RALLY`S

CHAPTER 30

RALLY’S

( Photo 1 ) . A very apt image, this picture tells a thousand stories.

If you never went or attended a motorcycle rally during the 70s and 80s, you may not understand the attraction it created amongst bikers of that time period.

So, this is my attempt to try and explain what these rally’s were all about and the fascination it had over the young bikers during that time.

I do know, going by the reaction of my friends and myself that after you went to your first rally you would look forward in anticipation for the next one to come around.

These weekend bike rallies should not be confused with M.A.G. rallies, which were a totally different kettle of fish, M.A.G. stands for MOTORCYCLE. ACTION. GROUP.

The officials of M.A.G. would organise an event putting the word out to its members and motorcycle clubs across the country, and even contacting many individuals who were not directly part of the M.A.G. movement, but would be sympathetic with the issues that M.A.G. were endorsing, there would be a run organised for a certain day at a certain time, the run could be anywhere in the country.

( a run is a collection/group of bikers that ride together and a have a joint destination in mind ).

These runs were attended by hundreds or even thousands of bikers, the events were very well-organised, with times and routes sorted out well in advance, everything was planned with every detail covered, the run was intended to be a vehicle to highlight and draw attention to bikers rights which during this time period didn’t seem to exist.

I attend a few of these rallies back in the day, one in particular, which I think was in the mid 70s in Cardiff city center was held at Sophia Gardens next to Cardiff castle, the run was huge with the attendance of hundreds of bikers from all over the country.

At a rally like this, you would ride around a town slowing up traffic and causing disruption to the everyday life of the average commuter, this was done so it would bring any points that the M.A.G. organizers wanted to highlight to the general public and to the government and especially the media.

Holding this the run would cause the event to be in the local paper and maybe the national papers and with a bit of luck some TV coverage, if the run was big enough that is, many bikers would ride not wearing a crash helmet, this would be a protest against the helmet law.

The police would do nothing about them not wearing a helmet, has there were to many bikers to arrest or caution.

It would have been nice to have a choice of wearing a helmet or not, but I think the helmet law from a personnel view was one of the better laws that the police enforced.

I think statistics will show that without a question, that the compulsory helmet law saved many lives and serious head injuries over the years.

I must admit it was a great feeling riding in a group of hundreds of other bikers.

An experience everyone should have at lest once in their lifetime.

A WEEKEND BIKE RALLY.

With the MAG rallies to one side, a weekend bike rally was basically a group of like-minded bikers getting Pissed ( drunk ) in a muddy field all weekend.

A weekend bike rally had to be announced in a popular bike magazine or a motorcycle related paper, there were many choices of bike magazines to pick from, you would always find an advert for a rally in nearly every bike magazine.

There was no internet back then, and there was no other way of informing people that there was a rally planed and posting an advert in a bike magazine would have received responses from all over Britain and in some cases even Europe.

The adverts would be placed in magazine publications like, Backstreet Heroes, Bike Magazine, Motorcycle Mechanics, etc, there were many motorcycle magazines choices,

it was really the only way to get the message out to the same like-minded people who were interested in spending three days in a muddy field surrounded by even muddier bikes and getting pissed in front of a huge bonfire.

If the rally interested you, the usual procedure would be to decide how many tickets you required and once that was decided you would post your request which would have the postal order or the Cheque inside the letter and you would include a number of return postage stamps for the tickets and then all you had to do was wait for a reply.

The time it took for you to receive the rally package depended on how efficient the rally organisers where and how long it took for your cheque or postal order to clear in the bank, there was no way it could be any quicker.

Nobody I knew back then had a credit card and there was no way you could pay for anything over the phone, so everything had to be done by post.

Everything was much slower back then, which was not a bad thing.

The rally organisers reply would turn up in a week or two if you were lucky.

( Photo 2 ) . One of my old rally tickets from 1982.

The rally itself would normally have a limited amount of tickets available for attendance, this was dictated by the laws that control a group of people gathering together and the purpose why they were meeting in great numbers, the road traffic requirements and health and safety aspect of the rally, not that this was a big issue back then, we never really considered any of these aspects of allowing a rally as a problem, I think the authorities were not that bothered as long as we did not cause any serious trouble, and as long no-one crossed the line and caused a major upset at a rally or the surrounding area, normally after a little discussion with the authorities a rally always had the go ahead and if the rally went well it would be allowed the following year.

All this was all controlled and required the permission of the police and the local council to hold such an event.

The size of the rally could range between 200-300 bikers, it depended on the size of the venue and the club that was running the rally.

All rallies were the same and at the same time, it can be said that they were all very different.

Ok, I’ll explain why I just made the previous statement.

