Richard Hobbs

As the title implies, there’s rather a lot to talk about this time around, so I’ll try to keep each subject relatively short!

In summary, Sarah and I have been to several more steam rallies, I have been to a bike show, I queued up at 5:30am for an iPhone 4 on launch day, I was official photographer at a wedding(!), I’ve spent 2 nights sleeping on a punctured air bed, we’ve bought a caravan and “done it up” and I’m now involved with “Ada”!

First of all, Meldreth Manor Bike Show

Held at Meldreth Manor School, this is a charity event organised by the Royston and District Motorcycle Club. It’s actually the “Royston and District Motorcycle Club Annual Show”, but is known as the “Meldreth Manor Bike Show” to most people.

I wasn’t planning on going to this, mainly because it’s held on a Wednesday evening, but decided to at the last minute. I have to say, I’m very glad I did! Over 3,200 bikes turned up for those 4 hours and it was spectacular!

Photos of Meldreth Manor Bike Show 2010

Video of Meldreth Manor Bike Show 2010

Somersham Carnival

Sarah and I travelled to Somersham Carnival again this year on the back of the Matchless. The carnival was as enjoyable as ever, with a Mardi Gras theme, and guess what? I won “Best Motorcycle” again!

Photos of Somersham Carnival

iPhone 4

Some of you are going to think I’m crazy, some of you may not, but I queued up outside Lion Yard Shopping Centre (now called the Grand Arcade, I believe!) in Cambridge at 5:30am on iPhone 4 Launch Day to attempt to swap my perfectly good 32GB iPhone 3GS for a brand new 32GB iPhone 4! I was 8th in line.

Did I get my iPhone 4? Yes!

Was it worth paying out my contract with 1 year remaining? Was it worth getting up at 4:30am? Was it worth spending that day with no mobile phone because I had to activate the new one in iTunes before I could use it?

Yes! Well, I think so anyway.

Many people have spoken of reception issues, dropped calls etc… but although I can successfully make the reception indicator bars drop off by holding the phone in the wrong place, I have never suffered a single reception-based issue with the iPhone 4 whatsoever. I do have a case now because I keep dropping it, but I never had an issue for the 2 months before I got the case!

The “Retina” display is amazing, the LED camera flash is excellent as a torch, the speed increase is gratefully received, the camera is of much better quality and the 720p video recording is very good indeed! In summary, I can definitely recommend the iPhone 4 above all other iPhones! There is *no* reason not to upgrade in my opinion!

Classic & Vintage Bike Day, Cambridge Museum of Technology

Once again, at the Cambridge Museum of Technology, there was a classic and vintage bike day. It unfortunately clashed with the “World Cup” (something to do with a game called “football” apparently), but there was a very good turnout considering!

There were a few people out the back working on the main steam engine too (unrelated to the bike show, of course), trying to find which one of the boiler tubes was leaking. I must admit, I spent most of my time with the steam engine people discussing the best way to find the leaky tube! Every idea I came up with, though, had either already been attempted or was actually useless! I guess we live and learn!

Photos of Classic & Vintage Bike Day, Cambridge Museum of Technology

Video of Classic & Vintage Bike Day, Cambridge Museum of Technology

Hollowell Steam Rally & Heavy Horse Show

The Hollowell rally is always one of the best rallies of the year in my opinion, with a great variety of exhibits, ranging from giant insects, through Titan the Robot, to the “Dancing Digger” (a JCB with a very skilled driver!). Needless to say, we took the motorbike again and had a thoroughly great time for the entire 3 days! If I remember correctly, the temperature outside was very warm indeed (high 20s, anyway) and helped make the weekend great!

Photos of Hollowell Steam Rall & Heavy Horse Show

Video of Hollowell Steam Rally & Heavy Horse Show 2010

Photographing a wedding!

Another thing I’ve done since the last blog post is be official photographer at some good friends’ wedding! Now, there’s a rather large learning curve to go from photographing stationary steam engines to photographing a wedding, but now that I’ve edited all 1,840 or so photos down to the final set (after a number of weeks!) I think I pulled it off! The photos are far from “professional”, but I’ve learned a lot from the experience and, of course, thoroughly enjoyed the day, as did everyone!

