0715 and I set off, first stop half a mile down the road at a petrol station to fill up.  It had been too wet all week to take the bike out in advance to fill up.  Then I headed north for the first checkpoint at Berwick on Tweed.  Travelling north on the A19 (no speed cameras around here) I passed a few bikes as I tried to ‘make reasonable progress’.  However the progress soon faltered as I passed into the north of Northumberland.  Fog with visibility down to 50 yards had me wondering what the remaining 400 miles would be like.  The staff at Morrisons were very helpful as we queued to get our cards stamped.

After a coffee and sticky bun it was off again, next stop Whitehaven.  I drove along roads we had all covered on a Ferrets weekend to Berwick, but this time it was precipitating heavily and the pace was not so brisk.  A couple of riders, on seeing the sat nav, just tagged on behind as they had not even brought maps.

By Carlisle the sun was breaking through, and the road into Whitehaven was very busy as the weekend coincided with the Tall Ships visiting the port.

Lunch was followed by the third fill up of the day and then on to Barrow in Furness (what a dump!).  The whole place seemed to be undergoing a massive and long overdue facelift.

Leaving Barrow around 3.15, I headed off across south Lakeland to sunny Skipton.  Progress was not bad until I got stuck in a queue behind a wide load for about 15 miles until just short of Skipton.  At Morrisons the tank was topped up again!  Here I learned that there had been a landslide on the A59 at Blubberhouses and a diversion sent us off through Ilkley and Otley before I picked up the main road to York.  A dozen or so roundabouts later and I left York behind for a brisk run to the penultimate checkpoint at Scarborough and the final tank top up of the day.  Most riders were heading for the finish via the Whitby moor road.  Looking at the sky I decided to go via Pickering, Helmsley, Sutton Bank, Thirsk and Northallerton.  Well!  Just outside Northallerton the heavens opened again and it was time to put on the boil-in-the-bag suit again.  The rain was torrential and the sky was really dark as I travelled towards Darlington on a familiar road to the final checkpoint at Hurworth.  By now it was 9.15pm (mental note to adjust headlight alignment down onto the road a bit and save up for the HID conversion).

The weather had been so bad that I doubt if many riders were doing the camping option and by then, some 530 miles from the start, all I wanted to do was to get home to bed.

I ran a very filthy Blackbird into the garage, crawled out of my wet gear and collapsed into bed for 14 hours.  If the neighbour's dog had not barked I might still be there.

Logging on to the Boundary 500 website this morning, I learned that two riders had been hit by a Mercedes car as they travelled north from Northallerton on the A167 resulting in the road being closed for several hours, as one was unfortunately killed and the other seriously injured.

BBC News:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/6761023.stm

Man arrested after biker's death.  A 39-year-old motorcyclist has died in a head-on crash in North Yorkshire.

The man, who was from the Cleveland area, died when a Mercedes car hit two motorbikes on the A167 at Lovesome Hill near Hutton Bonville on Saturday night.

The other rider, a 39-year-old Leeds man, suffered serious injuries and was taken to Darlington hospital, a North Yorkshire Police spokesman said.

A 35-year-old local man was arrested in connection with the crash and taken to Northallerton police station.

The road was closed for seven hours as police accident investigators examined the scene.