Ding Dong Rally

29th August 1986 - Bell MCC

The badge was an improvement this year. No 'merican magazine character any more, instead Quasimodo with some Bells. (The Bell MCC later adopted this design as their club emblem.)

It wasn't a long trip from home to Ridge, in Hertfordshire. The weather was pleasant, and remained fair all weekend.

Friday night passed on regardless, with much imbibing of noxious fluids, (and some certainly edible food), and there were a few foolhardy people who decide to go up the tent poles. Slightly less than traditional methods were used to scale the dizzy heights, as the climbers were using other club members to climb on top of, human pyramid style, rather than shinning up solo.

For one club, Saturday started with the time-honoured tradition of seeing how many club members you could carry on your bike before the clutch melted, followed by dragging a few people around the field behind bikes, using pallets from the firewood pile.

A bit later on, a still-assembled igloo-style tent was being transported across the field. I didn't ask if those carrying it were moving closer to their club, or their club were moving the tent away to another part of the field, while they were out. One of the organisers was also showing off his latest office-chair alteration to his current bike.

When the games got under way, there was quite a lot of support for the human pyramid building, this probably explained the behaviour around the poles last night. There were several entrants in the barrel carrying, (smaller club members were much in demand as passengers), and I expect there were quite a few in the tug-of-war as well. The substance used in the eating contest looked suitable disgusting, but I didn't get close enough to check what was in it.

After a few hours in the evening, during the band changeover, some women decided to remove pretty much all their clothing. The one who took most off co-incidentally happened to win a trophy, which was nice. Spurred on by this good fortune a group of men tried to do the same. I assume this had much the same result, but I wasn't all that interested in them.

The band played on, Engine again - quite amusing if you hadn't seen them a dozen or so times before - and beer got consumed. The disco took over after the band had got through their set, and more beer was consumed. Some women took some of their clothes off, even though there were no trophies to be won, and more beer got consumed.

On Sunday, many sunglasses were in evidence and a few people were a bit wobbly for a while. Still, it was a lovely day, leading to a pleasant, if short, ride home.

- Phil (the Spill) Drackley


Start of quotation The '86 rally was my first. As a rally virgin I obviously got what was coming to me. They were going to pour the contents of the eating competition over me as well until it was spotted that someone had curled a turd into the pan. That's what Dave McColl, from the Bell MCC though he lived in Norfolk with us, told me anyway.

I also remember that Engine used to play The Macc Lads before they came on stage. I can still remember a lot of the words to Sweaty Betty. End of quotation

- Ozzy Watson