Branching Out at Thruxton Superbikes

The Berkshire Stand in all it’s glory

This article is about the Branch attending the Thruxton round of the British Superbikes Championship. We had a stand there with a display of bikes for all three days from Friday to Sunday. A team attended the event and took it in turns to man our stand, so we could put on a great display while also giving everyone a chance to look around and see some racing. Everyone had a great time. This article first appeared in Nacelle, the Triumph Owners Motor Cycle Club Magazine in 2024.

To read the article in full, click the button below.

For more information about our weekend at Thruxtong for the BSB, click here.

New Branch Badge

The new Branch badge adopted at the 2024 AGM

For many years our Branch Badge had been a green oval with silver writing showing the Triumph logo from the Meriden era in the centre with the name of the Club and Branch around the outside. During the last few years a number of people in the Branch had started using the Club badge (ie: the black shield) with the word “Berkshire” underneath as an alternative Branch badge.

During 2023 some people in the Branch started talking about having a completely new design for our badge. There was a lot of discussion around a number of different ideas for the new badge. Various designs were produced and shown around at our Thursday night club nights and discussed. A few articles of clothing were printed with various designs, shown on club nights and worn on a few rides. One design emerged as the clear favourite and was presented to the members at the 2024 Branch AGM who voted to adopt it as the new Branch badge.

The new Branch badge incorporates the stag and oak from the Berkshire county flag and the shield and scroll from the TOMCC Club badge with the bottle green and silver colours from the old Branch badge.

The badge has no writing on it other than the TOMCC Club motto (ie:” “nulli secundus”, meaning “second to none”), which is a departure from the old Branch badge, and this was a subject of some discussion. The reason we chose to have no writing on the badge itself is that the badge can be shown adjacent to the name of the Club or Branch in different ways depending on the context. This is not unusual. For example, while some car marques incorporate their name in their badge (eg: Ford) others (eg: Mercedes) do not. Our new badge can be combined with text in different ways to be either portrait or landscape, while on its own it is roughly square (ie: equal width and height).

On our website, on our Facebook page and in Nacelle the badge will be already be adjacent to text that clearly identifies it as the Berkshire Branch of the TOMCC. On clothing, it might appear with the word TOMCC or Berkshire or the Club and Branch names in full. Here are some example below of different ways the badge could appear with writing.

The Branch badge with Branch and the Club names written in full in landscape.

The Branch badge with TOMCC and Branch name in landscape

The Branch badge with TOMCC in portrait

The Branch badge on its own ( square)

Overtaking safely on rides

We often have to overtake cars when out on rides and its one of the most challenging and risky maneuvers that we do. Safe overtaking is an important part of advanced motorcycle training. This video explains the right way to overtake with a number of examples.

Norman Hyde presentation – Replay

Norman Hyde presenting at Berkshire TOMCC

If you missed Norman Hyde’s presentation or just want to see it again, here are some photos of the event together with videos of the presentation in full.

Norman Hyde, a legend in the world of Triumph Motorcycles, gave a presentation to the TOMCC Berkshire Branch in March 2023. More than fifty members turned out to hear him. He split his talk into two section, with a short interval where a buffet was served and people got drinks from the bar He ended his presentation playing a sound recording of his World Record Breaking run. At the end of his presentation he answered questions from the audience and then autographed copies of pictures of his record breaking run. Everyone enjoyed the evening.

Here are some photos of the event.

You can watch the first part by clicking on the link below.

Norman Hyde at Berkshire TOMCC – Part 1

You can watch the second part by clicking on the link below.

Norman Hyde at Berkshire TOMCC – Part 2

I hope you enjoyed watching this memorable evening.

West meets East Event – Replay

Steve on his Rocket 3 setting off or Turkey

Steve Yarwood gave a presentation to Berkshire TOMCC members about riding his Triumph Rocket 3 in September 2022 across Europe to Istanbul and then across the Bosphorus into Asia.

A map showing Steve’s route

You can see a video of Steve’s presentation here.

Steve presenting to TOMCC Members on his trip to Turkey and back

My T110 Story

Berkshire Branch member Nicholas Ryan still rides the same Triumph T110 that he had as a teenager. Here he tells the story of how it was back then and how he restored it to how it is now.

“My T110 story starts 45 years ago and continues to the present day. In a way it is a reversal of roles – back then my bike was slightly old and decrepit and I was young, now it’s me who is slightly old and decrepit and the bike probably goes better than it ever did!”

The Triumph T110 as it was then

To read Part 1 of My T110 Story – Back in the Day – click the button below


The T110 as it is now with its proud owner

To read Part 2 of My T110 Story – The Renaissance – click the button below

Branch History

Have you ever wondered how our Branch got started? The TOMCC itself was founded by a group of enthusiastic Triumph owners in South London in 1949.

The first TOMCC Branch in Berkshire was the Reading Branch, founded 12 years later in 1961, and ran for 13 years before closing in 1974.

The current Berkshire Branch was started in 1979 and The first meeting of the Berkshire Branch was held at the Queen Victoria pub on the A4 between Knowl Hill and Hare Hatch.

To read more about the Branch history click the button below.

As it used to be

This article is about the Berkshire Branch’s annual Old Motorcycle Gathering. A motorcycle show for a bygone era, open to all marques tax exempt historic vehicles and ridden in. The article first appeared in Nacelle, the Triumph Owners Motorcycle Club Magazine, in 2014.

The show is held in June at the BCSA, the venue we also use for Thursday evening clubnights.

To read the article in full click the button below