Running in

We did the first 54 miles on the delivery day while the sun was out, taking in my favourite roads around Wirral - Puddington, Burton, Neston and stopped at Parkgate and West Kirby for a couple of rests for the new tight engine. She lived up to my hopes and exceeded them significantly. Can't wait to get more miles on her as the weather improves.

A few days later, I needed to call in to see Andy before he moved up to start his new job in the Lake District, so we were out for another 40 or so miles, again around Wirral. Everything feels nice and I'm settling in to the slow plod of 40mph!

Just about 21 or 22 years separate these photos :-)

The weather deteriorated then for a week or so, but I was itching to get out for a longer run so on the first nice day I did a run to Tamworth and back to show Ella off to Rob. I used the Calimoto app to plot a quiet route along the twisties, so it took a while but she is in her element on the country lanes and I wasn't often holding other traffic up.

We stopped at Wrenbury Mill lift bridge to let a canal boat by and it seemed like we'd been transported back in time!

A couple of hours break in Tamworth and then I headed for home. By this time we were approaching 200 miles and I started to just let her have a little more freedom as we worked through the gearbox - everything is feeling very smooth and restrained! 

I was in the saddle for over 5 hours altogether and felt pretty fresh at the end of it, which bodes well for our journey to Spa in a month or so. By the time we got back we were within spitting distance of completing the first 300 miles, so she is booked in to go back down to Stafford next week for her first service. It will be nice to have the freedom to go wild at 50 for the next thousand miles as we do part 2 of the running in!