And the main thing? The bride and groom like the photos, so in a way, nothing else matters! The lack of professionalism, the overexposed whites, the underexposed blacks and the bad composition mean nothing now because the people that matter like the photos!

Cambridgeshire Steam Rally

A week or two after Hollowell, the Cambridgeshire Steam Rally at Swavesey happened. This was only the second year for this rally, but with double the number of exhibits from the first year, the event was the best yet! The weather was roasting hot too, which helped bring the crowds in.

Photos of Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, Swavesey

Videos of Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, Swavesey (this year’s video not yet edited, but watch this space!)

Thurlow Steam Rally

The latest rally was the Thurlow rally. This year it clashed with the AJS & Matchless Owners Club Jampot Rally (due to the Jampot rally having been moved forward a few weeks) and although the decision of which one to attend was a difficult one, I’m very glad we decided to go to Thurlow this year! More on that later.

One thing I’d like to say about the Thurlow rally is about the atmosphere. This rally is one of the most relaxing rallies of the entire year and for that reason it is one of my favourites. The larger rallies have to be very organised, with scouts running the car park, army cadets acting as wardens to ensure safe passage of vehicles in and out of the arena, people in yellow jackets everywhere keeping the rally running smoothly, etc… but somehow Thurlow manages to operate pretty much on time, perfectly safely and everything just happens on-site with seemingly no stress whatsoever!

Don’t get me wrong though – i’m sure lots of stress goes into the organisation of the rally each year, but the impression of a lack of stress and panic during the weekend certainly makes for one of my favourite rallies of the year, so thank you for a great rally again Michael!

Photos of Thurlow Steam Rally

Videos of Thurlow Steam Rally (this year’s video not yet edited, but watch this space!)

Caravan

While at the Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, there was a problem. Our air bed developed a slow puncture. On my side. During the first night. On a very rough field.

This wasn’t the end of the world, as I can somehow survive on very little sleep if I have to(!), but I could not find the puncture anywhere! If I pumped up the mattress in the morning, by 10pm it would still be up, but 3 hours after I started laying on it, it’d be out of air completely.

At this same rally we were informed by a couple of fellow rally-goers who we know quite well now, that there was a caravan for sale near them for £200. So, the day after we got back from the rally, we headed up there to pop in for a cup of tea and to take a look at the caravan down the road. Needless to say, we drove home with the caravan in tow!

Since we bought it, we’ve actually spent more money on it than it’s worth, but in doing so we’ve made it our own, and in the 1.5 weeks that followed the initial purchase we have completely re-foamed and re-covered the seats, washed the curtains, cleaned and sterilised the inside, washed the outside, re-carpeted it and put all the hinges and door-stops on that weren’t quite screwed in properly! Our aim was to have it read for the Thurlow rally, and that we did!

I have to say, having spent a year going to rallies in a tent, upgrading to a caravan is an infinitely large step up (not literally). For a start, there’s no risk the air bed will go down leaving you sleeping on the grass! When it’s raining, you can still have a cup of tea. You don’t have to sit on a chair leaning forward cooking or boiling the kettle on a stove on the grass. You don’t have to sit in awkward folding camping chairs. The list goes on and on! In summary, upgrading to a caravan was one of the most sensible things we’ve done in relation to rallies and other multi-day events! The only disadvantage is having to do one trip to take the caravan and another to take the motorbike, but I’ll buy a van one day to solve that problem!

Finally, I’ll mention “Ada” (seen below).

As far as I know (at this early stage) Ada is a 105 year old (built in 1905) 10-ton 7 nominal horse power Fowler general purpose steam traction engine. It is owned by David and family, who were after some help with the engine. David currently looks after the maintenance and running of the engine mostly on his own and while I know very little about the mechanical side of steam engines at this stage, I’ve been wanting to get involved with a full-size steam engine for many, many years. This year, at the Thurlow rally, that opportunity came up and I took it!

My involvement with the engine will begin this winter when I’ll start meeting David at the workshop to begin the winter maintenance cycle and will then hopefully continue on through next year’s rally season and beyond! To be honest, it’s a bit of a dream come true, so thank you David for the opportunity and thank you Hugh for introducing me to David and finding me the opportunity!

