Wow - what a fantastic weekend

Yes after much planning, the weekend in the lakes to celebrate our 20^th year of running tours finally arrived, and we were not disappointed as we had a brilliant weekend meeting friends old and new. We took over the whole hotel and had over 60 people at the dinner, some of whom had travelled 100,s of miles to  be with us.

It seems hard to believe but yes it has been 20 years since we first started organising motorcycle tours.

The original concept was to take people on weekend tours of the Yorkshire Dales, hence our name,  White Rose, this being the emblem of Yorkshire.  Routes were checked, hotels booked and adverts placed in magazines and I sat back and waited for the phone to ring. Unfortunately it stayed stubbornly quiet and my ambitions to build an overnight empire were firmly put in their place.

But of course, eventually it did ring, and although it was not unusual in the early days to tour with just one customer, we never cancelled, and always ran the tour, a fact that helped to build our reputation and saw us widen our tour area across the UK and Ireland as the numbers grew.  

In 2004 we ran our first European tour and things really took off to a point where I could pack in my 'proper' job and go full time organising tours. In 2013 having spent time with friends in the USA I felt our customers would enjoy touring there, and so we ran our first tour to Arizona. This has now become a yearly event and one we enjoy very much.

There is no doubt things have changed in many ways in the last 20 years, no more so than the huge success of the internet, now you can book your own ferries, find your own hotels and browse one of the many websites that will show you all the best roads and places to stay. So we really appreciate the fact that our customers continue to trust what we do, and come back year after year to tour with us.

It was many of these customers who travelled from all over the country to join us in our celebrations, and although I must admit to a certain amount of apprehension – everything went smoothly, and everyone (even I) had a great time.   

Not sure if we will make 25 years, but we have no plans to retire yet, and when you have such good customers as ours, it is more a pleasure than a job to do what we do.

Finally if you are reading this and were with us this weekend, please send us some of your favourite pictures and we will put them in the web gallery for everyone to see.

Thanks again for all your good wishes and we look forward to touring with you soon.

Dave & Val