D'went And Did It Rally

Organised by Brothers over the Hill MCC, at a site near Chesterfield.

A new Rally for me, but has been held for several years without me!

I had arranged to meet up on the Saturday with several friends, (Alan and Sylvia Giddens, Len and Marita Tempest, and Roy Watkinson), but the weather on Friday was so good it would have been criminal to stay home.

The logical thing to do would be to go to the Rally on Friday, but logic never was my strong point ... When I am at home on a Friday (rarely!) I usually end up at a friend's house just down the road, but this weekend they had gone to camp at another mutual friend's house at Skipsea. Well it might be 85 miles in the wrong direction, but it sets up an altogether more interesting route to get to Chesterfield! And on a sunny Friday, Bradford to Skipsea can be good too; just pretend motorways haven't been invented and try to do as much on B roads as you can!

Saturday saw me heading down over the Humber Bridge, around Scunthorpe on the B road, then South in the general direction of Gainsborough, and then cut across to Worksop and finally on to the A619 to Chesterfield. Sunshine all the way, no traffic and on roads I hardly ever use. It doesn't get any better than this!

I stopped off at a supermarket to get supplies for the barbeque we had planned, and to fill up with petrol. Not cheap petrol, just slightly less extortionate!

The Rally was based at a Miners' welfare club, which I managed to find fairly easily. You had to sign in at the control tent before going on site. There appeared to be lots of marshals, er ... marshalling or something!

Camping was around the outside of a cricket field, all nicely mowed and with plenty of flat areas. I met up with my friends and put my tent up, then had a look round the bikes. Mostly custom/cruiser type and quite a few trikes. Cars seemed to be allowed on site and were just priced extra if not driven by a disabled biker.

There were a number of stalls on site selling all sorts of "Biker gear" (T shirts and jewellery etc), and a couple of burger/hot dog/coffee vans.

If the beer on site wasn't to your taste there were one or two pubs within walking distance.

As usual our barbie, along with one or two bottles of beer, went on later than planned, so we were fairly late going into the clubhouse, but we could hear the band at a reasonable volume on site at our tents!

Several bands were set to be on stage (Friday and Saturday). An eating and a drinking contest were held before the raffle and awards on the Saturday night and as a special treat the winner of the long distance award was stripped and covered in beer/cold porridge/God knows what, after foolishly letting slip that this was his first rally.

Sunday was bright and sunny again, so after a leisurely breakfast and - for a change - packing away a dry tent, I set off for home through the peak district, keeping a lookout for Derbyshire's finest hiding in their unmarked police vans!

- Ted Trett