Photos of “Ada” on Steam Scenes

It’s been a while since my last blog post. This is mainly because not a lot has happened!

Before I get on to our latest steam rally, I’ll briefly mention the modelling I’ve been doing…

I have been learning various techniques for use on the Warspite model and mainly practising my airbrushing technique. Airbrushing in itself isn’t too difficult, but finding the correct paint/thinner mix is the tricky part; get that right and the rest just happens!

Above you can see the tail end of a 1:72 scale Lockheed Martin F 16C Fighting Falcon by PM Models. This model was kindly donated to me by a work colleague for practising on. The paint finish isn’t perfect, but it’s significantly better than it would be with a brush, and once it’s had a coat of clear varnish, I’m sure it’ll look good enough for me!

The other thing I’ve started is sanding the base of the hull! A while ago I glued the two halves of the hull together and now I’m sanding them down with 1500 and 2000 grit wet-and-dry paper ready for their first coat of primer.

Above you can see the nearly finished bow and below you can see the not-yet-started stern.

The next thing to do is to fill the gap down the middle to make it perfectly smooth. I’ll do this just before the primer goes on, and hopefully it’ll then be ready for it’s first coat of paint!

The other thing that’s happened since the last blog post is Strumpshaw Steam Rally!

We didn’t take the Matchless to Strumpshaw because we were a bit late booking in, so Sarah and I paid our entry fee and stayed from Friday evening until Monday evening without the bike. We had a great time too; the weather was great and there was lots going on!

While I think of it, something I don’t think I’ve done before is explain that a Steam Rally isn’t actually just about steam engines. Above you can see some of the many Land Rovers that were on display amongst the military vehicles.

There were also tractors…

Motorcycles…

Goats…

Ostriches…

Scratch-built model boats…

An entire steam museum…

Cars…

A beer tent…

Live music…

An entire fairground…

Powered by Showman’s engines…

Wood sawing…

Train rides…

And a sheep dog demonstration!

The other thing that happened at Strumpshaw was a road run on Saturday and Sunday evening to a local pub. Sarah and I went along on Sunday having hitched a lift from a very generous Mr. Garrod in the back of his Foden steam wagon.

Above is S. Garrod’s steam wagon and below is the view over the roof as we were travelling down the road!

You can see our trip to the pub, plus almost every other aspect of the rally in the high quality 720p HD video below…

If the video above doesn’t work, you can also watch it in slightly lower quality here.

Photos of Strumpshaw Steam Rally 2010

Video of Strumpshaw Steam Rally 2010 (Also available on Youtube in HD!)

The 2010 motorcycle ride and steam rally season has officially begun, and Sarah and I have been going to as much as we can!

AMOC Intersection Meet

The first event was the AJS & Matchless Owners Club East Anglian Intersection Meet on 18 April at the White Horse, Sible Hedingham. The weather was wondeful if I remember correctly, and I rode a total of 113 miles including getting to and from the start and end points.

There was a great turnout of perhaps 60-70 bikes, and it was great to meet so many fellow AJS & Matchless riders all in the same place!

Photos of Intersection Meet at White Horse, Sible Hedingham

Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run

The following weekend was the Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run on 25 April. The day started out wet, but had completely dried out by lunchtime and ended up being quite a nice day! This event is a procession of 400 or so classic and vintage vehicles that travel from Cottenham to various neighbouring villages one-by-one before ending up back at Cottenham in order to raise money for MAGPAS.

Photos of Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run 2010

Video of Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run 2010

Rushden Cavalcade

This was our first steam rally of the year, and being from 1-3 May, it wasn’t particularly warm! There had been some warm days by this point in the year, but none of them chose to show up at Rushden! We mostly had rain, wind and rather cold temperatures for most of the weekend, and even though the rally is for 3 days, Sarah and I got there 2 days early, so suffered the weather for 5 whole days!

Having said that though, it was still a very enjoyable rally overall. Sarah, unfortunately, had a dreadful cold and sore throat for most of it, but still enjoyed the weekend. On two of the three rally days, it was so cold that while I was in the middle of the arena with the other motorcyclists waiting to chat with the commentator/announcer I had to warm my hands up by holding the engine!

