Just a quick post to let you all know about an EXCITING new video I’ve produced!!
Over the last couple of years I have uploaded 115 videos to YouTube. Some of the early ones are quite short and low quality (when I was recording on my old Nokia), but the more recent videos (March 2010 onwards) are almost all high definition (720p) and I’ve spent lots of time editing the footage to ensure only the best bits end up in the uploaded videos.
Amazingly (to me, anyway), my most popular video has had 484,073 views (as of Fri 4 Nov 2011) and all my videos combined have had 869,635 views, which I think is astonishing! Thank you viewers! I’ve also managed to gain 118 subscribers, so thank you subscribers as well!
I have uploaded a total of 12 hours, 11 minutes, 19 seconds of footage to YouTube, which has been edited down from around 50 hours of original raw footage. As you can imagine, not only have I had to watch all 50 hours of footage to produce these video, but lots of extra time has been spent editing the footage, rearranging it, adding titles, fades, transitions etc… so I cannot imagine how many hours it has actually taken to get to where things are now!
Anyway… I have recently taken the 12 hours of edited YouTube footage and cut it down further into a short video containing 3-4 second clips showing all the best stuff I have ever shot! The variety of stuff in this video, I think, is amazing, and I have done my best to make it as interesting and unpredictable as possible so you never know what’s coming next, so please watch the video below!!
On Sunday 26 June 2011, I had planned to venture out on the Matchless to the Classic & Vintage Motorcycle Show at the Museum of Technology in Cambridge, but unfortunately I had broken my finger and couldn’t get the motorbike gloves on.
As a result, I drove (which I was allowed to do by then)!
Well, it was one of the best and biggest motorcycles shows that I had ever been to at the Museum of Technology.
There are much bigger shows elsewhere, but there must have been over 50 bikes on the museum’s small patch of land on this day.
There was a great selection of bikes too, from the rigid BSA above to the TriLevis below!
Also, while not related to motorcycles, a previously blocked-off area of the museum was open this time, so I headed in and took a few photos.
The museum has two floors or ground levels which the public can access. “Upstairs” or the upper ground level is where some of the stationary steam engines, and steam powered winch engine and a few other bits reside and “downstairs” or the lower ground level is where the rest of the museum resides and the base of the main boiler (for which the huge chimney visible from Newmarket Road is used).
This time, from the upper level, we were able to walk down some steps to a middle level, on which were two large boilers (one of which can be seen above) and what looks like an old sign-writers desk and tools.
In order to walk down to the middle level, we had to walk through a previously roped off area, so I was able to get a new look at the steam engines in that area (seen above).
Finally, this is a view of the middle level from the upper level. If anyone can tell me what the two circular hatches in the floor are, that’d be marvelous!
UPDATE: Thanks to John Connett, I now know what the circular hatches are for… “The circular hatches were used for loading rubbish into the destructor cells on both sides of each of the three original (1894) Babcock & Wilcox boilers. Heat from the burning rubbish was used to generate steam to drive the pumping engines. The handle used to open the hatch can be clearly seen on the left one in your picture.”. Thanks, John!
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
Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run (Sun 17 April 2011) Click here for photos of last year’s event. Click here for a video of last year’s event. Click here for blog post of last year’s event.
Jampot Spares Limited (JSL) Open Day (Sat 14 May 2011)
June
RDMCC Meldreth Manor Bike Show (Evening of Wed 15 June 2011) Click here for photos of last year’s event. Click here for a video of last year’s event. Click here for blog post of last year’s event.
Hollowell Steam & Heavy Horse Show (Sat 2 – Sun 3 July 2011) Click here for photos of last year’s event. Click here for a video of last year’s event. Click here for blog post of last year’s event.
Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, Swavesey (Sat 23 – Sun 24 July 2011) Click here for photos of last year’s event. Click here for a video of last year’s event. Click here for blog post of last year’s event.
August
Thurlow Steam Rally (Sat 13 – Sun 14 August 2011) Click here for photos of last year’s event. Click here for a video of last year’s event. Click here for blog post of last year’s event.
Haddenham Steam Rally (Sat 10 – Sun 11 September 2011) Click here for photos of last year’s event. Click here for a video of last year’s event. Click here for blog post of last year’s event.
Bedfordshire Steam and Country Show (Fri 16 – Sun 18 September 2011) Click here for photos of last year’s event. Click here for a video of last year’s event. Click here for blog post of last year’s event.
Kettering Vintage Rally and Steam Fair (Sat 24 – Sun 25 September 2011) Click here for photos of last year’s event. Click here for a video of last year’s event. Click here for blog post of last year’s event.
October
Great Chesterford Steam-Up (Early October 2011) Click here for photos of last year’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 site for updates!
The first thing I’ve done since writing the last blog post was take a motorcycle ride to Prickwillow Drainage Engine Museum. I’ve been here before, but they had various different things going on during their so-called “Plowing Match” day, so the Fenrunners section of the AJS & Matchless Owners Club organised a bike run down to the museum for the day.
