Richard Hobbs

I’ve not posted for a couple of weeks, mainly due to lack of time, but nevertheless, here I am again to report on a pair of very enjoyable weekends!

First of all though, I would like to state something that surprised me yesterday… the lead up is as follows; my Grandad, when he owned the Matchless, rode an average of around 120 miles per year (between 1989 and 1999 anyway). When he left the bike to me, it stayed in my parents’ garage for 8 or 9 years doing 0 miles per year. In April this year (2008), I brought the bike home and at the MOT that followed at the beginning of July, the odometer read 31666 miles.

The thing that surprised me is that 11 weeks later (today, roughly), the odometer reads 32440 miles, meaning I’ve ridden 774 miles in 11 weeks! I hadn’t realised quite how much I was enjoying the bike until I realised that!

Anyway… onto the weekends… it started on Sunday 14 September, with a bike meeting at the Silver Ball Café at Reed.

Bike Meeting at Silver Ball Café, Reed

This is one of the first events (albeit an incredibly minor event, bordering on not being an “event” at all due to the fact that it’s not organised by anyone in particular, and is actually just a collection of like minded individuals who all happen to be at the same place at the same time) that I’ve been able to take the motorbike to, so I was very pleased about this!

One of the guys from the AJS & Matchless Owners Club and I rode down together from Huntingdon and met up with several other AJS & Matchless owners when we got there. We ended up having a few cups of tea, a few full English breakfasts between us and a lot of talk about bike mechanics – what could be better? Photos of the Silver Ball bike meeting can be found here: Silver Ball Café Bike Meeting Photos

Someone then mentioned that there was supposedly a bike show on in Meldreth at the same time, so we all decided, when we’d finished our cups of tea, to ride there and try to get in with the bikes. This, we managed, although not without a little negotiation with the guy manning the gate!

Three bikes at the Meldreth Car & Bike Show

We then stayed at the car & bike show for a couple of hours, drinking more tea, eating cake, and talking about more bike mechanics mixed in with all aspects of old vehicles! Photos of the Car & Bike Show at Meldreth can be found here: Car & Bike Show, Meldreth Photos

I arrived home at 5pm that afternoon having had a great day out with the motorbike!

Now on to the weekend just gone…

On Saturday, Sarah and I attended the Kettering Vintage Rally & Steam Fayre at Cranford.

Motorbikes at Kettering Vintage Rally & Steam Fayre 2008

We arrived on site at around 09:30, whereupon I had my first experience of riding on damp, long grass with a passenger! Thankfully, it wasn’t difficult and the bike stayed shiny side up for the entire trip across the field! All 200 yards of it! We then settled up at the bike display area until 2pm when it was the motorbikes’ turn to ride around the arena and have their owners tell everyone about their bikes! Thankfully, this went well too:

Me in the Arena at Kettering Vintage Rally & Steam Fayre 2008 talking to the crowd about the bike!

After a grand total of 5 laps of the arena, I rode the bike back to the display area and Sarah and I then left just before 5pm after a very enjoyable, although hot due to biking gear, day! Photos of the Kettering Vintage Rally & Steam Fayre can be found here: Kettering Vintage Rally & Steam Fayre 2008 Photos

I had originally planned to go back to the rally on Sunday to (a) go through the same experience as I had on Saturday and (b) to collect my brass plaque that all exhibitors receive for being so kind as to bring along a vehicle of some sort (The plaques were only being given out on the second day at this particular rally), but on Saturday evening I heard a knock at the door – it was one of the guys from the AJS & Matchless Owners Club cursing me for being ex-directory and also inviting me to another run to the Silver Ball Café at Reed with some other AJS & Matchless owners!

I decided to phone up the organisers of the Kettering rally and see if they would be so kind as to post my brass plaque to me, and having received the answer “yes”, I decided that another day out with the AJS & Matchless people would be much more fun than another day at the rally! It’s not that the rally wasn’t enjoyable, far from it – it was great actually, but two days in a row, spending 7 hours on-site each day is quite a commitment, and although the people there are great to talk to, I could never turn down a day out with my fellow AJS & Matchless owners!

So anyway, overall, it’s been an eventful and enjoyable pair of weekends! I just want summer to stay with us now! Riding isn’t so much fun in winter, unfortunately!

We had two events planned for this weekend – Haddenham Steam Rally on Saturday (which I wasn’t taking the Matchless to) and the 3rd Legion Bike Show on Sunday (which I was taking the Matchless to). Both events took place and we attended both of them. However, neither day ended up being quite as we had expected (and hoped)!

I shall start with Haddenham Steam Rally…

This rally is supposedly one of the largest in the area, if not the country, with vehicles and stalls from all around the country, but sadly the Met Office had predicted “Heavy rain” from 07:00 until at least 19:00 and as a result, only around two thirds of the steam engines turned up, perhaps a third of the motorbikes, half of the other vehicles and even some of the stalls had failed to show, not to mention the noticeable lack of actual visitors/spectators etc.

However, there wasn’t a single spot of rain until around 16:30, which is when Sarah and I left anyway, so it ended up being quite a nice, albeit windy, day!

The lack of vehicles wasn’t so bad either – it just made the rally a little more “normal” as opposed to “huge” like it normally is and the lack of visitors made it possible for me to take lots of good photos without people getting in the way! Click here to view the photos of Haddenham Steam Rally 2008!

So basically, Haddenham Steam Rally still ended up being a fun day out, which is great!

Now onto the 3rd Legion Bike Show at Histon…

Overall, this turned out to be a fun day out too, but not in the way we had originally planned!

The original plan was that Sarah and I would set off on the Matchless at around 10:00 to meet up with the rest of the Fenrunners section of the AJS & Matchless Owners Club so we could all go on a nice long run before turning up en-masse at the Bike Show! The forecast for Sunday, by the way, was considerably better than the forecast for Saturday and the sky looked fine when we woke up!

So… Sarah and I set off as planned and almost half way to the meeting point we hit what felt like a torrential downpour! Being on the A14, we had to keep riding until we could pull off the dual carriageway into some shelter, which is exactly what we did at the Hand Car Wash place just past “Cambridge Services”. By the time we got there, though, the bike was drenched, Sarah’s jeans were soaked and despite me wearing full motorbike gear, I was soaked in places too! Fortunately, my efforts to waterproof the electrics on the motorbike paid off so far because it was still running fine!

By the time the rain had subsided, we had clearly missed our opportunity to meet the rest of the Fenrunners for our motorbike run, so we decided to see how the weather was along the next stretch of road and decide at the next junction whether to ride home and visit the show by car (in case the electrics weren’t as waterproof as I had hoped) or to continue on straight to the show (and arrive several hours early!). The downpour started as soon as we left the shelter, but again, being the A14, there was no turning back, so we rode the rest of the way to Bar Hill, turned around and rode straight home!

Thankfully, we made it and I must say, despite arriving home completely soaked, slightly cold, and with a 42 year old motorbike absolutely covered in water, we were still in good spirits and unbelievably glad that the motorbike survived! At least I now know it’ll be OK in the rain!

We then got changed and headed off to the biike show by car. It turns out that instead of 20 or so AJS & Matchless owners taking part in the run, there were just two, but we met them there in the end and had a relaxing and enjoyable day! Click here to view the photos of the 3rd Legion Bike Show!

Thank you again to the organisers of the run… sorry we couldn’t make it, but we did try, and it was still great to see you at the show anyway!