The great weather continues, which is enabling more time on the bikes – hooray for that. Club night pre-meeting was a lovely ride through the Essex and a Suffolk countryside; a route Caroline and I had spec’ed out the weekend before. 15 bikes set off and 15 returned, we seem to be getting good at this now and 22 members at the meeting. At the Cricketers we had to use the Bar area as they were using the Back room for a birthday party, so the paying public had to put up with my droning voice for a while.
There were 2 future events to announce and give members details. The Gordon Memorial ride out was taking place at the weekend, this is to remember one of the Club organisers who passed away 2 years ago. A lovely fella who I was just getting to know when he suddenly fell ill. Shaun Parker led us on one of his usual magical mystery tours to Cafe33 near Haverhill. 9 attended on 8 bikes, we all had a great time and talked about and remembered Gordon. There was also a nice level of banter between the group.
Gordon doing what he enjoyed.
Shaun and the Cardboard Cutouts.
The other big event is the annual Minibus Tour, which this year is to the Triumph Factory on the 28th. 17 Members are travelling to Hinckley and taking the Tour on a Thursday as the Factory is operational for only 2.5 days, so good to do the tour and actually see people working. We will set off at 09:00am and have a Tour slot of 14:00, still giving us time to walk around the exhibits.
It became apparent at July’s meeting when Peter and his son joined us for a ride out that we had no guidelines for members to read and adhere to if they partake on a ride out. Having perused other section sites I found a set that I thought were spot on, so I “borrowed” theirs and discussed these at Club night. All thought these were good and would improve the safety and experience.
Let’s hope the weather continues and we manage more rides between now and September’s club night.