Elver Rally

The Elver Rally I attended was in April 1977, organised by Hermes MCC. The contact for pre-booking was Kit Arthurs, who is still a regular rallyist.

Over the years I have witnessed drunken rallyists eat or drink all kinds of things, but this rally outdid the lot of them!

- Ted

The Rally was held at the Old Passage Inn Arlingham, next to the river Severn.

The main thing I remember about this rally was the eating-drinking contest they held. Over the years I have witnessed drunken rallyists eat or drink all kinds of things, but this rally outdid the lot of them!

The contest was to drink a pint of live elvers (baby eels!) fresh caught from the river Severn, and believe it or not there was no shortage of volunteers, or elvers!

1978 Elver with Alan Bone in 'Honda Style' jacket, Mitch Mitchell in the centre with glasses on, Nick Sutton, Alison Downing and in the foreground Paul Mullis and Dave Hancock.
Photo from Heather MacGregor

I had problems with my 400/4 Honda just before the rally, my front wheel bearings had collapsed. To get to the rally I borrowed the front wheel out of my friend's ride to work bike, a Honda 250 G5 (they were the same wheels).

This would have been OK, but for my friend's strange taste in tyres. Because he always used them on his combo's, he had fitted an Avon SM Mk2, but not a ribbed front tyre, it was the almost square rear type!

Combined with the nicely rounded Continental tyre I had on the rear of my bike the handling was about the same as with the loose wheel bearings!

- Ted Trett