I don’t have any photos or videos of the day at Prickwillow, but I do have a few videos shot at the museum a couple of years ago.
The photo above, by the way, is the Fenrunners meeting up in Tesco’s car park, ready to set off on the run to Prickwillow!
Driving to London
The other thing I’d like to mention is my trip down to Earl’s Court, London for “IP Expo” on behalf of the company I work for. I’m not going to talk about the event itself, but the journey down there.
My colleague and I decided it would be cheaper for the company and easier/faster/less stressful if we drove to Earl’s Court, parked in their dedicated car park and then drove back afterwards. We decided to go in the Land Rover.
TomTom had predicted the journey would take about 2 hours, 15 mins each way. I purchased 1 month’s access to TomTom’s “HD Traffic” service, which certainly proved useful, and the time estimates were spot on! Credit to TomTom for making such a great iPhone satnav app!
As for the 13 year old Land Rover Discovery, I have to say, I was very impressed indeed! Cruising down the motorway at 70mph seemed effortless, cruise control made it all the more relaxing, and the automatic gearbox in the center of London was appreciated more than I had expected. I’ve never had an automatic before, the Land Rover is my first, and for driving through heavy traffic in London it simply takes all the stress out of the journey! Combined with the fact that the temperature outside was freezing and the Landy has heated seats, the day was actually really quite relaxing. Well done Land Rover Discovery for turning long-distance driving into a relaxing pleasure!
Now, to the other aspect of owning a Land Rover (the real reason I bought it)… Off roading!
The first day’s off roading since the last one was at Venture 4×4, a dedicated off road site just outside the village of Three Holes.
Here you can see Edd attempting to drive up an incline and through a bramble bush that covered the entire slope. The attempt above failed, but he did eventually make it through!
This site is mostly mud, inclines, and deep ruts and is one hell of a lot of fun! One thing I will say, however, is that it is better suited to custom off-roaders and vehicles that don’t mind being dented, scratched or damaged. As a result, there was a relatively limited amount of stuff I was willing to take my Discovery through. Having said that though, there’s certainly still a full day’s entertainment to be had driving around what I was willing to attempt!
As seen above, I also had an opportunity to use my winch, mostly to help Edd out! The picture above shows Edd being winched out of a deeply rutted mud pit having wedged the front of his vehicle into the ground. This particular winching exercise was captured in the video below, too!
By the end of the day, the Landy was pretty muddy, but I’ve seen worse. Needless to say, we pressure washed it before hitting the road!
The following weekend we went off roading again at Tixover Quarry!
Tixover is an old sand & clay quarry from what I can work out, and as a result part of the site is sand & rocks and the remainder is thick, wet, deep clay.
There are two areas to stay away from unless you want to get stuck at Tixover; the lake and the clay pit. Needless to say, many people attempted to get through both. We decided to try and head over to the edge of the clay pit to just watch what was going on, but unfortunately sunk in as soon as we arrived. You can see our position before I had to get the winch out, above!
It doesn’t look like much, but the tyre tread had filled with clay and the left hand side of the vehicle had sunk in up to the bottom of the chassis. I attached the winch to the vehicle that was in front of me, pulled myself out, managed to turn around and went back through it again at full throttle! Thankfully we made it out the other side without any assistance
The other end of Tixover Quarry can be seen above. A relatively clean and firm sandy area with a few rocks.
In the far distance, to the right hand side, is where most of the easy hills are situated, in the middle is the lake, and behind where I was stood are the seriously steep and deeply rutted inclines which several insane people attempted (all successfully as far as I know!).
And here we see the lake. Many people made it through. Some did not. This particular rescue is in the video below.
This was one of the less steep inclines. Well, it was less steep, but was V-shaped and had no flat bottom. This gulley took many wing mirrors off during the day and scratch & dented many doors and body panels!
Finally, I couldn’t write about a day’s off roading without including another picture of my own vehicle, so here it is going through some puddles with it’s suspension articulated a fair amount.
My last non-Warspite blog post seems to have been on 15 August, shortly after Thurlow Steam Rally. Since then, a lot has happened. In fact, it has probably been the busiest 6 weeks of the year! I won’t document everything here though… that would be too much (assuming what is below isn’t already too much, of course!).
Ramsey 1940s Weekend
I’ve been meaning to go along to this event for a couple of years (ever since I learned of its existence), but this year is the first year I’ve managed to make time, and what a great event it is!
It is held in the now-unused RAF Upwood and contains a huge variety of exhibits ranging from a Hawker Hurricane to cars and motorcycles from the era, right down to pots and pans that would have been cooked in and other items that would be been inside many homes of that period. There were also various flying displays throughout the day, live music inside one of the hangers, live music outside, lots of people in period costume, and the list goes on!
It was at this event that I picked up an empty 13lb field gun shell casing which we now use as a cutlery holder in our caravan.
