Modrapheniacs Rally, 31st March - April 3rd 2006
The ride down.
It had been a race against time to get my 50 Special on the road for the first rally of the season. Lee had spent countless hours on the engine, and I'd been project managing it with an Excel spreadsheet and manically making phone calls to get everything sorted. I finally got it MOT'd and registered with a week to go and barely had 50km on the clock when we set off.
We left Bognor with Steve, Lee and me running our bikes in at 45mph. Luckily, Stacey, Gary & Lin didn't mind going so slowly so we headed west on a windy (but so far dry) day. Disaster struck at Pompey, when I seized. Having never done this before I didn't know that I was meant to pull my clutch in - and I didn't even realise what had happened! Stacey nearly went into the back of me but we both managed to grind to a halt on the hard shoulder of the flyover by the Eastern Road. We limped into Hilsea where we let it cool down and Lee put some oil in the tank and adjusted the carb. We decided to carry on, with the back-up option of leaving it at one of Stacey's company's many depots along the south coast! We took a scenic route, using the A27 until Southampton rather than going all the way on the motorway. It brought back memories of Weymouth '83, my first ever rally on my original 50 Special, I really can't believe we went all the way down there at 30mph!!!
We stopped at Rownhams and by pure fluke met up with Barry & Lofty, and also the Talismen. Then it was on to Sandford - stopping at the pub for a quick drink and food on the way. I was pleased to have got there in one piece, and on the scooter. The clutch was playing up a bit but it didn't seem too serious, or so I thought....
Friday night
We headed for the bar and there were no surprises when we found the Pacemakers in there. I'd barely had time to sip my pint when I got a frantic call from Stacey saying that a) the caravans we'd got weren't the ones we booked and b) one of them had some strangers inside!! So I headed to the office to join the long queue of other complainers. I was there for over half an hour but eventually got keys to another caravan so we all had somewhere to sleep for the weekend. I popped by Rich & Sacha's caravan as they'd kindly brought some bags for me - there's no storage space on the scooter so they had to bring the kitchen sink that I take to most rallies!
After a quick shower we were out again and Lee was on bar duty, which was great as the queues were 20 minutes long for most of the night! It was nice to catch up with everyone, and I spent most of the night in the main room dancing and chatting as the music was great. The first band were Orange Street, who despite being a fairly local band, and knowing Stu for a few years now, I'd never seen live. They were great, playing loads of ska covers really well and got the crowd dancing. I then sneaked backstage with Steve to catch up with The Gift. I hadn't seen them for a chat for a couple of months and their diary has become crammed full of gigs - and Dave's even given up his day job now! Lee also sneaked up with Ted who was over the moon when Rick signed his shirt and he got his photo taken with him. We took some more photos and then went back out to the front to watch their set. It was great, and they'd added some different songs too, like Running On The Spot which I hadn't heard live before. The crowd were lively, keeping the bouncers busy, but generally well-behaved. I bounced around with Rich and Mark for a bit but then chickened out at joining them in the middle - where's Jo when you need her?!
When the band had finished their set Emma took over again and I danced til the end with Rich, Sacha and the Pacemakers as the rest of the club had gone home. My camera was full, which wasn't a good sign as the weekend had barely started!
