THREE WEEKS WITHOUT A BLOODY DROP AND NOW THIS...

STOP PRESS—Oulton Date Change. At the request of MSV we have changed the date of our Oulton Park day from Tuesday 3rd July to Friday 6th July. Apologies for any inconvenience. We will be contacting those who have already booked for the Tuesday.

The words of the title to this report were my approximate thoughts as I exited the Crown Inn at 7am on Monday morning. Rain of course.

It had of course been threatened, and much gloomy email traffic had been generated by worrying forecasts at the end of the previous week. I had been variously requested to pray more or sacrifice a virgin or two. Whichever, (and I’m not saying what I did) the pleas appeared to have fallen on deaf ears.

Not wet enough for weather gear for the two-mile ride to the circuit but distinctly uninspiring. Wet enough for some to opt for wet tyres. They proved to be over pessimistic because although it continued to spit in a desultory fashion off and on all morning the track never actually got wet. Enough on the visors to restrain excess but not enough to leave a line on the track.

It was greasy first thing and the track was cold and stayed cold all day. Words of warning about cold tyres were well heeded though and no one fell off as a result of riding technique. In fact we only had one faller, Andy Clay, on (or should I say off) an R1, in Advanced, at Bobbies in the first session of the day. He found a patch of oil left over from saloon car racing at the weekend. They also left a lot of earthy marks just downstream of some of the tighter chicane apexes. Obviously in saloon cars you just ignore the line and charge straight through!

As I was the only faller at Castle Combe last year and that too was at Bobbies in the warm up session I have a fair degree of sympathy for Andy. In any event when completing the accident book he added the comment “Sorry!”. Some people sue their organiser when they fall off. Our riders apologise. Always thought we were a gentlemanly lot. Andy was travelling slowly, was uninjured and carried on riding.

Apart from the rain the Crown was fine. We had estimated 10-15 for dinner and when the waitress took our order at about 7.45 we were exactly 10. I felt satisfied that we had judged it right. Then Geoff Kendall and David Cooper turned up with three friends. We were now exactly 15. And so it stayed. Remarkable.

When we saw David we naturally assumed that Terry Harris was there too. Unfortunately not; as he was trying to relax in New York with Mrs Harris. I say trying to relax as I gathered from David that they had recently returned from a Track Sense session at Jerez where Terry had taken his Aprilia Mille flying. We have no eyewitness account but it must have gone rather high as when it landed on its wheels (Terry no longer in the saddle) it buckled both of them—which makes recovery rather difficult. He was rather sore too.

Congratulations Terry. I think you are the first man to have an accident reported in the Folly Report that did not happen at the Folly or on the way there or back.

All this talk of jet setting bikers means I must mention our furthest travelled rider on the day (also at the Crown). He was Graham Boyd. He was on his first day with the Folly, and on a BMW that he had ridden from Brussels. If that wasn’t far enough he came a day early so he could ride through the Brecon Beacons on his way. Ah, the scenic route.

I rode down from Southampton, as is, torrential rain apart, my invariable practice for the Castle Combe event. Gives me a chance to exercise my wrist and hand muscles after the long winter rest. If you ride a Guzzi you need hands like a navvy. I was therefore rather concerned when mid-instruct in late morning the bike made an odd noise (a bit like my balance pipe cracking open for the umpteenth time) and stopped. It doesn’t usually do that when the balance pipe cracks. Would it get me home?

When I discovered the cause I thought I might entitle this report “Indicator failure causes Castle Combe stoppage”. Allow me to explain. The previous evening just before I got to the Crown my indicators stopped working. Fiddling with fuses sometimes resolves this intermittent fault. I did. It didn’t. I didn’t put the cover back on the fuse box. It took until late morning for the fuse that operates the fuel taps to jump out of its location.

What with that and causing substantial concern to David Marsh later in the day when my brake light stopped working (as he put it “the brake light on the bike ahead provides a useful visual cue”) I seemed to spend much time fiddling. In fact it was a blown bulb.

Castle Combe was the first Folly day under the new ownership of Jeff and Jackie Brown. They were three short of full in the morning but two and half riders helpfully turned up during the day so we had full house. Jeff said that their aim was to run it in so that no-one would notice any change. That worked so well that at the end of the day someone came up to Jeff and me and (addressing me) said “Thanks very much for another great day”. Jeff was vindicated.

The only noticeable change was CC’s requirement for those being noise tested to turn up with a slip of paper with name rank and number already completed. Once passed the rider then had to take that back to sign on where we were then to swap it for a bike sticker. Unfortunately no-one told us that there was to a swap so they all had their bike stickers before they got noise tested.

Jacqui the Diner did us proud as usual and would like it known that they are doing biker meets at the paddock restaurant on the fourth Wednesday of the month during the season. If you are localish and wish to attend phone the CC restaurant on 07887 775161 or mail her on jacqui @ tavernevents.co.uk and find out more.

T’was she and her Mum that found us the Crown when the White Hart ceased to please. She tells me that the White Hart has changed hands again and is on the way back. Local lad John Gregory has promised (as has Jacqui) to test it out for us. If reports are good we could return there next year and again have sufficient bedrooms for all who want to stay.

Pretty uneventful day otherwise.

See you at Mallory on 15th May. We now, under new management, accept on line bookings by credit card.

WEBSITE AND CHAT GROUP

If you are new to the Folly you may not have experienced our website and chat group. The site provides lots of info about us, future events and photos of past events. The chat pages allow anyone to discuss anything about the Folly or motorcycling. If you want to introduce a friend to the Folly pointing them at the website is a very good start.

PHOTOS

If you missed buying photos of your fantastic riding at Castle Combe they are available on this hyperlink. If you just want to see if you are famous look at the pictures of Castle Combe now posted on the Folly website.

SERVICES

Grip and Rip will be attending Mallory—if you want to pre-order tyres or bits phone them on 07808 943458 or 07831 342851.

SPAIN

By popular demand we are arranging to go to Spain in November again this year with our friends from Track Sense (a long established purveyor of biking activities that we’ve known for some years) and are hoping to arrange a big Folly contingent to go to Almeria for one of their two/three day sessions on the weekend of 23rd - 25th November. This is serious fun. You can see details of them and Almeria on their website at www.tracksense.co.uk Stick it in your diary now, we’ll provide more detail later in the season.

If you want to read a report about our weekend at Almeria last year go to our website and pick it up in the Christmas Message which can be found amongst the previous day reports.

Geoff.

Any comments on the day or this newsletter (not bookings) to me at mouth @ megalith.plus.co.uk

Views or suggestions on our instructors/instructing to Jeff Brown at jeff @ motorcyclefolly.co.uk