Picture the scene… it’s the Friday at the start of the August Bank Holiday weekend. You have plans to go somewhere on one of the days, and possibly somewhere else on another of the days (because it’s your birthday). 5pm rolls around and you get in your car to drive home ready for the 3 day weekend. You start the engine, drive out of work and join the dual carriageway on your way home. As you drive down the sliproad you change from 2nd gear to 3rd, then to 4th. As you put the car into 5th gear, the gearbox linkage falls apart, you are therefore stuck in neutral and you have no choice but to pull over on the verge 400ft down a 500ft sliproad.
It’s now 5:15pm on a Friday night at the start of the bank holiday weekend, and you took the breakdown cover off your insurance policy 2 weeks earlier because you had never used it and decided it was a waste of money. Nice one!
This is the situation I was in at the end of August! I managed to find a garage to tow me back, but they weren’t able to look at the car until Tuesday. This left me without a car for my birthday/bank holiday weekend. Also, to top it off, the repair was potentially going to end up costing more than the value of the car, leaving me car-less permanently!
So, I didn’t bother going to one of the places I wanted to go to, and I took the Matchless to the other…
Cambridge Museum of Technology Steam-Up Day
On two of the days during the bank holiday weekend, the Cambridge Museum of Technology down Cheddars Lane in Cambridge held another steam-up day. These are a fairly regular occurrence (2 or 3 times per year), but this time the Mayor of Cambridge was visiting to open the winch engine house to celebrate 50 years of the museum being open, I believe.
I didn’t take any photos this day, I’m afraid as I’ve been there so many times before, I’ve started taking the same photos over and over again! Feel free to search my site for “cambridge museum of technology” if you wish, though.
Anyway, with no car to get me there I decided to set off on the Matchless! Sadly, the engine started spluttering and eventually stopped completely half way along the A14. Thankfully I’d enough momentum to get me to a layby where I deduced that “crap” had made its way into the fuel tap in the bottom of the petrol tank. Having promptly shoved a piece of rigid wire through the hole and then getting covered in petrol, I set off again only for the engine to splutter and stop again about 1 mile later at Bar Hill. This time the fuel tap was clear, but the filter inside the carburettor was so blocked it was a wonder any fuel made it through at all! So I unblocked this properly and set off again. Third time lucky. I made it.
It was a good day out again, despite the rain for most of the day!
The new car!
So… as I didn’t know how much my car was going to cost to repair, I decided I had to start looking for a new one, just in case it turned out to be a lot. While deciding what type of car I wanted as a replacement, I asked myself, “Why have I never gone looking for the car I dreamed about since I was 5 years old?”. There was no reason whatsoever, it just hadn’t occurred to me to buy this vehicle at any of the times I’ve been looking for a new car. So this time, I decided I was going to have this vehicle whether my existing car was fixable or not. I found a nice one, asked a friend to come along with me to check it out, and eventually bought it. You can see my replacement for the Ford Mondeo below…
This is not a picture I grabbed from the web. This is my car.
In summary, it’s a 1997 Land Rover Discovery ES (with the 2.5 litre 4-cylinder turbo-diesel 300TDi engine) and it’s my favourite car out of all the ones I’ve owned!
And no, the snorkel isn’t connected at the moment, but will be very soon, and yes – I do intend on using it for what it was designed (although [a] I need to be a little careful as I need this car to get to work and back and [b] I’m not a millionaire so can’t damage it too much!)
Histon British Legion Bike Show
No pictures online for this one yet I’m afraid. They’re still on my phone and I’ve not had time to process them!
As I was a little nervous about the motorbike spluttering and breaking down I decided to take the car to the bike show this year. I would have liked to take the bike, but just hadn’t regained the trust in it yet! The bike show was as good as ever with a great turnout this year! The BBQ was great too, and it was another enjoyable afternoon out!
Haddenham Steam Rally
Haddenham was one of our favourite rallies of the year, mainly because our caravan sits right in with the exhibits, so we’re never far from the thick of it! This does mean some of the exhibits are a little spaced out, but it’s not too bad at all because there are so many that end up getting crammed in!
I also saw the famous Ken Fox Wall of Death again this year. Twice. It’s still possibly the best show on earth and for £2 entry, you can’t argue!
This is the biggest and best steam rally/country fayre that we go to each year (there are bigger ones, but they’re too far away from us!) and this year was possibly the best yet!
The last weekend event of the season, but another excellent one! Despite the rain for most of the weekend, the number of exhibits was amazing and the number of paying public who came along was also very impressive indeed! This is possibly the most varied of the rallies that we go to, in terms of strange and rare exhibits. Lots of vehicles and vehicle types that I’ve not seen before, plus lots of non vehicle based exhibits too!
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!
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!
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!
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!
Here’s a video of Hollowell Steam Rally & Heavy Horse Show
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.
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!
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!
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!
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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