MOTOR CYCLE 14 JANUARY 1965

HERE COMES the DRAGON

THE DRAGON RALLY, that great gathering of 100 per-cent enthusiasts, is with us again. Date? Four weeks hence, Saturday and Sunday, February 13-14. Place? Somewhere new, somewhere exciting - Glyn Padarn, deep in the heart of Snowdonia.

The cavalcade of riders will plunge into the North Wales mountains, climb the famous Llanberis Pass, then, just on the far side of Llanberis itself, glimpse the beacon fire high above the still waters of Llyn Padarn.

And this, the fourth Dragon Rally, could surely prove the best of them all. We have 360 acres of valley and stream and mountainside all to ourselves, enough undercover accommodation for 2,000 people, camping space for that many more. There are hard floors to sleep on, toilets, fresh water, firm standing for the bikes, hot soup and nothing more.

Nothing, that is, except the happiest, warmest welcome any motor cyclist could hope for. The wonderful sort of fellowship Dragonists cheerfully brave hundreds of miles of wintry road for. As usual, a large contingent of our German friends veterans of their own great Elephant Rally, will be making the trek to Wales.

NO PRIZES

The Dragon Rally makes no conditions.

Simply, you ride a motor cycle and you're keen to come. There are no prizes, no entertainment save the stimulating fun of meeting kindred spirits on an unforgettable weekend, the people for whom two wheels and an engine are the most wonderful things in the world.

Glyn Padarn offers the usual Dragon attractions: Castrol film show, headlight parade, sing-song, celebration bonfire. It has other advantages. Employing some 60 separate buildings instead of a hall and marquees means that a club or a group of friends can spend the night under the same roof. (If you want to stay as a party, say so on the form.)

As usual, organization is in the very capable hands of the Conway Club. But even their great-hearted enthusiasm must have the weight of numbers. So in view of Glyn Padarn's many acres, extra marshals will be needed. Want to lend a hand? Then write to Lawrence Veivat.

One final word. It's going to be solos and sidecars only at Glyn Padarn. Cars, vans even three wheelers will make the journey in vain!

If you want to make sure of spending the night under a roof, see that the entry form (right) is in the hands of the Conway Club by February 7. The entry fee of 10/- per person pays for admission to Glyn Padarn, a bowl of home-made soup, film show, sleeping or camping space, and a commemorative badge.

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MOTOR CYCLE 11 FEBRUARY 1965

NOW THE FOURTH DRAGON

NEXT SATURDAY is the great day. As dawn breaks over the mountains of Snowdonia, a steady stream of riders will he already climbing the famed Llanberis Pass.

Farther back - beyond Capel Curig, beyond Llangollen, down A5 into the heart of England - thousands more bring their bikes to life and head westward towards the snow-flecked Welsh hills, until the stream becomes a torrent and the torrent a flood.

This is the day of the Dragon. The Dragon Rally, when all the great-hearted enthusiasts who are proud to call themselves motor cyclists forgather in their thousands for one magnificent weekend.

There are riders from the most distant corners of England and Scotland, over the water from the Isle of Man and Ireland, breaking the barriers of language from France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Sweden - above all, Germany where the great Elefantentreffen has lighted an answering beacon in the depths of the North Wales hills.

This year, the red-dragon banner floats over Glyn Padarn, Llanberis, at the foot of Snowdon. Shadows lengthen across the still waters of Glyn Padarn, the blaze of the winter sunset dies away behind sharp-edged mountains and a welcoming beacon fire breaks out high above the tents.

Focus for a thousand camp fires, target for the procession of converging headlamps!

There are few entertainments and no luxurics here. Smiling faces, a warm handshake, a cheery welcome have brought this host to such a wild and remote spot. Yet the reward is beyond price.

The Dragon Rally gives two unforgettable days that no true-hearted enthusiast would willingly miss. The camp fires die to embers, the riders melt away to the far corners of Europe. But the flame of friendship, kindled in the North Wales mountains, burns steadily and undimmed - spirit of motor cycling, the greatest game in the world.

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MOTOR CYCLE 11 FEBRUARY 1965

YOU'RE OFF

YES, but have you remembered to bring the bare necessities? Life may prove uncomfortible without them. Mug and irons; can and bottle openers; flashlamp; candle; matches (outdoor lighting is limited at Glyn Padarn); groundsheet, camp bed or sleeping mat; sufficient blankets - it's cold in them thar hills!

Campers will find a water carrier highly convenient, also a tent lantern. Are your cooking arrangements up to scratch? A cheap solid-fuel stove and a couple of saucepans are infinitely better than nothing at all.

WHAT'S THERE?

THE bare minimum to keep body and soul togother. If you've got accommodation booked the floors are dry and the roofs don't leak - but that's your lot.

Few buildings boast stoves, fewer still electric light. However, water points are plentiful and flush toilets are working.

Apart from the free bowl of soup dispensed by the Conway Club, sandwiches and hot pies are on sale. Bring your own bread, milk and other groceries.

Unlike previous Dragon sites, camping space at Glyn Padarn is broken up into small plots spread about terraced hillsides. It will help if earlycomers are thrifty with camping space. Hint for tent pegs: the ground is stony.

