The weather forecast looked like rain, so the turn out was low, but four of us put on our wet weather gear and met up at 10.00 on Sunday morning. The rain held off and we had a great ride on dry roads through twisty country lanes around West Berkshire and Oxfordshire before stopping for a late breakfast at a Garden Centre in Bampton before another fun ride home. It never did rain after all.
Here are a few photos from the ride out to Blaze Inn Saddles, stopping at Little Annies Tearoom on the canal at Thrupp near Kidlington with a homeward journey via Burford and Lechlade for ice cream.
Here are some photos from our ride to Horsham, with a brief encounter at Max’s Diner followed by some good food and drink at the nearby Torque Moto Cafe
Here are some photos from our Branch ride out to the airfield at Compton Abbas.
We’ve been out on the road again, rolling down the highway with no particular place to go. When the new rules came in on 12th April, we could not wait for Sunday, so our first ride-out was on Thursday to the Leckford estate. The following Sunday we went on a ride-out to the Departure Lounge Café near Alton and then finished the month with another Sunday ride out to the Rowdey Cow dairy farm shop.
The BCSA re-opened this month, but only for Saturday evenings outside. Four of our members went to its re-opening on Saturday 17th April. It was well organized with gazebos and tables outside and new caterers and we stayed until 8pm when the chill set in.
Ten members formed a motorcycle escort for Ross Clements’ funeral as his coffin was carried on a side car attached to a Triumph Thunderbird, setting off from his house for a 45 minute ride round the back roads before finishing up at the crematorium for his memorial service. It was good to go on a last ride with him and see him off.
As it looks like the summer will be opening up now, we are starting to think about what other activities we can do. We’ll be having more rides, of course, and we hope Thursday club nights at the BCSA will start again soon. We expect to go to some local shows and we’re discussing whether we could even have our own show.
Keep on rolling!
Ton-Up Ted
Here are some photos of our Sunday ride from Cobbs Farm to Popham Airfield in May 2021.
Our first ride in May 2021 set off from the car park of the Holiday Inn in Basingstoke and rode to Whiteways Takeaway Kiosk at Bury Hill near Arundel.
As I write this, we have finally been told we can head out on the highway again and ride with up to six people. During the last month, we’ve been fettling and polishing our bikes in preparation and one member has even had his ceramic coated. The weather’s getting better all the time and at month end, we expect to be riding along together with no particular place to go. By the time this you read this, we should have had several rides.
While waiting to get out, we have put together a photo album of our rides from last year which you can see on our website together with a YouTube video to remind us of some of the great rides we managed to do in 2020, despite COVID-19.
We are hoping the BCSA will open up again for Thursday club nights soon. In the meantime, we will continue to hold our Zoom meetings at 8pm each Thursday.
Sadly, long term Branch member, rocker, biker and friend, Ross Clements, passed away this month. Our thoughts are with his wife Anita. Ross went on several of our Branch rides last year and was well known to many members.
The mystery street artist, Banksy, surprised everyone by painting a man trying to escape on the wall of Reading prison. One of our Branch members could not resist parking his Tiger as a get away bike in front of the picture and taking a photo of it.
Keep on rolling!
Ton-Up Ted
Richard’s bike. A few lines about my Trident 750.
A lockdown project – dragged out of a garden where it had sat for a year being used as goalposts by two kids (if you hit it that was a goal!), no cover on it, snails in the airbox, usual stuff. It was advertised as a 1994 bike, but clearly wasn’t as it has a silver engine. Once home I started investigating – thanks due to Richard Wheadon and to the Triumph aftersales department – it has an interesting history.
It seems that it was one of the first of Triumph’s new exports, this one to Malaga in May 1992, where it was bought by an English guy and subsequently brought back to England in 2015. The DVLA in their wisdom gave it a ’94 registration.
It has taken four months to sort out all its problems – essentially it really just badly needed a decent service, plus fitting with the correct cans and repairing a damaged side panel, unseizing callipers etc etc
It ran for the first time this morning, so I had a quick whizz round the block to celebrate – it is a delight to ride, handles really nicely, plenty of power – I am impressed with my first Triumph!
Derick’s Thunderbird. Here is a photo of me with my Thunderbird which a bought from fellow Berkshire TOMCC member Brian around 6 years ago.
I first joined the TOMCC in 1969 when I owned a Thunderbird 6T.
Unfortunately my membership lapsed until I re-joined around 7 years ago.
