Once a year we abandon the usual Tuesday club night meeting and instead we gather at the Lilacs pub in the picturesque Northamptonshire village of Isham.
The reason for this is so we can attend the classic vehicle night organised by the local branch of the Jaguar car club.
This is a popular event combining classic cars, motorcycles, the odd truck, good beer, burgers, a raffle, a jazz band and a great atmosphere.
This year we had something else that the organisers didn't want. We had pouring rain. Did we let this affect things? Well to be honest yes, we had fewer members than usual attending which seems reasonable in those conditions, but also there were significantly fewer cars than normal which seems strange as you tend to stay dry in a car. Perhaps the car owners didn't want to get their vehicles wet.
Well done to those that did attend who included, Melvin on his BSA, Pip on his Panther, Matt on his Ariel, Rod on his Kawasaki, Trev on his Enfield, Andy on his Norton, Martyn on his BMW and me and Linn in our Kangoo van which I parked discreetly down the road. I also spotted Keith wandering around who looked like he was also on four wheels.
Despite our best efforts we all failed to win anything in the raffle and so most of us left early to dry off at home.
Matt with the aid of his Ariel Leader did provide some entertainment for the soggy hordes as it refused to start for several minutes.When it finally burst into life amid a cloud of smoke and noise and fumes a cheer rang out from all present. In his defence Matt would like to point out someone had turned the ignition on and left it on whilst it was stood, leading to the starting problems. Analysis of the actual problem was considered to be either a low battery charge, overheated coils, excess oil in the carbs due to kicking it over for too long, or fouled plugs. Personally I favoured flooding as the most likely cause considering the weather.
I couldn't help but notice that parked near the Ariel during this performance was a very nice twin cylinder double overhead cam Honda 250 from the late sixties with a proper ignition key to prevent tampering, which no doubt started on the button later. I wonder how they ever caught on?
The turn out from our group outnumbered all the other bikes present and I dare say prizes would have been won had we stayed long enough for the judging.
Rain has obviously been the theme of this summer, lets hope things improve soon.
See photos in gallery 2 on the website.
The reason for this is so we can attend the classic vehicle night organised by the local branch of the Jaguar car club.
This is a popular event combining classic cars, motorcycles, the odd truck, good beer, burgers, a raffle, a jazz band and a great atmosphere.
This year we had something else that the organisers didn't want. We had pouring rain. Did we let this affect things? Well to be honest yes, we had fewer members than usual attending which seems reasonable in those conditions, but also there were significantly fewer cars than normal which seems strange as you tend to stay dry in a car. Perhaps the car owners didn't want to get their vehicles wet.
Well done to those that did attend who included, Melvin on his BSA, Pip on his Panther, Matt on his Ariel, Rod on his Kawasaki, Trev on his Enfield, Andy on his Norton, Martyn on his BMW and me and Linn in our Kangoo van which I parked discreetly down the road. I also spotted Keith wandering around who looked like he was also on four wheels.
Despite our best efforts we all failed to win anything in the raffle and so most of us left early to dry off at home.
Matt with the aid of his Ariel Leader did provide some entertainment for the soggy hordes as it refused to start for several minutes.When it finally burst into life amid a cloud of smoke and noise and fumes a cheer rang out from all present. In his defence Matt would like to point out someone had turned the ignition on and left it on whilst it was stood, leading to the starting problems. Analysis of the actual problem was considered to be either a low battery charge, overheated coils, excess oil in the carbs due to kicking it over for too long, or fouled plugs. Personally I favoured flooding as the most likely cause considering the weather.
I couldn't help but notice that parked near the Ariel during this performance was a very nice twin cylinder double overhead cam Honda 250 from the late sixties with a proper ignition key to prevent tampering, which no doubt started on the button later. I wonder how they ever caught on?
The turn out from our group outnumbered all the other bikes present and I dare say prizes would have been won had we stayed long enough for the judging.
Rain has obviously been the theme of this summer, lets hope things improve soon.
See photos in gallery 2 on the website.
