THE DRUNKEN BEAR RALLY

CHAPTER 21

The Drunken Bear Rally

SPOILER ALERT

THIS IS THE WORST RALLY THAT I HAVE EVER ATTENDED, SO EXPECT A LOT OF SWEAR WORDS, BECAUSE THIS RALLY WAS REALLY SHIT AND DESERVES ALL THE BAD LANGUAGE IT CAN GET.

The drunken bear rally

19-21 SEPTEMBER 1986

( Photo 1 ) . My drunken bear rally badge.

So off we went to the drunken bear rally, Myself, Wobble, big Roy and Shades.

The year was 1986, it was a glorious warm and sunny weekend, we had not seen weather like this for years.

We have had a few warm spells now and then over the last decade, but this weekend was very reminiscent of the heat-wave of 1976.

The Summer of 76 was exceptional, 8 weeks of 80 degrees, this looked and felt like a mini version of that summer.

Only four of us were making this trip, no-one had been to this rally before, so we decided to check it out before we recommend it to the rest of the guys, if it was any good we would plan to go back there next year and in force with a lot more bikes, rallies are always more fun when you have your friends around you, and a lot of friends gives the ride a lot more fun.

There were no other rallies on this weekend, so a new unknown rally to check out with sunny dry weather to ride out in was too good to be missed, what could go wrong, it was looking like a great time for everyone.

I was riding my Kawasaki Z1000, Wobble was on his Suzuki GS1000, Big Roy was riding his Suzuki GS750 and Shades was on his Honda VFR750.

We were making our way up to the rally site, we started off late around 15:00, the rally was not that far away really, only around a hundred miles or so, so leaving Wales later than we would normally leave wasn’t a concern, it would not get dark till 21:00 – 22:00 at this time of the year, so we had plenty of time to get there and put the tents up, putting up a tent in the dark is a pain, so we would avoid all that nonsense.

We were making good time with no hold-ups, the roads were busy, but no traffic jams nothing was getting in our way, the only thing that was rattling us a little was how shades was riding.

There was a way you would ride in the group of other riders and shades had absolutely no idea that his solo riding style did not fit in with how he should behave in a group.

( Photo 2 ) . Wobble, Roy and Shades at the Rally site, with shades white plastic toy on the left, we had this part of the rally field to ourselves.

We old three would ride as a group, age and experience as taught us how to behave when riding with others, this was something that shade’s had yet to learn.

We would change the lead rider now and again no words had to be said everyone knew what was going on, well except shades, this would happen until we left the main roads and headed into the countryside and then whoever knew the way or had the directions would lead and everyone else would follow maybe stopping every now and again at junctions just to check we were on the right course, no GPS back then, every route had to be checked using a map, it was very easy to get lost in unfamiliar hedge covered green lanes, they all look the same after a while.

Well this was the normal setup everyone knew what to do, well everyone except shades.

He was riding a nice brand new shiny white plastic Honda VFR 750 with a performance that made our bikes look like mopeds on the open road.

Someone would take the lead, at this point in the run up to the rally anyone that pulled off first was in the front as long he was going in the right direction and had an idea where we were going, it didn’t matter who led the way, the rest of us would drop back behind the first bike and just follow until we needed to find our way off the main A road.

Shades was told to stay at the back and just follow.

Right from the beginning this didn’t work, every now and again shades would disappear completely out of sight.

We were using the A449 part of the way as we left Wales this is a long twisty climbing road with a few roundabouts dotted here and there and very little in the way of houses and population.

Shades kept dropping out of sight.

This would make one of us that noticed that he had gone out of sight break position or alert everyone that he was no longer behind us, as we were on a long road like the A449 someone would pull alongside another bike and indicate by hand movements or shouting over the traffic and the noise of the engines that one of our group had gone missing.

In these circumstances the only thing we could do was to get to the next junction/roundabout /turn-off and then double back and find out if they had broken down or maybe had an accident.

So the first time he went missing we started to make plans to turn around and go back to see why he was not following behind us, and then the next thing we knew a flash of white screamed passed us at around 130 mph + in the outer lane.

We were travelling at around 80 mph in the slower lane, and he went past us like a streak of white lightening or has Wobble put it a streak of yellow piss.

We all made eye contact with each other, we were all thinking the same thing.

“ WHAT THE FUCK IS HE DOING “ .

A little further down the road we caught up with him, he had slowed down to around 70 mph and waited for us to catch up, when we came alongside him we all shouted at him to get the fuck back in line and don’t do it again.

So shades dropped back and everything was fine for around 25 minutes and then the same thing happened.

Shade had disappeared from sight, I sounded my horn to let the guys in front of me know that shades had gone again and as I was doing this, a white flash passed us once more.

We caught up with him once again.

But this time shades was made to stay in the middle and I stayed at the back, he stayed in that position until we pulled off into the built-up areas that we needed to travel through.

While we waited at a set of traffic lights that we were held up at, Roy leaned over from his bike and looked at shades, and he shouted over the traffic so loud that pedestrians walking past could hear him clearly “ STOP FUCKING AROUND YOU PRICK, AND STAY AT THE BACK , I'M NOT TELLING YOU TWICE “.

This did draw a few bewildered stares from the onlookers that were walking past on the pavement, because Roy shouted it has loud as he could over the traffic.

There was one guy in a car alongside us as we waited at the lights, he hastily rolled his driver window up, maybe the driver thought Roy was talking to him, it did seem a little on the hot side to drive around with your window wound up tight.

It was very rare for a car back then to have air conditioning.

We pulled off and headed out of whatever English town we were in, and we were soon into the country lanes, shades dropped back to the rear without saying a word.

So after being shouted at by Roy, Shades fell back into line and followed everyone though the built-up areas that we needed to pass through, and in a short while we entered the countryside once again.

( Photo 3 ) . Getting ready to leave Bridgend, and waiting for shades to arrive, the was photo taken outside Wobbles house in Brackla Bridgend, from left to right Roy’s GS750, Wobbles GS1000 and my Z1000.

Shades stopped at the back and kept pace with us, but this did not last long, he kept weaving back and forth crossing over to the opposite lane as if he was about to overtake and then suddenly dart back behind us again.

I watched him in my mirror doing this nonsense, so I looked around at him and shouted.

“ STOP IT, YOU PRICK, NOBODY ON THE ROAD KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK YOU ARE DOING “.

He just stared at me and did not respond in any way, he stopped for a short while again and then a few miles down the road he started doing his weavey thing all over again, this time we all ignored him, we were just wasting our time trying to get him to learn anything.

This is irrelevant to the story, but has we rode along, I spotted a signpost with an odd name that I have never seen before, the sign post had the name of a local village.

The sign stated that the village name was “ Cold Christmas “ it looked like an old sign, the metal black and white type road sign that had not been used for many years, I have always wondered how the village managed to get a strange name like.

The country lanes were bendy and with barely any traffic, we were making good time, our estimated time to get to the rally was cut by at least an hour mainly due to the light traffic.

As we were riding through the lanes, we came across a grass junction shaped like a small triangle and at the center of this green triangle was a tall sign post with a village name embossed onto it, the sign said “ DRINKERS END “, I sounded my horn to draw attention to the sign and indicated for us to stop, I could see a photo opportunity.

Wobble pulled up alongside me and said, ” we will come back this way, we will take some photos on the way back “.

I answered “ ok no problem, we can't let this one go it looks it could be a laugh, we'll do it on the way back “.

We were very close to the rally site, so a quick stop on the way back would be no problem, and we intended going back on the same route that we had come up on, so it seemed to be the obvious thing to do, we would leave spending anytime here until we came back this way.

So we once again headed for rally.

( Photo 4 ) . Map to the rally site that was supplied by the black bear m.c.c.

We had emerged back on to a main A road and out of the leafy country lanes, a little further up this road we needed to make a left turn back into the lanes again, it was only about a one-mile away from the rally site, Roy was in front, he indicated that we were turning left so we all started to slow down to take the narrow junction and then this fucking idiot came up behind us.

I think you may have already guessed who it was, he came up so fast he shot right passed us, he was going far to fast to stop in time, luckily there was enough room for him to overtake us, instead of him slamming into the back of all three of us, he was going so fast by the time he stopped he was out of our sight.

The three of us pulled off the main A road at the junction and waited for the idiot to turn around and catch up with us once again.

He pulled up alongside of us as waited at the side of the road, and we all shouted at him at the same time, things like “ you fucking idiot, you could have killed all of us, “ what the fuck do you think you doing “ etc.

I said “ for fuck’s sake shades, your riding is going to get us or you killed, do it again, and we will be going home without you and your fucking white plastic toy “.

His excuse was, he didn’t see us turning, the truth was he was not paying attention, and he was riding to fast, it seems he was totally incapable of riding in a group.

We managed to arrived at the rally site without shades killing any of us, and the weekend only got worse.

As we came closer to the rally site, the organizers, THE BLACK BEAR M.C.C., who were based in the Gloucester area had placed some homemade signs made of roughly cut brown cardboard attached to a small wooden stake with the word RALLY written on them with a black marker pen.

( photo 5 ) . The homemade rally signs.

We followed the signs which were placed at the many junctions that we had to negotiate through the green lanes, and then we entered the first field through a field gate with a large sign declaring that this was THE DRUNKEN BEAR RALLY.

We followed a rough single dirt track that had some gravel embedded in the dirt, we rode along it and crossed the first field.

The track had two deep ruts running parallel to each other showing where the farm tractor had been in wetter times, luckily for us the ground was born dry, but the track still had issues there were large deep pot holes dotted randomly right along the track’s length, they had to be avoided they were too deep to ride over especially with a heavy bike loaded down with a weekends worth of camping equipment.

There were also stones the size of your fist lying around on the surface, these too had to be avoided unless your plan was to be laying on your side and acting like a dying fly at the side of the track.

I was riding behind Roy and he rode over some smaller stones which his back Tire kicked up and showered me with small missiles, I didn’t ride so close to him from that point on, riding on this track was like being a contestant in the game show the “ krypton factor “ with all the Obstacles we had to avoid.

We passed through another gate that had high hedges on both sides and then through another small field that been ploughed and then one more gate, and we were in the rally site itself.

Every gate had one of those homemade rally signs placed at each gate for some reason, it would have been a little difficult to get lost with only one road and one gate at each end of the field, well maybe they had spare signs.

As we entered the rally site directly on our right was a farm house, a fairly modern building possibly built around the 60s or 70s and a little further down into the field a little away from the farm house was a medium size canvas marquee tent which would be used as the beer /disco tent for the evenings, it was not a large marquee half the size of what we were expecting and for some strange reason there was a smaller tall walk in type tent nearby.

The smaller tent that they had set up was the registration tent, I don't know how big they thought this event was going to be to have it’s very own registration tent.

The larger marquee would have been more than adequate for the size of this rally to use as the registration tent, after all in reality it would not be needed after everyone had arrived on the first day.

When we arrived at the rally site, shades was told to behave himself and just follow us.

We booked in at the registration tent which was only bigger enough for two guys and a table, the two guys behind the table that was set up in the tent were polite but very business like, not unfriendly but gave the impression they didn’t want to be there.

The tent was so small we had to stand in the doorway there was no room to enter, Roy said as we left the tent “ they were two miserable buggers “ loud enough for them to hear.

We left the registration tent, and looked for a suitable site to pitch the tents, we always tend to look for a place on higher ground close to a hedge or a wall if possible, anything that gave some protection from the wind, there was plenty of space on the rally field, there were a few tents already set up, but most of the field was empty, but there again it was still early yet, there would be people arriving at all times of the day.

( Photo 6 ) Wobbles GS1000 and my Z1000 on the rally field.

We always made a point of getting a good camping position, the weather could turn at anytime, the U.K. has a long history of having 4 seasons in one day and if it started to rain, the rally field would soon turn into a replica of the first world war battlefield the Somme, if you were there at the 1980 Fools Rally you would know what I’m talking about, wettest rally that I have ever been on.

If it rained heavy the tents may get flooded, and they would have to be moved and if this happened they would need to be moved to dryer ground if there was any.

( it was unlikely that it would rain this weekend as the weather was warm and sunny ).

If it did rain everything would get wet and covered in mud, including the inside of the tents and nobody wanted to sleep in a wet tent.

So careful choice of where to pitch your tent at the very beginning of the rally saves a lot of effort and whining later, you have to remember there are a lot of bikes riding around in all directions, and riding right up to the tents and in wet weather with the ground being soaked with rain water, it does not take long for the field to turn into a mud bath.

We only carried two tents with us to save space and weight on the bikes, myself and wobble would be in my tent which was a 4 man tent, but with all our kit that we would use to carry, we need it, the gear took up a lot of space, all this kit was needed for the weekend.

We would use saddlebags and tank bags, and they were never left on the bikes, the space in the tent would soon became sparse with all this equipment filling the tent up, the other tent Roy and shades would share, but I think Roy would have filled most of the space on his own.

We put our tents up, and stored all our gear away, I put one of my leather gloves under my side stand like I would always do, just in case the weight of the bike made the stand slide into the ground, it was a quick fix and always worked.

The rally started to fill up a bit, tents started to pop up all round the field.

The sun was blaring down on us, it was one hot day, we sat back and watched all the other bikers arrive, the first thing we noticed was that some of the new arrivals looked much younger than us, there were a number of bikers of around the same age as us, but all the other seemed a little younger in the same range of Shade’s age which was not typical to the type of rally we were used too.

Then the second thing we noticed was the number of leaner’s with small bikes, which we again found unusual.

When most of the bikers had turned up later on in the evening, we found that none of them had pitched their tents anywhere near ours.

We didn’t understand this at first, not that we gave it much thought, but we did find out why later.

The first night which was the Friday, we just chilled in my tent mainly because it was the bigger of the two that we brought with us.

I had brought some food with us, just as snacks really nothing substantial, just in case we became a little peckish in the night after we had been to the beer tent and maybe breakfast time, snacks consisted of one loaf of white bread, and two medium size blocks of cheese, nothing fancy just something to eat.

One block was Caerphilly Cheese and the other was made up of four different cheeses pressed together in strips, which I bought randomly from the Spar shop next to Pans bike shop on Ewenny road in Bridgend, it was a very random choice, as I picked up the Caerphilly cheese, there was no butter just bread and cheese, you will eat anything in the late evening if you have been drinking all day and there was never much of a choice of food stuffs in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere.

We also had a good supply of weed and a selection different flavours of ( Cupa Soups ), you just add hot water to these little beauties, no fuss just a quick meal, and for the morning we also had a bag of teabags and dried milk, dried milk tastes like shit, but beggars cant be choosers and to finish off this food parcel, a few packets of porridge, this selection was the standard type of food we always took along with us to a rally, sometimes a pot noodle and maybe a couple of packets of biscuits.

It was still early in the evening, the sun was not high in the sky anymore, it had started to slowly dip behind the trees.

The sky was a light pastel blue, random rays of light found their way through the thick branches of the trees from the dying sun, the soft beams of light slowly diminished into nothing as the sun disappeared from sight.

The twilight gave everything an eerie glow, it had cooled enough for the night dew to start to make its appearance on the tents, and the grass had become wet as the cooling air came in contact with the warm ground.

We had run out of our larger and cider that we had brought with us very early, so we made our way to the large marquee tent, we could hear the music as we approached, it was not that busy, which surprised us, we expected it to be rammed full of bikers partying.

On the left side of the tent from the entrance they had pushed two pasting tables together to make a temporary bar, directly opposite there was a make shift stage, well two pallets on top of each other and around eight of these double pallets pushed alongside each other.

There was no band just a DJ, playing AC/DC and GUNS & ROSES type of music.

( Photo 7 ) . Coming back from the Marquee and Shades showing us how to Mosh in the Mosh pit and wobble eating one of the blocks of cheese.

We went straight to the makeshift bar, there was only one guy standing behind the tables, it was that quiet nobody was waiting to be served, on the table there was a large bucket with cans of Strong-bow Cider and Carling lager drowning in tap water, the bucket with its cooling refreshments was far to heavy for the D.I.Y. table that these guys had placed it on, it was obvious to everyone the table was struggling hold the combined weight of all the water and the cans, the table was bowing in the middle under the weight, the cans sat in a large amount of water which I guessed had become ice at some point in its life, and had melted throughout the night back into its natural fluid state, or they just filled it from the tap at the nearby farm.

There was nothing of any real interest to us in this ( party ) so we decided to stay a little while, to see if it livened up a little, so we bought a couple of cans each.

Wobble said, “ tomorrow, we find and go to the local town and buy beer from a super-market, I’m not paying these fucking prices again for a can of cider “.

He was not wrong, the prices they were charging in the tent were more than double the price then you could buy them from a supermarket.

We were standing by the bar, as there was not much going on in the tent, it did not matter where you stood there were plenty of open spaces to choice from, I was being served by the bar, and the guy behind the bar said that will ££ please, ( cant remember the exact price ).

I said jokingly back to him “ how much, I’m not buying the whole fucking bucket “.

The barman just stared at me not saying a word, I don’t think he was sure how to take what I had just said to him, he was not sure if it was a joke or not, and he did have a little trouble with my Welsh valley accent.

He kept staring, so I spoke a little slower, English people do think we welsh speak to fast, or it could be because their brains does not work fast enough, you decide, I spoke again trying to make myself understood “ it’s all right, it’s just a joke “, he gave me a wary smile, I could see he wanted me to go away, me, just standing there was stressing him out he looked very nervous.

I kept the one sided conversation going, I said “ there’s not many people here, where is everyone “, this was me trying to be friendly and ignoring his arrogant silence.

He replied, he must have understood this time “ it was busier earlier, they have all seemed to had wandered off now “.

I answered “ gone to bed from the amount of people I’ve seen so far “

I said ” maybe it’s your prices, maybe you should lower them, you’ll sell more and get more people in here ”.

Roy said “ for fuck’s sake frog, stop winding him up, I’m thirsty “.

So we all had our cans of larger or cider, and then we sat in one corner and just talked over what we could organise for following evening.

To be honest, we got bored after about an hour, the tent did not fill up very much, people where coming and going, but nobody stayed for very long.

Normally at other rallies we would meet people that we had known for years that we would see at the other rallies we attended from around the country, but we did not recognise anyone, all these bikers were new to us and none of them seemed to be very keen on saying hello.

So we called it a night, we all had one can to drink back at the tent, we would drink these quietly while we had a smoke.

As we left I remember Motor-head was playing, so we left with the words Ace Of Spades ringing in our ears.

When we got back to the tent, we had a joint and shades managed to spill his can of cider all over and inside my sleeping bag, soak it right through, so he got shouted at again.

My sleeping bag was an x military severe weather mounting type, filled with goose down feathers, which I had bought as a random purchase from a warehouse on stormy down that sold books and old military computers that were about a 100 years out of date even in the 80s and other army junk nobody wanted.

The sleeping bag was very warm, but also it didn’t dry out very quickly when it became wet, I slept in my clothes with my jacket on, so I did not notice how wet it was, I still have the sleeping bag tucked away in my attic at home, you never know, I may use it again.

When we finished for the night, I just climbed into my sleeping bag and put up with the stink of cider, we always slept in our clothes at rally’s for a number of reasons, you never knew if you had to get up quickly, so it wasn’t too bad.

The next morning, I warmed up some water on the camping gas stove, I had to borrow some water off other bikers in a nearby tent because the rally didn’t organise a water supply for the weekend and the farmer didn’t want any of us, all the bikers at the rally not just us, to go anywhere near his house, so I warmed the water up on the gas stove and then added porridge and dried milk powder to the mess tin to bulk it out a little more, we were all going to share this Delicious meal.

Ok, it doesn’t sound to appetizing, but if you are hungry, your hungry, and anything to eat is better than nothing at all.

( Photo 8 ) . Wobble trying to eat the porridge and dried milk concoction, I think it may have benefited from a large amount of salt and pepper.

I shared what I had with Wobble, Shade didn’t want any, because I think he wanted his mother to cook it for him and Roy was still in the land of nod, snoring his head off.

I added salt to my porridge just to give it some flavour, every time we called at a motorway café, I always picked up the little sachets of salt, pepper and a mixture of sources that were at the counters or on the table just for an occasion like this one.

The salt did help to give some taste to the breakfast otherwise the porridge would have tasted like soggy cardboard mashed up into a messy pulp, while myself and Wobble eat our breakfast, I boiled some more water to make tea just to finish off the morning meal, once I made the tea, I left the water boiling on the gas stove, I always took a bag of boiled sweets with me, while the water was boiling I would place two to three of the fruity sweets in to boiling water, usually the red ones first, I would just drop them into the boiling water, eventually the sweets would dissolve in the hot water and then you would have a warm sweet drink full of sugar, this was our version of the energy drink Red Bull back then.

A couple of the rally organisers walked around the site, it was the first time we had seen them since we were at the registration tent yesterday morning, they were informing everyone that there would be a ride-out to a local pub at around mid-day and to meet up around the marquee if anyone wanted to go, this was an opportunity for a quick drink and possibly some real food, we intended popping to the local town later, so this ride-out would help us get to know the area that we would be riding around in.

All green lane hedge rows look the same after a while, so we would make a note of anything that stood out on the way around to help us find the rally again, sign posts would only be found at certain random junctions, it was sometime difficult to find your way through the maze of green lanes that seem to go nowhere.

Mid-day came and the organisers assembled everyone together at the marquee who wanted to go on the ride-out, there were around 20 to 30 + bikes waiting to go, not a lot really considering there supposed to have been more than 200 bikers at the rally.

So off we went, we joined the exodus on the long rough track out of the farmers field and followed the group of bikers and headed down the lane, it was another warm sunny day, great for a ride-out into the countryside with a group of bikers and a couple of pints at the end of it, what more can you ask for.

We travelled around two, maybe two and half miles, and then everyone pulled into a country pub called oddly enough “ THE PLOUGH “.

While we were sitting on the bikes waiting for everyone to find a place to park, wobble leaned over to me and said ” is that it, we had only ridden for a couple of miles, this is all fucked up “.

We found out by talking to the rally organiser why we had only ridden a few miles up the road, the organiser said, the pub is where The Black Bear Club meets, when they have club nights, which is I think fair to bring back some trade for the owners.

But we did expect the ride to last at lest 40-50 miles in a round trip and go somewhere interesting and not just a stone's throw away from the camp site.

I did ask if they were riding on from here to another destination and the answer was “ no, this was the end of the ride out ”, I said “ really, a bit on the short isn’t it “, his reply was “ we didn’t plan on having a ride out at all, we are just here to give the landlord some business “, I said “ ok, it is, what it is “, I turned my back on him and I walked away, it was a waste of time talking to these guys, it looked like they organised this rally just to make money and only put together the basics of a rally to get some gate money for their club, in my opinion this rally was organised for all the wrong reasons, it was all starting to make sense now

I answered wobbles frustration with “ this rally is getting worse by the hour, and anyway we are here now let's get a pint, we may as well make the most of our time here “.

He shrugged his shoulders and said “ fuck it, let's get a couple of pints “.

So we parked up with the other bikers, and sent Shades into the pub to get the pints, after all it was the lest he could do after his diabolic display of riding on the way to the rally, so we lie around in the sunshine in the car park outside the pub while Shades went in to get the drinks, and he managed to get it right, he was good for something.

Roy did not come with us to the pub, we left him in the tent still sleeping, most likely still snoring.

Even on this outing most of the other bikers kept their distance, we spoke to a couple about what bikes they were riding, there was a guy riding a Laverda, so I went over and spoke to him, he was friendly enough and I had a little chat with him, he loved his bike, it was not a Jota, but he was happy with it and did not have one bad comment about the bike, but apart from talking to the laverda rider, not one person would come anywhere near us, we found it all very strange.

( Photo 9 ) . Shades and Wobble relaxing outside the plough pub on our very short ride-out, as you can't see, I was behind the camera again.

We drank our pints in the sunshine, and just relaxed and chilled.

We didn’t stop long there, as there was nothing happening at the pub, some other riders decided to go on a ride-out of their own, I don't blame them, the ride was far to short, so after a little while we also left the pub, leaving most of the other bikers at the pub and headed back to the rally site, before we left the pub we borrowed the empty pint glasses to use at the rally site, we had every intention to take them back after we had finished with them, nearly 40 years later the landlord is still waiting for them.

When we arrived back at the rally site and pulled up outside our tents, Roy was awake and sitting crossed legged in the entrance of the tent, looking very much like a hairy Buddha, he was still looking half asleep, we must have woken him up with arrival of our bikes.

So we told him to get ready as we were not stopping, and we were leaving soon, we had only come back to get him.

Wobble said “ come on Roy, we’re off to the closest town to buy some food, and beer for tonight “.

So this time we all left for our own ride-out, which would be further than two miles.

After checking the map, we found that the closest town was Tewksbury.

So we headed straight there.

The town itself was very busy, there were a lot of people visiting the old place, everyone was taking advantage of the fine weather we were having, everyone knew it would not last.

It was another glorious sunny day, most people were wearing summer clothes, shorts and T-shirts that kind of summer wear, and then there was us walking around in thick black leather jackets with denim cut-off’s over the top of the leather’s and carrying helmets over arms like handbags.

In the car park we pulled up in there was a tourist information board, proudly displaying a street map showing all of the interesting places that could be visited in walking distance from the car park, we liked a bit of historical culture, well I did anyway, but the main priority was the local off license, we needed supply’s for the night, we walked up to the information board, and there was a young couple with their child studying the board, us trying not to be rude just stood behind them and looked over their shoulders, after all they were there first, so they had dibs on the board first, the head of this family, the father turned around, spotted who was standing behind them, and said “ O, my god ” with a look of horror on his face, he then grab his son by the arm and walked off immediately, the wife looked at us and smiled, she looked in the direction of her husband and child and shock her head, she said “ sorry, he is an idiot” and then smiled again and then followed her family, who were now some ten to twenty foot away from us, this meant nothing to us we were used to be treated like leapers, or it could have been Roy towering over him, when the husband turned around he looked directly at Roy’s chest, then he slowly looked up, I suppose he did look a little intimidating.

We wandered around a little and looked at the old Tudor style buildings and then we came across an off-licence on the main street, we popped in to the shop to see what they had on offer, strangely they did not have the same cider or lager that we would have normally bought in the shop, I was thinking at the time, we are not that from the Welsh boarder how can the selection be so different, they did have some lagers and ciders that we knew, but it seemed odd that the selection was so different, it was rude not to buy anything, so we bought a few cans at a more reasonable and affordable price for the evening, and then we went to the local convenience store, the ( CO-OP ) there was one everywhere in any high street back in the day, nowa days you are more likely to come across a ( SPAR ) store than a ( CO-OP ), times have changed.

In the co-op we obtained some crusty white bread rolls and more cheese, cheddar cheese this time, they did not stock exotic foreign cheese like Welsh Caerphilly cheese.

We popped into a fish and chip shop and bought some chips, Roy had a large family size bag of chips with two pies and a large jumbo sausage ( big man, big appetite ), myself and wobble just had a mince pie and small portion of chips, which was more than enough, for some reason Shade’s bought a bag of walkers, salt and vinegar crisps and a Mars bar from the co-op, instead of chips, wobble said to him, “ you need to eat more than that, there’s a long night ahead of you “, shades just shrugged his shoulders, wobble continued “ well, don’t ask for fuck all to eat later, because you will not be getting fuck all from us “, when we buy food/snacks for the evening, we all contribute in paying for them and share the cost, shades refused to do so, we knew from experience that we would be hungry later on in the night, and the only things to eat would be what we took with us, shades had a lot to learn.

We continued our walkabout of Tewksbury, and we spotted an old Tudor building.

We popped into the old building that doubled up as a museum, it housed a diorama of the battle of Tewksbury, which I found interesting.

The battle of Tewksbury took place on 4 May 1471, it is one of the decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses.

It was to hot to hang around and there was nothing else we wanted to see, so we headed back to the rally site and waited for the games to start.

The rally games.

( Photo 10 ) . Roy and Wobble trying to look intelligent in Tewksbury.

As some of you know, the rally games are fun games that everyone can join in to and participate in or just watch from the sideline and enjoy watching people making fools of themselves, it was all part of the fun.

The games could be anything from a tug of war match or throwing things like an old car Tire or even rubber wellington boots, to see how far they be thrown and then there are the bike related games.

There are many options to choice from relating to the bike part of the games for example, slow bike riding over a certain distance, you ride as slow as you possibly can without putting your foot down, it doesn’t sound much, but it is funny to watch especially when there is a crowd of people shouting and laughing, another is ridding with a passenger standing on the pillion seat while the rider tries to ride around tight corners again without putting his foot down or maybe a makeshift ramp would be set up so anyone that fancied themselves as Evel Knievel would attempt to jump the furthest over the ramp and landing safely, in most cases using your own bike.

The prizes would be a can of beer or cider or if you were lucky a trophy of some kind.

But none of these bike games happened at this rally.

Instead the rally organisers put on some of the following :-

Dizzy stick.

Egg throwing.

Custard eating.

Mr. wet t-shirt.

Miss y-fronts.

Plus, other bizarre village fair stuff.

Custard eating for fuck’s sake.

There were no riding games whatsoever.

( Photo 11 ) . Example of one of the bike games, this was obviously not from the drunken bear rally, but from another rally that the LAZY RIDERS m.m.c. attended.

I approached one of the rally organisers and asked him why there were no bike games and all this country fair bollocks instead, his reply was what I expected, he said “ it was for health and safety reasons”, he also added “ just in case someone hurts themselves, because we do not have any insurance to cover it “.

I said, a little annoyed with his attitude ” you are fucking kidding, it's more dangerous riding up that fucking farm track that leads up to the rally field than any of the bike games, You should rename this rally, and stop calling it the Drunken Bear and call it the Namby fucking Pamby rally instead ”.

I don’t think he appreciated my suggestion, he tried to speak, he stuttered his words, I had just made him very nervous, I don't think he was expecting to get this kind of response to his answer.

He said “ why did you come to the rally if you are not happy with it “.

My reply “ not happy with it, that’s a fucking joke, don't worry we will not be coming to this rally again “.

He was not happy with the way I spoke to him, and walked away in a kind of huff without saying word, the guy was a wimp, he really should have told me to fuck off, if he didn't like what I had said to him, all he did was pretend I didn't exist.

( if I was talking to the guy in this day and age, I would have called it the snowflake rally ).

Well this rally just put another nail in its coffin as far as I was concerned.

We didn’t bother watching the games and went back to the tents.

At the tents we just lie around in the sunshine waiting for the sun to go down and the evening to come.

We were going to enjoy ourselves if it killed us, we just relaxed in the sun and talked shit about stuff.

One of the topics of our conversation was there was no large groups of clubs at the rally, this was very different from other rallies we went too, there were maybe a group of 3, maybe 4 bikers who had arrived together, just as we did, so there seemed to be a lot of smaller groups and not many of them seemed to know each other, and not many of them seemed to be very keen on mixing with the others.

Wobble tried talking to some of them, and wobble will talk to anyone and keep a conversation going for ages just talking about one subject, even if no-one was listening, he wasn’t getting a lot of response from these guys, they just didn't want to know.

Wobble said to me “ frog, have you noticed something about this rally “.

I answered “ there’s fuck all to notice, there is nothing going on”.

He said “ can you see the bonfire “.

I replied “ no, I have not seen it, I must have missed them building it, where have they set it up “.

I was thinking that they had built it away from the tents, going by their over the top approach to safety, ( we don’t want a tent to catch fire do we, safety first ), fucking idiots, of course that’s my opinion.

We were all pissed off with this rally by this time

Wobble answered “ you can't see it because there isn’t one “.

I said “ What, no bonfire, for fuck’s sake why not, can this rally get any worse “.

Wobble continued he said ” yeah, I was looking for the bonfire and I couldn’t believe it, when one of the rally marshals told me that they didn't have one “.

Wobble had been speaking to one of the guys in the registration tent, he told wobble that they were not having one because of safety reasons.

So the evening came, the sun went down, and we eat our crusty cheese rolls and then decided to buy a couple of cans from the Beer / Disco marquee just to put some money over the bar into the club that was running this rally, we were not happy with the rally, but we thought they had made an effort to organise a rally, and should be rewarded for that, and hopefully having more cash in their club, it may help them organise a rally in the future with a little bit more content.

I said to the guys, ” let's go down to the marquee and get a couple of cold cans ”, all our cans that we had bought earlier in Tewksbury had warmed up throughout the hot day, we would drink them later, even if they were warm, but there is always room for a cold beer or cider.

So We headed down to the beer tent, we could hear the music, Roy said ” what the fuck is that track, because, I don’t know it “, both myself and wobble said that we had never heard it before.

( Photo 12 ) . Some of the bikers at the rally and the white tent in the background was the large Marquee beer/disco tent.

There we a few people in the tent, it looked quite full this time, much better than Friday night, filling the tent was not that hard considering the size of the tent.

The DJ was banging out his music as loud as his music kit could manage, we went straight to the makeshift bar.

Again there was no-one waiting to be served, there were two guys serving behind the bar this time, it was the same set up as before with the bucket of water cooling the cans, the bucket this time was placed behind the table, I asked the guy, shouting over the music “ I’ll have two cans of larger please “, he placed both the cold cans dripping wet from the bucket on to the table, and started to flick the pull rings back on the top of the cans, and he opened both cans.

I said “ whoa, what the fuck are you doing “.

He said “ opening your cans “.

I replied “ yes, I know I can see that, I can open my own cans thanks, I don’t want the second one, it’s open, I want a sealed one “.

He said “ I’ve opened it now “.

I said “ I don’t give a fuck, give me another one please, you drink it then, if your that keen on opening them “.

I did say please it was force of habit we were all brought up to say please and thank you, it becomes automatic after a while even when you are pissed off with someone and I didn't want to frighten him too much, he looked terrified.

He stared at me and said “ I have been told to open the cans “.

I replied ” yes, well maybe you have, but not my can’s, I don’t give shit, I want a sealed one, you can keep the second one, just give me a fresh one “.

He looked around to the other guy next to him behind the bar, and they looked at each other and then the other barman said “ give him a different can “.

Roy said “ for fuck’s sake frog, hurry up I want a cold drink “.

I walked away with my cans and put the unopened one into the hidden inside pocket that I had sewn into my cut-off just for times like these, and then I could see Roy leaning over with both hands on the table and I could hear him say to the guy “ two cans unopened “.

( Photo 13 ) . This photo was taken after we left the beer tent, from the left Big Roy, myself (Phil Frog) and then Shades, the pint glass’s that we are drinking from, we borrowed from the pub run that we went too earlier in the day, Wobbles pint tankard is in the foreground because he was taking the photo.

We all had our beer and found a spot against the tent wall and all sat down leaning against the canvas, wobble nudged me and pointed to a sign above our heads the sign was written on a piece of white A4 paper and taped onto the canvas wall with duct-tape.

The sign said ” Do not lean against the tent wall “, this made us laugh, wobble said ” I can't see anyone telling us to move “.

Roy said “ what the fuck is that DJ playing, it’s fucking shit music “.

Shades replied “ it’s MOSH music “.

Roy said “ it’s shit, whatever you call it “.

Myself and wobble were thinking the same thing.

We noticed all evening that we were getting what I would call nervous glances off some of the younger bikers that were in the tent, there was no prolonged eye contact, everyone seemed to be not making an effort, of not looking in our direction for any length of time, looking over and looking away just as quick, it was happening all the time and it became noticeable after a little while.

I said “ why the fuck are some of these guys looking at us, like that all the time “.

Wobble said “ yeah I noticed that, strange fuckers “.

Shades shouted over the music “ it’s because they are scared of you lot, why do you think nobody has pitched their tents by us “.

Wobble said “ what the fuck for, were not going to cause any trouble, these guys need to grow up a bit “.

I had been having my doubts about this rally and this Mosh/Disco bollocks had just confirmed it.

The rally was for a new generation of bikers some of them wore cut-offs with no motorcycle related badges, the denims were covered with rock groups and anarchy patches, don’t get me wrong there is no right or wrong way to put whatever cloth badges you want on your jackets, but the majority of the bikers there had no bike related patches/badges at all.

The DJ was playing tracks that we had never heard before, and to be honest don’t want to hear again, in our opinion these had no musical content to them, in fact they were shit.

The rally organisers were really non-existent, unlike other rallies where they were part of the same kind of community of bikers and enjoyed the rally just like everyone else.

These guys were treating this rally like a business.

Well, it was very different, to all the other rallies we had been too.

It felt different, not seeing any regular faces that we would normally see at other rallies didn’t help the situation.

( Photo 14 ) . Bikers waiting for the games to start, lovely warm day.

After an hour or less, we said fuck it, we’ll have our own party back at tent, we have a transistor radio, and we could listen to some proper music instead of this Mosh bollocks and there we can smoke some blow and be in our own company away from all these strange furtive glances we were getting.

