The older I get, the more annoying Bank Holiday weekends become. So I postponed a sofa purchase I don’t need, and spent the time doing some motorcycle mooching instead.
Saturday saw me at Cadwell for some British Superbikes warm-up entertainment. The place was pretty busy even for practice and qualifying. I wandered the paddock and admired the race bikes before realising why it’s called a ‘paddock’. The grass-based workshops being where the lesser teams are plonked. Ironically, the further I got from the track, the more interesting I found the bikes. The last gathering in the fields were the ICGP bikes, old TZs etc which were all immaculately turned out.
I did spent some time mooching at the Mountain to watch the BSB riders taking flight. Being one of the few people not clad in sponsored clobber (Not surprising at 拢25 for a T-shirt), I did stick my head in one of the huge corporate tents as I was leaving. A large crowd made me think there might be a celebrity inside, but it turned out to be a TV with the football results on…
Sunday was autojumble day. An early start to get to Newark meant no Bank Holiday Sunday lie-in for me. I was up at 5.30am and unloading the car by 7am, which was good going. As the day was an exercise for a bike mag article ( Classic Mechanics), I won’t go into too much detail, other than to say I’ll definitely be going to the next one!
Monday was a local show over in Downham Market, the Fenman Show. Luckily the sun was out and so were some mega bikes. It was a real local event, and I never knew so many bikes were lurking around the Norfolk/Lincolnshire borders. Next year, I might even make the effort to go on mine…
What it all proved was that Bank Holidays needn’t take a load of planning, be hugely expensive, or end up involving a roadside wait for the RAC on an old scooter on the A12.
My brother came up to stay this August Bank Holiday, making the trip from Surrey to Lincolnshire on his TRX. Saturday was wet and we decided to visit Boston, as neither of us had been there before. It wasn’t all that exciting, but one of the first shops we came to was a music shop, as in one that sells instruments. I used to play a classical guitar and have been idly looking for an acoustic guitar for a while, so I thought I would take advantage of my brother’s God-like guitar abilities and ask his opinion. The shop owner came over, Mike asked if he could play one of the guitars he thought was fairly decent. The next 45 minutes was magical, as he sat in a shop and played, classical, blues, rock and anything else he could think of and the shop owner got him to test out a few more guitars. We didn’t buy one but it was one of the best hours of my life. Next day, we were off to Matlock Bath, still a bit of a mecca for bikes on a Sunday. Lots of bikes, a veritable sea of fish and chip shops (do they think that’s all we eat?) but at the far end and up a side road, we found a nice little cafe that served good food, with not a chip in sight. It was a 130 mile round trip, using all the roads I used to ride when I lived in that area.
Monday was off to BSB at Cadwell, cracking weather and great roads there and back (Ruskington-Bardney-Horncastle on the way out, back vis Willingham Woods-Wragby-Bardney and Ruskington)>
A cracking Bank Holiday 馃檪