyed a pleasant evening in the Ship Inn.

  For 2005, the Ascot racecoure was being reconditioned so Royal Ascot weekend was held at the York Knavesmire Racecourse instead. The cycle rally, being held the weekend after Ascot, had to be located on a different part of the racecourse to normal as many of the temporary grandstands and marquees were still being dismantled.

  The caravan and camping sites were as popular as we remembered from previous trips, although there were a few spaces and some people said that the poor weather forecast had stopped some people attending. It was a bit cool on an evening but we had pretty good weather for most of the weekend so guess who missed out...

  For reasons which will never become clear, someone had turned a sofa into a pedal powered monstrosity and it to attracted lots of attention. Most people we saw had difficulty even getting it to move, steering and stopping were whole new problems. We didn't bother to try it, we prefer our sofas to be stationary. There's a 'Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy' joke in here somewhere...

  Whilst the juggler tried to convince everyone that the unicycle was easy, no-one seemed to agree. Failing to persuade anyone to have a go, he wobbled off on his own. Be fair, would YOU ride that thing, especially in public, when there are people like me with cameras hanging around.

  Saturday was a grey day, it didn't stop the campsite being pretty near full and it was great to see so many small tents carried on the backs of solo and tandems, in trailers and even in rucksacks in a few instances. The picture on the left is Karen with our tent, trailer and tandem. The rally goes to show that people can still camp in a simple way and enjoy it, although the cold water wash in the morning was a bit of a shock to the system. Saturday evening saw many a sight like the one on the right, someone huddled over a stove, desperately trying to coax enough life out of it to be able to enjoy a hot tea.

  On Sunday, the sun shone and it was a lovely day for the Parade from York Minster back to the racecourse. We didn't go on the ride, too late getting out of bed, but we did watch the parade arriving back at the site. As ever, there was a great collection of different bikes, non more weird than Michael Killian from Ireland with a bike which steered at both the front and the back! Checkout his website at www.sidewaysbike.com, some great pictures of some very weird ideas.

  The "Make Poverty History" cycle ride stopped off at York and naturally attracted lots of attention. Given the weight of the bike, they deserve the support.

  Sunday afternoon saw us packing up, managing to load the tandem and trailer with a bit less effort than for the outbound journey. A quick photo stop in the sun at Melbourne in East Yorkshire, our 'light weight' touring set up is clearly visible, must all those cheap goodies we bought at the rally... We did also arrange a test ride on a Landescape which we eventually bought, read about it here. The trip to York Rally proved to be the last tour for the Dawes, a faithfully and occasionally reliable bike which we've thoroughly enjoyed using.

Landescape specification details	August 2005 Tour of the Vales

Pictures and text are copyright © Dave & Karen Petty- All Rights Reserved, please don't copy anything without our permission. Thanks, D & K.