The AJS & Matchless Owners Club Jampot Rally 2009
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:
