Richard Hobbs

This post is theoretically going to act as nothing more than a list of events I plan to be at this summer. This will be a way of making you all aware of the existence of such events in case you wish to attend! I’m not going to list everything I’m going to, because not everything I’m going to is for the general public, but the events that the public can attend or have some involvement with I will list!

April

Easter Opening, Cambridge Museum of Technology (Sun 4 & Mon 5 April 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.

Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run (Sun 25 April 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

May

Rushden Cavalcade of Transport & Country Show (Sat 1 – Mon 3 May 2010)

Jampot Spares Limited (JSL) Open Day (Sat 29 May 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Classic Bike Club Show, Stanford Hall (Sun 30 May 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

May Steaming, Cambridge Museum of Technology (Sun 30 & Mon 31 May 2010)
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.

June

Classic Bike Show, Knebworth (Sun 6 June 2010)

VMCC Banbury Run (Sun 20 June 2010)

Classic & Vintage Motorbikes Day, Cambridge Museum of Technology (27 June 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

July

Hollowell Steam & Heavy Horse Show (Sat 3 – Sun 4 July 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

AJS Anniversary Run, Wolverhampton to Woolwich (Sat 3 July 2010)

Founders Day, Stanford Hall (Sun 18 July 2010)

Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, Swavesey (Sat 24 – Sun 25 July 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

August

Thurlow and Haverhill Steam and Country Show (Sat 7 – Sun 8 August 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

AJS & Matchless Owners Club Jampot Rally (Fri 6 – Sun 8 August 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

August Bank Holiday Steaming, Cambridge Museum of Technology (Sun 29 & Mon 30 August 2010)
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Little Gransden Air & Classic Vehicle Show (Sun 29 August 2010)

Wimbotsham Classic Bike Show (Mon 30 August 2010)

September

Haddenham Steam Rally (Sat 11 – Sun 12 September 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Bedfordshire Steam and Country Show (Sat 18 – Sun 19 September 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Kettering Vintage Rally and Steam Fair (Sat 25 – Sun 26 September 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

October

Great Chesterford Steam-Up (Sat 2 October 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Copdock Bike Show, Suffolk (Sun 3 October 2010)

October Steaming, Cambridge Museum of Technology (Sat 30 & Sun 31 October 2010)
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.

November

Classic Bike & Car Show, NEC, Birmingham (Fri 12 – Sun 14 November 2010)
Click here for photos of 2008’s event.

You will notice that on some dates there is a clash of events. In some of these instances, I’m not sure which events I plan on attending yet, and in the others I have already decided. In all instances, however, I have listed all of the events so you can decide which ones you want to attend, if any!

Needless to say, as Summer progresses, I’ll do my best to get photos, videos and blog posts online covering as many events as I can!

To be sure of receiving notification when blog posts are published, feel free to subscribe to my blog’s RSS Feed.

Kettering Vintage Steam Rally 2009

British Legion Bike Show

The first event since the AJS & Matchless Owners Club Annual Jampot Rally was the Histon British Legion Bike Show. The day began with a few Fenrunners meeting up in Tesco’s car park for a scenic country ride, ending at the British Legion Club. Other than a really bad sore throat (which became much worse by the time I got home!), the day was great!

Photos of British Legion Bike Show, Histon

Haddenham Steam Rally

Our fourth camping experience was at Haddenham Steam Rally (a rally which my Grandad used to visit with the Matchless regularly). This was another enjoyable and relaxing steam rally!

Photos of Haddenham Steam Rally 2009

Videos of Haddenham Steam Rally 2009

Bedfordshire Steam Rally

This was the largest steam rally I have ever been to, by quite a margin. There were roughly 150 steam engines present on the Sunday, I believe, including almost every single crane engine in the UK!

We didn’t take the Matchless to this one, unfortunately, because I didn’t find out about the rally until it was too late to book in, so we turned up as paying visitors (although camping for 3 days as well). It’s not the cheapest rally in the world (weekend camping tickets being £70 per pitch), but it was money well spent in my opinion. Needless to say, I will try and get the bike booked in for next year though, to save paying and to exhibit it to the world, of course!

Other than the sheer size of the rally, the other reasons it’s worth paying £70 for a weekend camping ticket is that you gain free entry to The Shuttleworth Collection, Birds of Prey Centre and Swiss Garden, all of which are excellent. Well… the swiss garden is actually really quite dull, but then I’m not into plants/green things anyway.

The planes, on the other hand, are great, and if the weather’s nice, a lot of them are regularly flying throughout the weekend!

