EAST NORTHANTS CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE CLUB.encmcc - blog

Vintage bike test day.

30/5/2016

Matt and Trevor have been experiencing one of the Vintage Clubs test day at Curborough.
The VMCC Test days are open to non members and give the chance to ride a variety of vintage bikes around the Curbrough Twisty Sprint circuit for a modest fee.
Matt has sent this report.

Dear All,

Hope you all have had a great day , I have in spent the day riding 15 different bikes around the Curborough Sprint Circuit in Staffordshire the youngest being a 1943 James Military Lightweight the oldest two bikes were a mere 114 years old both being 1904 machines a Dreadnought and a Bradbury.
What a truly fantastic day an such an opportunity to ride the machines that most can only dream about including the often coveted, although I confess not by me, mid 1920's SS80 Brough Superior, which I started first kick.
The most hair raising ride I had was a 1927 P&M combination which was a really jittery machine and the only one that I decided to only do a couple of laps on....my nerves and balance couldn't take much more!
Really can't understand why when I suggested attendance early in the year the only person to show an interest was Trevor who will be attending a similar event in September. Attach some of the pictures of the bikes ridden my me today.

All the very best.

A rather tired but Very Happy man.
Matt.

Photos on gallery two of this website.

Rugby Bikefest Report. 22nd May 2016

30/5/2016

Moto Guzzi Lodola

We are once again grateful to Matt for sending in a report on one of the events he recently attended: reading his report and looking at the pictures posted in gallery two makes me wish i had got my act together and joined them for the day.

A couple of people have asked about the Rugby Bike Fest that was on the rides list I produced a few months ago so see attached pictures.
The Event was I believe the 3rd year that Rugby has turned over the whole of the town centre to promote all aspects of Motorbikes and Motorcycling, the event was FREE and there was plenty to keep everyone interested from trade stands to individual and club displays. If there was a critisim to be
levelled it was at the somewhat haphazard diversion signs which resulted in various mixed messages of where we were supposed to park up. Unfortunately this resulted in lots of "unofficial" separate bike shows wherever there was
a bit of vacant pavement.
Those that attended had a great 38 mile wander to the event, Rod can certainly vouch for the event catering as the minute we arrived he started sniffing out the large Cheese burgers and unlike the normal event rip off prices he was astounded to discover they were only £2.20...........a real bargain, others of course had an even better deal tea / coffee iced cake and
biscuits totally free at the Church however it was only later when the vicar stated that in ten minutes the Christening of the twins will begin and we realised that we had gate crashed a private function......but we were made
ever so welcome!
Matt.
See the photos on the website gallery two.

Two stokes at the Red Lion. Sunday June 19th 2016

15/4/2016

To be held on the same day as the ever popular Banbury Run, Amanda has passed on information about this new local event to be held at the Red Lion in Yardley Hastings which is located a few miles outside Northampton on the A428 the main road to Bedford. The clouds of smoke smell and strange noises should guide you.
I dont know who is organising this event but as its for the Air Ambulance Service so thats a bonus.
If Banbury isnt on your agenda then why not drag out the the smoky old thing and take it along on the day.
Otherwise just turn up and support the event by your attendance to see the massed ranks of bikes without proper valves.
John.

Ps: By local, I mean handy for me.

Imagine my surprise ! 6 April 2016.

7/4/2016

Roy is the good looking one on the right.

I tuned into Radio Northampton around lunchtime today when my Radio 4 signal mysteriously stopped working.
Normally I never listen to Radio Northampton and havnt done so for at least two years so imagine my surprise when I hear the man introducing one Mr Roy Palmer of Boughton.
This of course is encmcc member and 77 year old bearded wanderer Roy. For those that need help, Roy is the one who sometimes turns up at club night with his Ural sidecar outfit.
Roy was talking to the man about his travels by motorcycle particularly his recent jaunt to Kenya's Rift Valley with his friend Dennis from Milton Keynes.
It seems they rang Roy at home and then talked for about 7 minutes.
Well done Roy.
You can listen to it on the Radio Northampton website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03nhv52#play

Start listening 40 minutes into the Helen Blaby show to catch the interview with our most travelled member..
It will be available on the BBC website for a month.

John

Duloe ride out. April 3rd 2016.

6/4/2016

Martyn and his Comet.

Good old Matt came good again with this report on the events surrounding three of our members ride in the Duloe Dash.

The Annual Duloe Daffodil Dash

Saturday:
It was decided when Martyn and I left Rockingham that I would return to his house and examine the likelihood of Martyn using his newly acquired James Comet for today's ride.
After some teething troubles with fuel leaking from the carburettor which was fixed with guidance from Chris Saunders it was decided Martyn would take the chance and give the Comet its first ride for 10 or more years.

