Happy rally-goers contemplate a ride out

Photo: Dave Jackson

Dutchy's Elvis shirt goes unnoticed as Phil and Peter discuss weighter matters

Photo: Dave Jackson

Having taken the whole day off I busied myself on the Friday morning with a visit to the dentist for a filling and then straight off to the optician for an eye check. What with having had my bike serviced earlier in the week as well, I felt 100% prepared for the last rally of the year. At least I did once the anaesthetic had worn off.
I met up with Chris "Dutchy" Holland and Dave Clarke at the traditional spot of the ESSO garage at Dartford at about half past two on what was a fine clear day. We got onto the M25 and then the M3, after which it was A303, a quick petrol and coffee stop and a bold new route that Dutchy conceived which took us straight to the site. I couldn't believe it when after some time bowling through the countryside we rounded a bend and with a quick flash of left indicator he pulled in to the gate. However this was not the last piece of consummate mental navigation that we were to appreciate over the weekend.
Phil Loom and Peter Fisher went down a day early to get in some more landmarks so they were already there when we arrived, as were Richard "Tank" Turner and Shelley. There was just enough time to get the tents up before the light began to fade and then it was time to consider the next move, with refreshment and nutrition high on the agenda. The general consensus was to find the "Bucket and Spade" pub where several of us had enjoyed a good meal the year before. Despite having rode there on bikes at the time, someone I never got to identify was telling Peter and Phil that it was actually within easy walking distance if you were on foot. They were so convinced they went off with him leaving the rest of us to piece together the half-heard directions using my computer printed map of the immediate area.
As it turned out our route was unnecessarily long because we were not sure whether cutting through the new housing estate would bring us out where we wanted to be, so we followed the road until we could see a pair of roundabouts and work out which one the pub was next to. We still had to cross a four lane A-road and climb over a fence to get in to the back of the pub car park, but what the heck - we were there!
Several beers and a good nosh later we headed back to the campsite bar to see who else had turned up and whether we could secure some seats. There were a few familiar faces to be seen including the couple who had kindly stopped and tried to assist when Liz's bike broke down last year. The guy had come on a recently-acquired Buell Thunderbolt (I think that's the model; it's the one with the oil in the swingarm and the petrol in the frame - or something like that - and the front brake disk attached directly to the wheel rim). Amazingly we later saw a note on it that read "For sale, 94 days old, two owners"! On checking with him on Saturday night (after a few curiosity-sharpening beers) we were told that the first owner had ordered it then had to go abroad to work and this guy had quickly found that it didn't suit him. If anyone's interested... er, I didn't get his ‘phone number.
Saturday morning was a leisurely start but the promise of another fine day spurred our interest in the ride-out. We ascertained that it would leave some time between eleven o'clock and half past, heading for Glastonbury. Tank and Shelley were going to do their own thing but the rest of us got ourselves ready, keeping an eye out for a sudden gathering of bikes. Starting up and heading to the gate we were told to proceed on to the first petrol station over the M5 where they were meeting up. Dave took the lead and followed the instructions to the letter. Unfortunately the first actual retailer of petrol on the other side of the motorway is a Sainsbury's forecourt within a retail park, so there we pulled up to realise quickly that no-one else was there. Somehow we also lost Peter in the course of finding the right route into the retail park so after fuelling up the four of us decided to press on to Glastonbury under our own steam.
Not long after getting on the road to Wells we passed a BP petrol station with - you guessed it - a couple of Triumphs parked up. They looked like latecomers rather than the vanguard, so we gave them a wave and carried on. It was a very pleasant ride with only one minor drama, courtesy of yours truly; I had bundled up my cherished Bexley Triumph sweatshirt-with-hood and bungeed it firmly onto the back of my bike but somehow it got loose and fell off. Dave was behind me and beeped his horn to let me know something was up but I didn't twig and so off it camel. Very kindly Dave stopped to retrieve it which explained why he suddenly disappeared from my mirrors for several minutes until we stopped at some roadworks and he caught us up. Thanks for that Dave, I'm glad only a few cars ran over it and it came out largely unscathed.
Dutchy's precise route-finding took us through Wells and brought us into the centre of Glastonbury. We found a space at the kerb to park the bikes but at that point we had not spotted the others. First choice for the weekend culture injection was the ruined Abbey and on paying our entrance fee and walking in I was knocked back to discover that pretty much tucked in behind all the shops are extensive grounds with some serious architectural ruins. It helped that the sky was clear and the sun was lighting it all up most attractively. Sadly, having been reunited with my sweatshirt I forgot that still tied safely on my bike now parked up some five minutes up the road were my waterproofs and my camera. Arse!
