vintage motor cycle club, founders day, part one

you must excuse me, i'm  lagging behind on my posts, i'm far too busy riding my motorcycle, attending events and enjoying the sunshine to be sitting behind a keyboard, i'll try and catch up as i have a bit of a backlog at the moment, this post isn't in chronological order so bear with me and i'll get them up as soon as possible, the first sunday after the legendary 'festival of a 1000 bikes' see's dangerous and me setting off mid morning to the vintage motorcycle club annual 'founder's day rally' in rural leicestershire, it's a warm but overcast morning, low cloud but warm, misty and with a steady drizzle as we set off for the fifty+ mile meander down to stanford hall, it's really pleasant actually after the oppressive heat and humidity of the past week, out through the market garden town of melbourne, it starts to rain, 'its only a shower' i tell myself, it rains heavier, the sky darkens and a low mist descends, there's the odd low rumble of distant thunder, the traffic is light and i turn back to look at dangerous as we stop at a set of traffic lights, he has a broad stupid grin across his face and we burst out laughing, only team loveless would get caught in a full on almost tropical storm after the best weather of the year, i gun it away from the light's, the back tyre stepping to the side on the greasy road and the rooster tail of water hitting me fair and square in the face off my mudguard free, [i refuse to say 'fender' i'm english for fuck's sake and while were at it stick your 'triple tree's' up your bum too, there called yokes, always were, always will be] front wheel, i get that slow, wet creeping thing going on in the crotch area, that feeling that only someone who rides a motorcycle knows, at fist you are unsure if that feeling is actually happening, it starts around the mid-thigh area and slowly but surely works it way upwards until the inevitable occurs and it's too late to put your waterproofs on or, like me, you wish you had bungeed your waterproofs onto your bars 'just in case' we stop at another set of lights and i notice for the first time dangerous is wearing his over-trousers and full-face helmet, no wonder he's laughing, i'm leather jeaned and open-faced helmeted, piss wet through, water running off my yellow-lensed-works-issue-safety-glasses but, hey, i'm looking cool as fuck, hey -ho here we go on through pegg's green and past mallory park for the third weekend in a row, instead of heading into hinckley [the home of the modern day triumph] we head through barwell and ride down the 'b' roads to lutterworth, the storm subsides and as we ride down the lane to sandford hall i get transfixed by the giant propellors of the wind farm, i can hear the 'swooosh, swwwooosh, swoooshh' of the giant blades as they spin through their axis, correct me if i'm wrong but were they there last year or did i just fail to notice them?, entry fee paid and park up, wring out clothes and wander off to search out a brew, it takes us an age just to get out of the rows of bikes parked up, there's something worth stopping and studying every few bikes, its just one of those places i guess, just loads of interesting bikes everywhere, just take a look at this brief snapshot, every bike is special and 'unique' in some way, from the honda ss50 'sixteener', never had an oil cooler fitted as standard and possibly hints at a hidden race kit buried within?, the norton 'es4'? a 1010cc monster of a bike, based on two 500cc es2 heads mated to a common crankcase, everything below the cylinder heads is home made, yep, the cams, crankshaft and shafts, the frame and swinging arm? yep, ditto, pure, eccentic brilliance, i love it me, what about the ariel arrow four? admit it, you didn't even notice did you? bsa single special with jap running gear? the best nor-vin you've ever seen? what's happening with the 'double-knocker' ohc special? and check out the triton too, yep, it's got red h.t.leads, ok sorry but it's still a lovely bike, i know i've said it before but all the way home i was singing the roy harper song, 'one of those days in england...........'