WHAT'S TO DO?

BY post each Dragon Rally entrant has been sent provisional instructions with his receipt. After collecting your ticket at the main gate of Glyn Padarn (on the left of A4086 going one mile north of Llanberis) proceed into the site where you will be given a song sheet, programme, brooch type badge and a howl of home-made soup. Events are as follow:

Saturday

From 2 pm - Castrol film show, in hall on north side of main entrance.

6.30 - Headlight parade. Assemble back from North Gate along signposted site road. Route is similar to that in 1962. Turn left on to A4086, left at the Glyn Twrog Inn, then left again through Bryn Bras Castle gate. Re-enter Glyn Padarn at the top entrance.

7.00 - Bonfire lighted, behind the generator house.

7.30 - Addresses of welcome, delivered from the roof of the generator house.

8.15 - Community singing at the bonfire.

Sunday

9.30 - Interdenominational service in the cinema.

11.00 - Booking-in close down. The last moment for that badge!

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MOTOR CYCLE, 18 FEBRUARY 1965

Bigger-than-ever DRAGON RALLY

AS ever, the 1965 Dragon Rally was an unparalleled success. Over 6,000 enthusiasts poured across the North Wales mountains from all Britain and the far corners of Europe to join together in this great mid-winter adventure.

The same Dragon, the same cheery faces of the Conway Club to welcome us at journey's end. Yet this year, it was different. This year we had a new site, Glyn Padarn, where thousands of tents perched high on the steep hillside. Instead of a mock-Gothic castle as a backcloth, we had the incomparable Snowdon, highest peak in Wales.

And what magnificent riding! Longer, colder than last year, but climbing through some of the wildest, most awe-inspiring scenery in Britain.

As usual, this Dragon Rally brought countless stories, some comic, some scarcely less than heroic. Here's one - only one, yet oh-so typical of the Dragonists' enthusiasm.

Saturday morning, Tony Norman set off on his Vincent from Fulham. Within 20 miles his gear box suddenly shed all its cogs.

So he abandoned everything at a friendly garage - bike, camping gear, food - and set out to hitchhike north. More than 12 hours after leaving home, at last he reached Glyn Padarn.

Without a sleeping bag, without blankets, he spent the night in the open curled up in front of the bonfire.

Next morning he must leave at dawn to make the journey home to London. We discovered him, halfway back, along A5.

"Why didn't you give up?" we asked him. "Why didn't you go home when you were still so near?"

"What!" he cried. "Miss getting my badge? Miss the Dragon? Not on your life, mate!"

LUCKY LADS, those who tet out in Friday's daylight. They had a mild dry run to Glyn Padarn. But while the early birds lay snug in their tents that night, their friends were fighting their way through belts of torrential, icy rain.

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MOTOR CYCLE, 18 FEBRUARY 1965

By Saturday morning all was clear. The wind had shifted; one could smell the ozone blowing in from the sea. Light snow melted quickly from round the tents. The sun came out and brought a sparkle to the whitened flanks of the mountains that reared up all around us. Dragon weather, indeed!

DESPITE its enormous area, much of the Glyn Padarn site is too steep for pitching tents. A record number of campers arrived. But to the relief of the Conway Club they all fitted comfortably into place and without the guyline tripping over so prevalent last year at Gwrych.

Many Dragonists spoke enthusiastically of the snug mateyness of Glyn Padarn's terraces, with clumps of birch trees to give shelter. Others missed the togetherness of the Gwrych frontage.

Of those without tents, pretty well everybody got shelter of a sort - though by late afternoon Saturday they were already hunting for dry corners in abandoned air-raid shelters and tumbledown barns.

IT'S ALWAYS a wild ride to Wales from the North-East. Geordie and North-Yorkshire types always have lurid stories of fighting their way over the midwinter Pennines.

Dragon songsmith Bill Hume met rain so cold, on the Friday night, that his 1963 Matchless big twin began to suffer from ice in the carburettor.

When he was on M6 the moon came out, but beyond Corwen he met "snow and hail like a sandblaster."

At first light, vintage enthusiast Hume discovered a filling station open, stopped for petrol and spotted a 1929 Coventry-Eagle Flying 8 abandoned and cobwebby in the back.

"I'm going back to see about buying it before I go home," he told us. "Then all I'll need is someone to tiller the device at the far end of my tow-rope!"

RIGHT in the middle of Harry Louis' speech of welcome the generator went on the blink, no public-address system, no music from the brass band, no lights. But everyone took the mishap in good part and the power came on about an hour later.

This little episode gives some idea of how much the Conway Club put into the Dragon. Little jobs like wiring a site, generating the juice, laying males water supplies...

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MOTOR CYCLE, 18 FEBRUARY 1965

MUCH-MISSED: Ernst Leverkus' speech of welcome. The father of the elephant rally has been on the sick for many months npw and he is still not fit enough to travel. But, said wife Inge who deputized for him at the microphone, he should certainly be in the Island for the Six Days and is furiously arguing with his doctor about going to the TT.

