Pointed Nipple Rally

Free Spirit Riders MCC - Billericay, January '94

                   

- Phil the Spill

It's not easy negotiating London traffic on a Friday afternoon, but the computer-generated route plan insisted we went that way. After two-and-a-half carbon monoxide filled hours, the WMAMCC party arrived at the 'Willowbrook Sports and Social Club', the venue for the rally. (The organising club are co-owners of the property.)

The security arrangements were very impressive, each bike had a numbered sticker on the front as did each helmet - if the numbers don't match, the bike isn't allowed to leave. At the booking-in caravan another surprise - computerised booking-in! No more illegible scribbles caused by cold-numbed hands unable to wield a pen.

Putting the tents up was no trouble this year, the ground was not as wet as we had previously encountered, and we repaired to the bar in the clubhouse, Gary checking out the burger van on the way. Nev and I saved ourselves for the pub food, which we knew would be far better. We waited for an hour or so before we actually went to the pub down the road, (the name of which I can never remember), just to see if anybody we knew turned up, which they didn't. The food was definitely worth waiting for and there was a new pinball machine, so we whiled away a few hours before returning to the site.

When we got there the hall was quite full and the disco was in full swing and the rest of the evening passed quite quickly. Gary crashed out quite early, I followed soon after midnight, and Nev came back - singing - about one o'clock-ish.

Saturday was much the same really, we waited for Mac to arrive before we went to the pub for lunch, came back to the site and watched some of the locals playing rugby, while talking to some Ogri MCC chaps & chapesses. In the evening there was a band, which weren't too bad and the hall was completely packed out. This time Neville was the first to give up, Gary & I stayed up for a bit longer, although when it started raining on me as I was standing by the bonfire, I crept back to my tent. I don't think Gary lasted much longer. The wind was making it's presence felt throughout the night, waking me up whenever it shook the tent, although no pegs flew out this year, (which is why Nev's tent also stayed up, hiding from the wind behind mine).

Packing the - by now dry - tents up, I noticed that Gary had put his flysheet on inside out, but this didn't seem to have affected its performance greatly. We travelled back using the M25/Al and took a little over half the time of the trip out.

- Phil (the Spill) Drackley