We left the beer tent, and just up ahead in front of us were a group of three young bikers who had just left the marquee before us, they were just walking to wherever they were going and chatting as we all do, while they were walking in front of us, wobble had noticed something in the gloom of the night, he said “ what the fuck are they doing “ and he pointed towards the small group just ahead of us.

I looked and I could see, even in the twilight of the evening what wobble was pointing out.

The three youngsters were walking, but without showing each other were pouring their cans of cider out on to the ground and trying not to show each other that they were doing so.

I said “ what the fuck are they doing that for “.

Shades answered my open question, he said all his mates do the same, they do it, so they can say and pretend that’s they have drunk more cans than they really have done, and they can brag about how many cans of Larger/Cider that they had drunk the night before.

I said “ I still don’t get it “.

Wobble said “ what’s the big deal, and who gives a fuck how much you have drunk, it just looks like a waste of cider to me “.

All Roy said was “ fucking idiots “.

Wobble said to everyone “ what the fuck is going on in this rally “.

I said to shades “ at lest they pour their cans over the grass, and not in someone’s sleeping bag “.

We got back to the tent, we got the weed going, switched the radio on and shared out the remaining cheese and just chilled drinking our warm cans of cider and larger.

Shades was completely spaced out in a very short time, I don’t think he was very used to this kind of lifestyle and in his multicoloured rainbowed psychedelic world manage to tip almost a complete can of cider over my sleeping bag again, which didn’t go down well.

Either he was very clumsy, or maybe doing it on purpose, or he was just a complete idiot, to be honest I was beginning to think he was all three of these options rolled into one.

At this stage in the night, it didn’t seem to matter, we had been drinking and the blow had relaxed our attitude to life and everything was good with the world.

( Photo 15 ) Us chilling back at the tent after we left the Marquee.

The Sunday morning we packed up and made the bikes ready for the trip home back to Wales.

Shades pissed wobble off in the morning, wobble had boiled some water on his solid burner stove, this stove uses solid blocks of fuel a bit like firelighters, and they would burn slowly giving off heat in a flat metal square container which is used multiple times, it was type of stove used by the armed forces, wobble was busy strapping his camping kit on to his bike and has he waited for the burner to cool down, he asked shades to put the burner away for him, if it was cool enough to handle, shade put it away alright, by stamping it into the ground and mangling it out of shape, wobble was not to pleased with his effort.

Normally before we left the rally to head home we would say our goodbyes to the new people we had meet at the rally, and to old friends and give our thanks to the club that organised the rally, but at this rally there was nothing to say, so we just left and rode off, we left when they were giving out the trophy’s for the games and the awards for best turn out etc, I don't think we won anything, and we could not be bothered to pick it up even if we did win anything, we were not interested.

On the way back home, we stopped off at the sign we had spotted a few days earlier, the sign with ” DRINKERS END “ displayed in bold letters, we pulled on to the green verge, I told Roy and wobble to do something for the photo, so wobble climbed onto Roy’s shoulders, and they both stood under the sign, as I took a couple of photos, I could see my Z 1000 slowly sinking into the soft grass,

Normally I would put one of my gloves under the side stand to stop this kind of thing happening, but on this occasion it was a quick stop for a photo, so I didn’t think I needed too.

( Photo 16 ) . The drinkers end photo with Wobble sitting on Roy’s shoulder with my kwaka slowly sinking into ground on the left-hand side.

I dropped the camera on to the grass and rushed to the bike, I stopped her sinking further into the ground and then pulled her back up right dragging a large lump of damp sodden earth out of the ground.

While this was happening shades was still on his bike speeding back and forth up the lane, if he had come back impaled on the front of a tractor, I don’t think we would have given a shit, we were fed up with him at this stage in the weekend.

He was an idiot, and we had given up on him.

On the way back home, we stopped off at Raglan Castle just for a look around, which made up for some of the disappointment of the weekend.

We scratched this rally of our list, and we would not be recommending this one to anyone, and we would definitely not be going back next year.

The most notable events of the rally which will always stay with me was watching a stray dog shit on someone’s tent, we were so pissed off with nothing happening, I took a photo of it and not forgetting the clothes line in the farmhouse garden with 20 pairs of white sport soaks hanging on the clothes line, and I think those two outstanding memories really encapsulate the whole rally, let's face it taking photos of a dog crapping on someone’s tent and watching a clothes line should not be the things you remember about a rally.

I would not be understating anything in saying that the ( DRUNKEN BEAR ) rally was a great disappointment to us.

The rally was a shadow of what we were used to compared with other previous similar types of rallies over the passed decade or so, and it did not live up to what we were expecting on so many levels, we did miss sitting around the bonfire at the end of the night, and watching the fire dancers running through the middle of the fire.

Brian would have been tamping, if he had come with us, believe me he missed nothing.

Roy and shades dropped off the bike scene for a while, they both had free holidays courtesy of her majesty, for two totally unrelated events, shades had a much longer time away then Roy, and that is all the details and information that will be written about that subject, it's their business and nobody else’s, nuff said.

Shades never rode with us again after this weekend which was not his choice.

This rally and the (Mendip Rally) is the only rally that I can remember that DYLAN did not attend, I don’t think he would have enjoyed it anyway.

Times were a changing on the rally scene, but we made the most of the weekends glorious weather to ride around in, a few pints with some friends, and we still made our own fun and enjoyed the weekend even if the rally was crap