Girder fork run September 28th 2014

The riders arrive

now where's the coffee

A bright sunny morning greeted the 9 riders who turned up at Ray's for the girder fork run, there would have been more but for family commitments. Each rider was served with a coffee by Di and Keith signed them on, there was even a jam donut for all. Nice to see Graham, Rays son riding today on Rays Matchless, he had that morning ridden all the way down from Swindon. After Jack and Rob had fuelled up it was time for the off with Brian C doing tail end Charlie. The route was out of Tiverton on the Witheridge road before turning off to Puddington and Morchard Bishop, a heading to Morchard road, and Bow saw the run arriving at Winkleigh for lunch and the end of the ride. An excellent meal was had at the Kings Arms and here the Landlord chose Johns Rudge to win the best bike, though I imagine this was some job considering the bikes that attended. All in all a good ride with no breakdowns and no straying from the route. Thanks to Ray for the route, to Keith and Di for their help at the start and to Brian C for being tail end Charlie for the day, oh and thanks to Brian, Rod and Keith who kindly sent photo's of the day, I have in fact got quite a few in total, I will put them on a stick and get Keith to put them on the screen at club night . Now whilst I have your attention, I still am holding a high viz jacket from the fall run, it has a round metal tin in the pocket containing a cable inner and fuse, is it yours or do you know who's it is?, see me if you do. Next run is October 12th, the Autumn run starting at Sainsburys Barnstaple see you there folks.

lunchtime

the winner

starting off

Fall run September 14 2014

Now why doesn't my Triumph look and go like Brians

Jacks bike was much admired

What an eventful day!, where do I start?, well there was no run leader a week ago due to a misunderstanding so I agreed to step in to cover, I chose an easy route up to the North coast of Somerset giving some great views of the Bristol channel and Wales and lunch at Timberscombe followed by a run over the top back to the start in Bampton, what could go wrong?. First of all, my Triumph TR6P with newly rebuilt engine ran from Tiverton to Bampton then decided it had had enough and coughed and spluttered to a stop!, some fettling took place and with Keith behind me to make sure I came back again!, I returned home and swapped for the BMW, the TR6 took me all the way to my drive before completely cutting out. A swift return to the Blackberries saw that all the riders were fed and watered and eager to go as soon as Keith had paid for the coffee's, we had a  quick cuppa ourselves and set off after a briefing, now here is a lesson to all we run leaders, a quick glance around the assembled riders had shown me that I knew all but one of them so assumed that the drop off system would be safe after I had ascertained from the 'newcomer' that he was aware of it's operation. We set off through Bampton and turned left on to the Morebath road where a drop off marker was positioned, one rider however did not see him and ploughed on towards Taunton at a good speed causing Keith to go chasing after him on full throttle catching him up quite a few miles down the road before he could turn him around. All this led them to be late arriving at the turning  at Ralleighs cross only to find that the marker had moved on so more chasing by Keith was employed  once again to catch them and turn them back. The view from Ralleighs cross onwards should have been very nice but due to the heavy mist, we could unfortunately see little of it. I stopped everyone on the front at Blue Anchor for some sightseeing of the welsh coast, channel and Minehead but once again the mist gave us a very limited picture and it was 20 minutes before the tail enders hove into view, they advised me that there were no markers from Ralleighs cross onward. I had made arrangements with the Lion Inn in Timberscombe in the week for a booking of 12 to 15 riders for lunch, since I was unable to get a signal in Bampton, I took the opportunity to ring them from Blue Anchor where they told me they had no roast today!. We set off again but once again hit trouble when the heavy traffic on the A39 caused the run to spread wide and the arrival at Timberscombe was over a long period. I had been informed that the mill in Timberscombe , run by volunteers, was having one of it's rare open days today so 8 riders went off after their lunch for a look around, Jack realised that he was not that well off for petrol so was dispatched to Wheddon cross to fill up whilst I went for a liedown in a dark room!!. The run set off again at 1410 and we had a relatively easy and faultless run back over the top to Bampton once again for a very welcome cup of tea. Lesson for the day is that the drop off system has to be revisited at the start of every run, and to that end, Mike has volunteered to hit each rider on the head when they sign on to restate the rules.

My thanks to Ray and Keith for the back marker work they had to perform and I am grateful to Matt for the pics, as due to the events of the day, I had forgotten to take any!, now where's that brandy?.

Club night this Thursday folks for competition night, see you there I hope.



A quick look at the mill