Anyway, weather aside, it was a great rally and even if you don’t like motorcycles or steam engines, I strongly suggest you have a look through the photos and watch the video because, like a lot of other rallies, they also had cars, military vehicles, trucks, a beer tent, live bands, model boats, model military scenes, model circuses, tractors, and lots more!

Photos of Rushden Cavalcade 2010

Video of Rushden Cavalcade 2010

AMOC Bike Run to The Chequers Inn, Wrestlingworth

The most recent event was another AJS & Matchless Owners Club bike run, this time to The Chequers Inn at Wrestlingworth. We were going to meet at the pub at 10:30 and along with many other motorcyclists on all sorts of bikes, have a ride around the countryside for an hour or so before ending up back at the pub for a barbeque. The weather was wonderful and the bike ride was enjoyable! The barbeque was also fantastic, so overall another enjoyable day!

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)

Meldreth Manor Bike Show (Wed 16 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.

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

Since my last blog post I have, as you might expect, been relatively busy!

The first event since winning “Best Motorcycle” at Somersham Carnival was the Classic & Vintage Bikes Day at Cambridge Museum of Technology.

This was a fun day, as usual! There were lots of bikes, as you can see, and lots of good people to talk to and get advice on my carburettor, which is still running rich for some reason!

Photos of Classic & Vintage Bike Day, Cambridge Museum of Technology

The weekend after this was the Hollowell Steam Rally.

I had booked the Matchless into this rally as an exhibit, but hadn’t realise quite how far away it was – just over 60 miles. As a result, I begrudgingly went by car! I could have ridden, but 60 miles would take at least an hour and a half by bike, and to get there before 10am and not to leave before 5pm would mean it would be quite a long day, which this particular weekend I didn’t fancy.

Nevertheless, it was a great day, and having had a towbar fitted and ordered a bike trailer, there should be nothing stopping us going next year!

Photos of Hollowell Steam Rally 2009

3 weeks later, it was Cambridgeshire Steam Rally. Sarah and I decided to use this rally as a test of our new camping equipment before the AJS & Matchless Owners Club Jampot Rally at the end of August and also to find out whether Sarah and I both like camping or not!

As it turns out, we love it!

Above you can see our tent with the bike parked next to it. We parked up next to Des and his Trantor, who we learned was possibly the most fun person to camp next to on the entire camp site, so thank you for helping to make our first rally great, Des! I think I still have your lighter too if you’re reading this!

I should also suggest, at this point, that everyone visits the Cambridgeshire Steam Rally web site! I noticed, a couple of weeks before the rally, as the rally is quite new at its current location (this rally was previously known as the Wood Green Steam Rally and was located at the Wood Green Animal Shelter, as you may have guessed) it had no web site!

I therefore contacted the organisers and offered to create a web site for the rally. They agreed, and the site was made! Needless to say, at the moment, the entire design and all the photos and videos are my own. Whether this will change over time I’m not sure, but for the moment at least, it’s true.

The other amazing thing that happened this weekend is that I finally, after 13 years or so, found Tony Warwick and his steam engine “Gigantic” (engine pictured below)!

As a child, I frequently visited my Grandparents’ house and also attended various local steam rallies on the back of my Grandad’s Matchless. At various rallies, and sometimes parked out the back of my Grandparents’ house, I went to have a look at “Tony’s engine” – “Gigantic”. It is a 1912 McLaren road locomotive which Tony has owned for as long as I can remember. I’ve had several rides on the footplate of “Gigantic” as a child and remember the engine like it was yesterday.

However, when I went to university and my Grandparent’s sadly passed away, I never went over there any more and consequently never saw the engine. Tony also had the engine off the road for a very long time as he was rebuilding most, or all, of it. As a result, I’ve been hoping to find “Gigantic” again and after 13 years or so, at the Cambridgeshire Steam Rally I finally did!

For old times’ sake, I also managed to get on board again – once on Saturday evening, and again on Sunday for a trip around the arena. Videos below…

Photos of Cambridgeshire Steam Rally 2009

The weekend after the Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, it was the Thurlow Steam Rally at Horseheath Racecourse near Linton, Cambs.

