Living on a small Island (30 by 15 miles) makes it necessary at times to escape and take the bike for a good ride. My son Mark and I decided to take my new Versys and his VFR over to the UK for a few days - we planned to look at the Peak District a favourite biking area.
First job is to get off the Island and that requires a 4 hour boat trip to Heysham; we took the evening boat which got us to the UK at 23:30hrs and then a short ride to park up in a hotel for the night.
On the second day we rode to our destination and it was very cold wet and windy, but we enjoyed the good roads and being able to ride for some hours.
We stayed overnight in Chesterfield and the third day we manage many miles around the beautiful area. We stopped at a number of popular bike locations (only sighted two other Versys) and the weather was sunny but a little cold with some snow on the top roads; good biking weather.
Our last day was the trip back for the afternoon boat and another 4hrs sailing before we returned to the Isle of Man.
The verdict for the Versays first real trip was "a great bike, made for the road and a pleasure to ride".

John

Great report!! Nice pics. It looks like you have some great roads to ride on. Glad you like the bike. Keep us updated on your future rides.

Thanks for the pics & post!!

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g304/Bear_on_a_bicycle/thumb.gif

Yeah nice pics!
I don't see the Versys in that shot with all the cruisers though...
and how did you get the aerial of the boat?

Thanks for the nice comments; I see no one notice the unplanned newspaper headline in the second picture?
Sadly the Versys did'nt fly to take the boat picture that was a picture of the Ben-my-Chree taken from the Internet.
The Versys was parked away from the cruisers and here is the relevant photo.

John.

Nice pics .... now i want to ride there :)

ah, I see that now (the newspaper headline)...
hey the truth is the truth right?!?

Great trip report with excellent pics and looks like good weather. Clever newspaper headline thrown in there-but we knew that didn't we!

I lived on Guernsey C.I. for a couple of years (5 x 6miles I think), had a Honda 350, but it got very old very quick. 25mph speed limit, you could do the clockwise or anticlockwise tour and that was about it. Very glad when I left and went to live in the US.

Machog

John
nice trip, nice photos.
Did you stop at the Cat & Fiddle for long? :D

Theres quite a bit of acitivity on the versys.co.uk forum, we seem to be havign a rideout once a month or so
theres a ride around the lake district on IIRC the 19th April.
there's a proposed (North) Wales rally in early June (2 days bimbling about Snowdonia).

theres nothign as organised as a 'club' its purely people who own Versys's feeling the need to go out for a play (sorry vitally important test ride to make sure the bike is working):grinangel:

I've been riding for over 50 years and if the headlines are correct I must be real smart, alert, and fit. Thanks for the boost in my ego. I needed that!

Great reading about your jaunt and thanks.

Hello Healdem
We were at the Cat and Fiddle for about an hour, great atmosphere and lots of interesting bikes.
I have now joined the UK forum (found this one first) and note quite a few interesting ride out’s the problem for me is that I have to plan trips well in advance to get the boat and hotel's booked. This also usually means time off work to do the trip.
Naturally if these are "Necessary Technical Test Rides"!! that could make all the difference.

John

PS the newspaper headline was not planned it came into the photo by accident.