Saturday day
I was up first thing to clean and polish the scoot so she could go into the custom show, which started at 10. Lofty was the only other early riser, so he had a couple of cigars and kept me company. My cleaning was obviously not up to Lee's high standards so I left him to apply the final touches while I had a quick shower. The custom show was a lot smaller than normal, but I still didn't expect to win anything. There was no Best Smallframe category, which was a shame because mine was the only one there!!! Back at the caravan we bumped into Russ from the Gift and had a quick chat before being joined by the rest of the band. Lee persuaded Rick to pose on his scooter for a photo, and then we all headed to the custom show and stalls. In the afternoon Lee and I rode into Wareham to watch the Chelsea game with the Pacemakers. Amazingly, Birmingham held them to a draw, so Pompey needed a decent result against Fulham, which was unlikely given Fulham's home record. However, they pulled it out of the bag and beat them 3-1, going above Birmingham in the table - much to Woody's disgust! We left the pub to collect my scooter at 4pm and Lee tried his best to adjust my clutch - but sadly I'd managed to burn it out in the 100 miles it had done. Luckily for me, Champs had brought his truck, so he kindly offered to take the scooter home, which was very handy. Also, as luck would have it, one of the Allstyles guys was passing and had a couple of straps we could use to tether the bike to the van. We went back to the caravans which were deserted. Gary, Lin and Stacey had gone to Monkey World so I was worried they'd been eaten by a gorilla, but later it turned out they'd been in the bar - phew!
Saturday night
After some food we went to the upstairs bar and found the Monkey World survivors and a few Talismen. The first band were called The Outfit and did punk/new wave covers. A lot of them were different to the ones that other bands cover, which was good. There were songs by Squeeze, Elvis Costello and a couple of SLF numbers too. When the band had finished the Pacemakers arrived, and couldn't be missed in bright yellow t-shirts which celebrated the 40th birthdays of a number of club members who've just had or are about to have their big 4-0. Lee squeezed into a medium one but sadly his didn't feature the baby photo that adorned a few of them, including a cute looking baby Woody and one of Jamie that could have been his son Cameron! Then it was time for the prizes and the Pacemakers picked up the trophy for best turned out ridden club. The big cup was soon filled with beer and passed round everyone for a sip or two. It's just as well I'd bought a new memory card as I took loads of photos of the celebrations that followed. As predicted, I didn't win anything in the custom show, but was inundated all day with girls who loved it, and were trying to persude their husbands to get one for them!!
Then it was time for the main act that night, Edwin Starr's band with his brother Angelo taking the late, great, Edwin's place. And they brought the house down. It's hard to explain how amazing they were, but to all of us at the front it was one of the best ever performances on a rally. They were amazing musicians, the singers had voices that would put X Factor finalists to shame, and the soul and passion that they put into the performance just can't be beaten. They played all the Edwin classics, plus some Motown numbers and a stunning version of Play That Funky Music. They finished with You've Got A Friend which brought tears to my eyes and sent tingles down my spine. Amazing.
I wouldn't have liked to follow that, but Emma did a fine job and kept the diminishing crowd on the dancefloor until the room closed. What a fantastic night.
Sunday
Gary woke us at 8 o'clock and gave us 20 minutes' notice to get ready as they were going home already. The overnight rain had stopped and he wanted to leave before it started again! So we packed up and put the scooter on the back of Champs' van. The riders rode off and we followed after Champs and Debbie had smoked a fag and drunk a couple of cups of tea to wake them up.... We caught them up on the M27 and stopped at Rownhams for a quick chat. Steve had seized only a couple of miles from Sandford so had spent the rest of the journey with his fingers hovering over the clutch. We headed off again and were home for 11am, which was really good for me as it meant I could nip over to Worthing to catch Sam's footie match - which they won 2-0.
The Modrapheniacs excelled themselves once again with a brilliantly-organised rally. The accommodation problems were out of their control and we're promised that they won't be repeated next year. The goodie bags were a nice touch, which were handed out to the first 500 riders through the gate. We got a bag, calendar, t-shirt, CD and patch, plus other exciting paraphanalia. A great start to the season, and we didn't even get wet!!!
Photos
As an experiment, I've used my Flickr account to hold the photos. It's quite a neat way of looking at them, and the slideshow facility is cool. You can add comments to individual photos (and any which are rude or offensive will be removed!) so please feel free to add them. I took so many Pacemaker photos on the Saturday night that I've created a separate section for them! Please let me know what you think of this way of showing them - it's much easier for me to organise them like this and get them onto the web quicker than normal.