Sunday:
0845 we left Higham Market Square Martyn on James Comet and me on the C90. On our arrival at Duloe village hall there waiting for us were Rod and Trev shortly followed by arrival of Gerry, Mick, Pete, Steve and others all on larger machines taking part in the encmcc breakfast ride to Duloe and after of course making good use of the bacon butties tea, coffee and biscuits supplied by Ralph Ricardson they will continue to Silver Ball Cafe at Reed for more sustenance.
Soon the little village lane was humming with the sound of little tiddlers buzzing along to the village hall start venue and of course the unmistakeable smell of two stroke oil and the associated blue haze.
Shortly after getting our Bacon sandwich and tea a call went out for the owner of the James Comet to attend his bike. to the dibelief of all who observed the phenomenon, the Comet had mysteriously fifteen or so minutes after our arrival, started pumping petroil out of the half full petrol tank through the fuel filler vent hole.
Vigorous scratching of the head failed to solve the problem so with tea getting cold the solution was to leave the petrol cap loose ( with note to secure before setting off). A fresh cup of tea and after another ten minutes or so and another call for the owner of the James Comet to attend his bike.
A crowd was gathering, no smoking signs to the fore, as the loosened petrol cap once again had fuel syphoning out of the vent hole.
This saw me get my tools out for the first time and after a little playing around with screwdrivers and 35 amp fuse wire ( its marvellous the things I carry in my pocket) the mystery was solved cap retightened and all ok.
11am saw 30 + mopeds, auto cycles and baby machines set of on a 30 mile ride to the Chequers for lunch stop. En-route Martyn's tool box popped open depositing things all over the road, luckily I was behind him and managed to guard the road off so nobody came to grief whilst the tools were recovered. We arrived at The Chequers without further incident although by the time we had gathered the tools etc. there was only Chris Martyn and myself and the Blue Haze. The other riders had disappeared.
We followed Chris along the designated route and much to our surprise actually arrived in front of over 50% of the riders who seemed to have taken several different routes none of
which were that carefully arranged by the organiser.
Further minor tweaking of the carburettor at The Chequers saw Martyn and I arriving back at his place around 2pm where we decided to make various other adjustments to the
way cables and wiring had been routed plus try and rectify a somewhat temperamental clutch set up.
Over 50 miles with a faultless engine note throughout must rate as a success for a 1948 James Comet fresh out of long
term hibernation

Matt

Photos of Martyns James comet on gallery 2 of this website.

Rockingham Ride Out. April 2nd 2016.

6/4/2016

Brit bikes with the VJMCC

Matt has sent in this report of the club visit to Rockingham Speedway race track in Corby.

Saturday 2nd April Rockingham Ride Out
A group of around a dozen riders met up at Ansell's motorcycles Finedon for our prompt 9am departure for Rockingham Speedway................we worked to Andy's timing so we left about 10 minutes late but we got there without getting lost - well done Andy.
The event, primarily aimed at road safety awareness. As soon as the Sun came out more people arrived making for a very well attended event offering more than enough to look at.
We were all expecting to be served up with Burgers ala Doug Perkins but when he tried out his recently mended generator he discovered that power output could not be regulated hence no cooking....however the moans and groans of disappointment were as quickly overcome when Gemma Rutland ( event organiser) appeared and issued free dinner tickets for the Circuit Diner. What a great choice of food there was and had Rod been there even he wouldn't have been after looking for extra chips!
Unfortunately I had left my camera at home although I am sure others would have taken a few shots.....................the only ones received showed Paul and myself and our "British is Best" machines strategically placed directly in front of the VJMCC trailer and banner, where they stayed all day.
Race track demonstrations took place showing various methods of high speed chase manoeuvres and there were certainly ample opportunity to gain a great deal of information from all attending - All in all a good day out.

Matt.

Matt has supplied a couple of photos that can be seen on gallery 2 of this website.

Spring is here. Get those bikes out.

6/4/2016

The clocks have gone forward and we are now officially once again ordering our lives in tune with "British Summer Time".
You can tell summer is coming as the rain is a little warmer with each passing day.
We who did not continue riding through our admittedly mild but wet and miserable winter probably find our thoughts turning to getting the bikes out, checking MOT dates and hoping for warm dry weather.
I did just that last week intending to get along to our Duloe run, but a quick glance through the documents resulted in discovering my MOT had expired a few days earlier, so that was my first chance for a run out with friends from the club missed.
Anyway I have now sorted this using the services of Motorvation in Northampton and I am ready to go.
This year I have promised myself I shall get out more and get along to many more encmcc events and runs through out this year. Perhaps Joining in and sometimes leading a few mid week runs as I was doing on a regular basis a couple of years back.
Perhaps its finally dawned on me that at my age I think the time for putting things off is rapidly passing.
John.

Latest events list March 16th now published

18/3/2016

Matt has now published the latest version of this years
events list.
The list has been circulated to club members on the contact list and is also published on this website. To See the list click on the heading on the sidebar "Events and Runs 2016".

Christmas quiz photo game.

16/2/2016

An Honourary encmcc member? Who is it?

I have just put the photos on gallery 2 that we used for the 2015 Christmas quiz.
Why not have a go and see if you can match the old photos of club members to newer photos of the same members.
Sadly a few of us have obviously over indulged etc in the intervening years but we all still love our motorbikes.
John.
See gallery 2 on this website.

Photo gallery changes.

16/2/2016

Our Club photographs on Gallery 2 are not stored on this website due to space restrictions. Our snaps are in fact stored on another website and viewed on line using Googles free Picasa service. Google have recently announced that the Picasa service will be replaced in coming months by Google Photo another photo handling program in the Google portfolio.
Google says the existing photos on Picasa will remain on line and will be unaffected by the change but at some point in the future we will no longer be able to upload new photos to Picasa but we will be required to use Google Photo instead.
At the moment I don't know how this will affect the club gallery if it will be an improvement or a degrading of the service, only time will tell.
In the meantime we shall try to manage a smooth transition to Google Photo.
Please continue to submit your photos as normal to encmcc@gmail.com

John