We weren’t originally going to camp at this rally, but having had such a good time at the Cambridgeshire rally, we decided to camp after all! For this rally, however, I bought a tow bar for the car and borrowed a bike trailer!

The problem at the Cambridgeshire rally was that I had to drive to the rally site with Sarah and the camping gear, drop off both, drive home, get the bike out the garage and ride back to the rally site. Then, when the rally had finished I had to do the opposite! This wasn’t too bad at the Cambridgeshire rally because it was only 15 miles from home, but the Thurlow rally was much further. This is why I bought a tow bar and borrowed a trailer (my own trailer is on order)!

So, again, the rally was excellent and we will make every effort to go again next year! A video summarising at least some of the rally is below:

Photos of Thurlow Steam Rally 2009

Now, onto my new iPhone!

In summary, I have a new mobile phone – the 32GB iPhone 3GS and it’s excellent in almost every way!

On the left you will see my current desktop. In case you somehow haven’t managed to learn this fact yet, the iPhone is a touch-screen phone by the way!

For those of you who don’t know, most of the applications on the left are available as standard on all iPhones. The only non-standard icons are the Google “g” icon and the “UK – Ireland” TomTom satnav icon.

To be honest, most of the applications are available in slightly different implementations on other phones too, but the iPhone’s apps are typically much nicer to use than on other devices due to the touch screen and the way the menus etc. are all structured.

I know other phones have similar functionality now, but I’ve never tested any of those, so for the moment, in my opinion, the iPhone is amazing!

Anyway, I will talk about my new phone more in a separate post – there’s too much to talk about here!

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.

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!

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.

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:

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!

There were two events this weekend – my Birthday on Saturday and the AJS & Matchless Owners Club Fenrunners 2008 Motorbike run on Sunday (today), and fortunately, both have been a complete success!

My birthday on Saturday was a quiet day… but I received gifts that I like (mostly from my Wishlist!) and generally had a very nice day with Sarah!

Then, today (Sunday), Sarah and I took part in the “2008 Fenrunners Ride” organised by the AJS & Matchless Owners Club, and again - had a thoroughly good day!

The weather didn’t look too good initially, with “Thunder showers” forecast for the afternoon up to 24 hours beforehand (which would have meant we simply couldn’t go), but having woken up on the day to a foggy, but otherwise calm morning, the forecast got better as the day went on and in the end probably only 100 spots of rain hit my visor all day long!

The run consisted of two “legs”… one of 38 miles and another of 28 miles, so together with the “getting there” and “getting back”, we rode 108 miles today! Our legs ache, my arms ache, my back aches slightly, but the bike performed wonderfully and we loved it! We cruised between 45 and 50 mph all day long, and the bike didn’t shudder or backfire once! The routes can be found on my Motorcycle Routes page… they are labelled as the “Fenrunners Ride 2008″ routes, in case you are interested to see where we rode.

I have also been able to figure out that today I obtained around 62 miles per gallon, which isn’t quite as great as I had expected from a 350cc single-cylinder motorbike, but considering we were going through villages, up and down gentle slopes and I had two people on the bike, I don’t think it’s too bad. Time will tell what mpg I’m getting on average… if you are interested in keeping an eye on the mpg, take a look at my Mileage page – this will be added to as time progresses, and when I have enough values in there it’ll produce a nice graph like it does with the other vehicles!

Anyway – one of the better weekends of the year overall!

Just looking forward to next weekend now – Haddenham Steam Rally on Saturday and another AJS & Matchless Owners Club bike run ending at the 3rd Legion Bike Show in Histon on Sunday!

Well, after taking the cylinder head off twice, replacing the exhaust valve and valve guide, and by correcting the badly-cut valve seat and face, the bike does now appear to be working… touch-wood!

I managed 50 miles or so yesterday – 20 miles to work in the morning, 20 miles to my parents house in the evening, and 10 miles home after that. It was great

Only thing is… i was gearing up for the Thurlow & Haverhill Steam & Country Show, but it seems there’s a possibility of rain, which means i will have to leave the bike at home and go by car

How disappointing…