Anyway we wandered around the ruins of the abbey and inspected the Abbot's kitchen facilities in a separate building which seemed to reveal a two-tier menu system in operation in those days. Suffice it to say that if you were an ordinary monk, you had to make do with plain food and lots of fish, whereas the Abbot (who of course would often entertain visiting dignitaries and so was duty bound to push the boat out a bit) enjoyed a more sumptuous and varied fare. After a while our thoughts turned from ecclesiastical matters to that of personal refreshment so we had a look round the indoor exhibition and the gift shop then ventured back onto the high street. We tried a café almost opposite the Abbey entrance but after studying the menu we fell in behind Phil's assessment that "it's all hippie food!" so we settled for a quick coffee and agreed to stop at a pub in Wells for something more substantial. On returning back to the bikes we found that Peter Fisher had parked up next to us, but not having seen him around town we hoped he had met up with the others and resigned ourselves to leaving him to it.
While we were zipping ourselves up a guy who I think was attending the rally with his son stopped to complement Dutchy on the extremely tidy condition of his (for him) new Speed Triple. How clean and shiny it looked etc., etc., how much effort he must have put in to keep it looking so good, blah, blah. We let Dutchy bask in these plaudits for just so long and then I chipped in with "well tell him how long you've had it then, Chris", to which Chris had to admit that it had only been in his possession over the last eight weeks. Little did we realise that a similar scenario would be repeated again before the weekend was out!
By three p.m. we were sat outside the pub tucking into large baguettes and enjoying a nice pint, the peace and quiet only disturbed by a couple of divots cruising by each way in a tarted-up hatchback with the usual window rattling stereo system. Shortly before we left a large cavalcade of bikes turned by the end of the road and we spotted Peter as well as Tank and Shelley (who in fact had passed us going the other way earlier on).
The last part of the plan for the afternoon was to take in Cheddar gorge on the way back and Dutchy duly piloted us to the top of the descent which we took rather carefully, wary of coaches which can materialise from around a bend and take up more than their fair share of the road. With brake pads nice and warm we left Cheddar behind and returned to the campsite where we bumped into Steve with the T140D Special.
Despite having eaten well not two hours before we felt irresistably drawn back to the pub so that we would be well placed when we did feel peckish again. Being comparatively early we at least found a large enough table for all of us including Steve without having to sit in the non-smoking, family area. A few Newcastle Browns and (for me) a rather so-so steak got us fuelled up for the short walk back and the night's entertainment.
Whichever band was booked for this year's rally, they would have had trouble topping the Worried Men who impressed Dutchy and myself so much last year. That said the band in question, going by the name of Lungfish, served up a more varied selection of material with a more tongue-in-cheek approach, vocal duties being shared between the female front-person, the bass player and the lead guitarist. If you've got a drawer full of t-shirts with band names on them you may feel just a little jealous to learn that I've now got an orange kazoo with the Lungfish logo hand painted on it! These were given out just prior to their rendition of Jimi Hendrix's "Crosstown Traffic", so that we could join in with the signature lead guitar lick which has more than just a suggestion of kazoo-ness on the original.
So, much beer was drunk, many classic rock songs were knocked out, many raffle tickets were bought, much dancing was attempted and much waffle was talked in the traditional way. I caught up with Jim and Paul (Pauline) from Birmingham and Wolves TOMCC whom I had met at the Dutch Trumpettreffen and was not surprised to hear that their rally year was not yet over with at least one more foreign jaunt lined up. The time went quickly and we were all soon stood under a clear night sky queueing for our pork roll and cup of tea to round off the night. I retired to my tent after informing the other guys that I was planning on an early start and a quick ride home on the motorway as I had rather a lot to sort out on Sunday, not to mention having to fly to Boston on Monday.
To my carefully concealed amazement the weather on Sunday was still as good as the previous two days. To nobody's amazement I was barely out of my tent by nine o'clock, let alone packed and ready to go. I reasoned that I wasn't in that much of a rush and I wanted to catch the prize-giving and find out if I had won anything in the raffle, all of which is announced on the Sunday morning when the distractions of band and bar are not diverting peoples' attention. As it happened my sloth was rewarded on both fronts. First up I had a modest raffle win taking away some engine cleaner which would just fit into a pannier - there were some considerably larger prizes in the very practically-minded selection, including a new battery!
On the award front, Birmingham and Wolves TOMCC had the biggest turnout with a respectable fifteen. Tank picked up a trophy for furthest-travelled male, having made a diversion to Portsmouth between London and Weston-super-Mare, but most surprisingly the shield for Best Hinckley went to, yes you guessed it, Dutchy for his Speed Triple. He accepted it with a grin and I figured that it would be rather tactless to blow the gaffe at that point, especially as there was an extremely tidy S registration Trident near the entrance gate which I had personally earmarked as a probable winner in that category.
So I packed away my tent, Tank took custody of the wooden shield to bring it back in his sidecar and Dutchy fielded a series of questions from the owner of another, more well-worn Speed Triple, about the after-market exhaust cans and rejetting and such like, all the while not letting on that it was a recent purchase. Eventually I left everybody to it and pointed my front wheel in the direction of the M5, so that after a quick pause to fill up it was a non-stop ride of two and a half hours straight back home with plenty of time to sort myself out for an eventful, if bike-free week ahead.