WEEKEND bikers are a familiar sight on our country roads, but one in particular always turns heads wherever she rides.

Abbey, a four-year-old bearded collie, likes nothing more than accompanying, in her specially-adapted trailer, her owner, Ken Burton, when he hits the road on his motorbike.

Mr Burton, 54, from Beechwood, Middlesbrough, said: "I got the trailer about six or seven years ago for my previous dog, a border collie, and now Abbey comes out with me when the weather is nice.

"When I go to the garage she starts sniffing round the trailer, and as soon as I get her harness out she knows she's going for a spin."

Mr Burton has adapted the purpose-built trailer to include a windscreen and a roof for when the weather turns wet.

He said: "I don't notice so much now, because I am used to it, but when I have a pillion passenger they say the number of people who slow down to take our picture with their mobile cameras is amazing."

He said he had been stopped quite often by curious police patrols, but the strangest episode of all occurred with a coach trip.

He said: "This bus pulled up and what seemed like millions of Japanese tourists piled off and starting chattering excitedly and snapping away with their cameras. It was unbelievable."