CALNE BIKE DAY 2010

Terry nearly wrote this

I got a phone call from Terry on Sunday evening, “ I’ve written something about Calne bike day for the web site, can you just tidy it up and send it to Dave? I’m off to bed now and will be away in the truck til next Saturday so I can’t do anymore”.

When the email came through it said, “ here’s a few notes and quotes for your write up” What did he mean  “My write up?” more like a stitch up to me but as he was now under his duvet I couldn’t do much about it other than make his thoughts into something you could all understand.

At least I did have some first hand knowledge of what had gone on, particularly in the week running up to this when his phone calls had got more and more hyper as we got closer to the day. There was a point when I thought he was going to camp out overnight just to make sure he got the space, but in the end he just arrived at the crack of dawn instead.

Upon arrival the marshals had put out signs for all the pitches and TC didn’t like ours. As it was to early for anyone else to have arrived he moved all the signs around until he’d got the space that he wanted and no one was any the wiser. He even took a bit of another club’s space when they said they didn’t need quite so much, this gave room for another five bikes and at the height of the day when I was there we had about eighteen in all.

We signed up a new member from Corsham called Dave and the newly wed Mrs Knight filled out her form, so she is now “In the Club”.

One bike that caught my eye was a 2006 Virago 250. I saw it pull in and the owner, a lady rider who spoke with a soft Germanic accent said that the marshals had told her “ put it with the other viragos over there”, Well the more the merrier I say. From a distance it looked like a 535 and the only real give away is that they are chain driven not shaft. It also has forward controls as standard, which makes it feel bigger than it is. She told me that it will hit about 70 MPH and it’s not much slower than a 535 in acceleration.

Having the Dome there was a great asset. With it’s extra height and patches around the top it can easily be spotted from a distance above the walls that surround that courtyard. Needless to say TC had the tea on the go right from first thing and in all he brewed up about two gallons of the stuff throughout the day.

TC would like to thank everyone that helped out and these are his own words.

Bob, in your write up please thank all those who took the trouble to get to Calne early to help with the initial set up,   and who went on to help me all day run the front desk, etc,etc. Also for inclusion a special mention to Dave Beynon for all of his support to me through the week leading up to the day itself by the way he has managed and co-ordinated all of the e'mails that have come my way, without his expertise I would have ended up to my neck in the brown stuff ?????  so cheer's Dave, a real asset to centre 17 / somerset. We managed to supply tea and coffee allday to who ever would stop long enough to hear  just how exciting life becomes once you become a member of the Scrumpies, all in all 2 gallon's yes 2 gallons of tea was consumed on the day, a lot of supping and gassing went on ! I do hope you can use some of these photo's, especially the one's of Simon and his latest sqeeze all loved up an all,    the pic of sue barnes granson  come to think of it just another Scrumpie day really  , as usual the sun was shining,  sorry if you were not with us, blah, blah, blah