Photos of Bedfordshire Steam Rally 2009

Videos of Bedfordshire Steam Rally 2009

Kettering Vintage Steam Fayre

Our final camping expedition of the year was at the Kettering Steam Rally at Cranford. The weather was wonderful during the day, but freezing cold at night. We bought a chimenea for use at this, and other, rallies and it was great at (a) keeping us warm at night, and (b) cooking a full-english breakfast each morning!

Photos of Kettering Vintage Steam Rally 2009, Cranford

Videos of Kettering Vintage Steam Rally 2009, Cranford

Great Chesterford Steam-Up

The Great Chesterford Steam-Up is a one-day event at the beginning of October, and it’s another great day, completely free of charge, to relax with the bike and see other old vehicles and chat to lots of people.

Photos of Great Chesterford Steam-Up 2009

Remembrance Sunday at Imperial War Museum, Duxford

Possibly the last place I will be riding the Matchless to with others this year; Imperial War Museum, Duxford. You get get in free-of-charge at Duxford on a few days each year, one of them being Remembrance Sunday. The main reason for opening up for free, of course, is to allow people in to remember the fallen over the years by having a large ceremony and site-wide 2 minute’s silence.

Photos of Imperial War Museum, Duxford

Having joined the AJS & Matchless Owners Club just over a year ago, I have been waiting for the club’s annual Jampot Rally to occur so Sarah and I could experience what it’s like to attend such an event.

I have to say, it was amazing! Admittedly, this was, apparently, the best Jampot Rally yet, in terms of facilities, catering, camp site size etc… so it did have everything going for it, but I think Sarah and I would have loved it anyway! Thank you very much, Heart of England section, for organising this year’s rally!

This year’s rally was held very close to home, at Kimbolton Castle. There were 3 main bike runs, with 2 green-laning trips for those who wanted something a little different.

Friday’s run took participants from Kimbolton to Jampot Spares Limited (JSL)/Kettering Classic Motorcycles. Sarah and I have been there many times, as we live locally, so decided to relax at the camp site during this run. Lots of people were still arriving when this run took place, and it was good to see the camp site gradually fill up as Friday afternoon/evening progressed.

The Saturday run (seen assembling above) took us to Oundle. Over 160 bikes took part, by my count, and a couple of hours spent in Oundle were certainly enjoyed!

We all arrived at the wrong car park when we got there because, despite the excellent Marshalling of the run, the school who were kind enough to open up the gates for our arrival, opened them a day early, then closed them on the day we needed them! This was a very minor issue, however, and caused little more than 5 minutes confusion!

We left Oundle at around 2pm to ride back to the camp site, where I had a long wander round looking at the bikes and saying “Hello” to people I knew, and later that evening most of the Fenrunners section had fish and chips next to our tents.

I should also point out that on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings and Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings, Kimbolton School caterers prepared excellent meals for us all, which were truly good value for money and not like stereotypical “school dinners” at all!

The Sunday run took us through a nice country route, involving a ford(!), to The Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden. 260 bikes took part on Sunday, which was a truly spectacular collection of classic and vintage machinery!

The Shuttleworth Collection itself  was also fantastic. A truly unique collection of some of the earliest aircraft ever made, right up to World War 2. I may be mistaken, but I believe they are all in flying condition too, which is even more amazing!

The Shuttleworth Collection also has a Swiss Garden and Birds of Prey centre, although I didn’t visit those while I was there. I’ll hopefully be back there in a couple of weeks anyway, at the Bedfordshire Steam & Country Fayre, so perhaps I’ll visit them then!

When we got back to the camp site, some of the Fenrunners got together for a photograph (seen above) and then booked a team into the Tug-of-War at 4pm!

Sadly, we lost.

After the Tug-of-War, however, was a guided tour of Kimbolton Castle.

The tour lasted about 2 hours and was very interesting indeed. I can highly recommend it to anyone, if you are in the area and able to find out when the tours are occurring.

That evening was the last one of the rally and we spent a short while in the bar/disco area watching the presentations for best bike, furthest distance travelled etc… and then awaited the raffle! We didn’t wait until the raffle happened in the end, but did learn the day after that Sarah and I won a bottle of wine, which was a pleasant surprise.

The following morning, we ate breakfast, packed up the car, put the bike back on the trailer, helped clear up the rally site for a few hours and headed home thoroughly worn out and wishing the rally hadn’t ended!

A 10 minute video of the Saturday and Sunday bike runs can be seen below for those of you who are interested.

There are also more photos of the event here:

Photos of the AMOC Jampot Rally 2009