Inge by the way, came to Glyn Padarn under her own steam, driving a BMW outfit the whole way. In the sidecar she brought her mother who soon became Omar (Granny) to her fellow Dragonists.

FOR NEARLY half an hour a party of "stokers" worked like slaves to get the ceremonial bonfire going. It was reluctant to take but when it did it was the biggest, most fiery ever.

So good in fact that wind borne sparks set two tents alight!

Old tyres proved superb fuel. One was hooked on the top of the long tree trunk that jutted like a spire from the pile, 45ft above the ground.

As this tyre burned it broke away into three rings of fire - the tread and two walls - but they somehow remained hooked together like the rings of the Olympic symbol.

THE LOUD laugh of Colin "Lefty" Bembridge was much in evidence. Although his right arm is still out of commission, he had driven up from London with his Ariel Four sidecar outfit.

Midnight, just outside Llangollen, his throttle cable broke. With characteristic determination, Colin tied (one-handed) the inner cable to the chinstrap of his helmet and carried on that way, raising his head for more steam and vice versa to shut off.

PLENTY of supporters turned up but someone different was in charge. We're talking about the Sunday morning service which, in the absence of Father Bill Shergold, was taken by his curate, Graham Hullett.

As might be expected, Father Hullett is as keen a motor cyclist as they come. He rides a BSA Road Rocket.

FIRST to call on Sunday at the Oxfordshire Sidecar Club's brew-up, in its usual spot on the northern approach to the city, were Inge Leverkus and her mother with their BMW outfit.

All through the afternoon and evening groups of homeward Dragonists enjoyed the soup and hot-dogs, and warmed their frozen hands in front of the sizzling braziers.

This Oxford stop has become a Dragon highlight. Many enthusiasts deviate quite a few miles from their shortest route to call in. It's the last chance for real Dragon atmosphere and for the final "See you next year."

Thanks, lads and lasses of the Oxfordshire Sidecar Club.

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MOTOR CYCLE 25 FEBRUARY 1965

DRAGON'S JOY

TWISTGRIP AND SPANNERS

by JOHN EBBRELL

WAS there ever a wintertime run so marvellous as that scamper back home from the Dragon? It's on such clear sunshiny mornings, when the air is so crisp you can almost hear it crackle, when the roads are bone dry and you've a high-spirited motor cycle between your knees, that you really do make whoopee with the gods.

Almost devoid of non-Dragon traffic that Sunday morning, the top end of the A5 showed itself for what it can be - one of the finest fast rides anywhere in the British Isles. I had a BSA A65-Monza outfit, with enough camping gear battened down in the sidecar to keep the third

wheel in place on left-handers yet not be too much of a nuisance for nipping along.

And what a superb outfit that BSA was! The A65 engine has just the right characteristics for sports sidecar work, the brakes were on the top line, the sidecar nicely aligned. Even after I'd acquired a heavy pillionist, the model still managed an occasional 75 mph on the speedo.

It seemed almost a cruelty when I got back to the lorry-ridden Midland undulations beyond Wellington. Do you know, I'd covered the first 100 miles from Glyn Padarn in two hours ten minutes of riding time

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MOTOR CYCLE 25 FEBRUARY 1965

HOW FAST ALL TOLD?

WHICH brings me to the other side of the coin. I checked my riding time against a stopwatch - but the actual journey took two hours 45 minutes. The extra 35 minutes was somehow gobbled up by a fuel stop, cup-of-tea stop, and a halt to pick up the pillionist. And that was before I'd stopped for serious midday eating.

For obvious though the point seems, nothing plays greater havoc with averages than a succession of short halts.

No matter how brief you try to be, the mere acts of slowing down, taking off riding gloves, putting them back on again, starting up, just eat away the minutes.

And if you were travelling in a party, what happens when everyone wants to buy petrol, drink tea, have a smoke, each at different times? No wonder some people took ten hours and more to get from London to Glyn Padarn!

This sort of thing is what made the team award in the ACU National Rally a prize worth winning

If you're a long-distance touring this summer with chums the experience of ganging up to go to the Dragon will bring you to make more realistic estimates of possible average speeds.

TYRE SHYLOCKS

WHERE did my pillionist come from, you may ask. His name is Mark Folley. The rear chain of his Norton-Vincent special had suddenly decided to do a big tooth extraction job on the light alloy rear sprocket.

So, because chains won't function as belts, Mark and his three passengers had been forced to abandon ship and seek singleton lifts from fellow Dragonists bound for London.

Of the troubles that beset so many unfortunates en route to the Dragon one could write a full-length article (we might do, someday); but I noticed in particular how many were beset with tyre troubles.

Now, why? In theory, a tyre which serves round the houses at home should do just as well on a long run. But I suppose that overloading and lifting patvhes did their gloomy work.

A tyre responds well to regular maintenance. One fears that too many people are prone to run the tread down to the last few thou. Apart from uneven wear, underinflation often spells something even more insidious - walls cracking internally, fatally weak and nip-nipping the inner tube at every flex and bump. False economy to play Shylock with the tyre companies!

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