This can be said, because of the makeup of the rally’s themselves.

They were normally held in large fields either on the outskirts of a small village or in a remote field in the middle of nowhere.

There were exceptions like a horse racing track and maybe some other places which I can't think of at the moment, but anywhere that a group of bikers were allowed camp, usually the rally would be tucked away in rural country areas.

The rally would be placed well away from highly populated area’s, the reason for this was most likely on the request of the local council and the police, they would get fewer complaints from the general public if we were not located within whinging distance, like the man says out of sight out of mind.

Britain being Britain, and not being a very large island compared to many other landmasses in the world, there would always be a village or a small town not to far way from the rally site, this was a benefit to us really, it gave us a reason to have, what they call nowa days call a ride-out to visit the local area, we called them runs back in the day.

This ride-out would normally happen around midday on the Saturday either as a group of friends or organised by the club running the rally.

Rain or shine we would be out and about riding our bikes and searching for somewhere to buy something to eat or just to kill time before the silly rally games start.

A typical rally site had one main entrance, which by the end of the day was a mud bath if it happens to be a wet weekend.

Normally there would be one large marquee tent placed somewhere on a flat area on the field, which had many uses for the weekend.

It would be used as the main venue for the beer tent, maybe this was where you could get a cooked breakfast in the morning, if the rally had one set up, it was not always the case, some rallies were just fields with tents and no facilities at all not even a chemical toilet, most of the time, if there were no toilets, we just found a hedge, if the rally had toilets, by the second day the toilets would have been in a disgusting state as nobody cleaned them and it was quite possible that if you used one in this condition you could go home with some kind of unwanted bug and a memory you didn’t want.

The marquee would also be used as the registration tent, sometimes there was a smaller tent used for this purpose which seemed a little pointless in my opinion.

The main beer tent ( marquee ) was also used as the Disco or any events that were put on in the evening, sometimes a live band, on the Sunday at the end of the rally weekend the marquee would also be used for the prize award giving ceremony.

( Photo 3 ) . People queuing up at the rally marquee, the why for, reason escapes me now, this photo was taken at one of the Vine rally’s in the early 80s.

Clare, Brian's then girlfriend is talking to Wobble and Dylan, who are sitting on the bikes, it looks like they had just arrived at the rally, Myself and Gaenor are walking away, Brian was behind the camera.

Some of the rally’s were lucky to have a pub nearby the rally site, take for example “ The Behind The Vine Rally “ which was in Essex in England, this rally had a pub right next to the rally site, in fact the rally was held directly behind the pub in a field right next to the pub.

The pub was called the ( VINE ) and the rally being directly behind it gave the name to the rally.

This rally also boasted a village hall which was used for the evening disco and other events like the wet t-shirt games which a lot of the girls seemed to be very eager to be part of, well you get a free rally t-shirt if you got up on stage and had a bucket of water thrown over your head, I did ask if I could do it but they wouldn’t let me, I was missing a couple of bodily items to qualify for the game, so I was told.

They also had a knobbley knees event for the guys and other indoor fun games, it gave everyone a laugh and nobody felt offended back then by any of the stuff that was done and said and it was always taken as a bit of fun with no issues.

It was just fun.

Like I say, you may have had to wait a couple of weeks for the rally pack to turn up at your door from the rally organisers.

The contents would normally hold a photo copied hand drawn map on the location of the rally, the tickets for the rally, a leaflet which had country wide directions and some instructions for anyone to find the rally off the main roads and motorways and sometimes an itinerary of the weekend events.

It was always better to ride in a group, you have to remember there were no mobile phones back then, so you had to rely on your friends if a problem arose.

If you rode up to a rally on your own and you had a problem with your bike you could be stuck all weekend in the middle of nowhere and unless you walked to the nearest phone box, no one would know where you were or if even if you had a problem and then you would need to phone home which would be many miles away from your location.

Breaking down in the middle of the countryside and not knowing the area is no fun, but there again you have a tent so not everything was bad and at lest you could have a camping weekend even if it was not the one you were hoping for.

So the morale of the story is always ride in a group and it's more fun riding with other bikers anyway, after all a bike rally is a group event.

If the average biker back in the day wanted to travel any real distance away from his hometown, he would need to have some skill level in reading a map, because only paper maps were available, this map would either be taped to your tank or if you had a tank bag there would normally be a clear plastic A4 size section on the top of the tank bag for the map to be placed so you can see the map without the bother of stopping and taking your gloves off, then unzipping your jacket and taking the map out to see if you are still on the right road.

There was no G.P.S. back then, it just didn’t exist, it was a few years before that technology became available for the ordinary traveler on the road.

If you were lost, you were lost, and then you would need to ride around until you found the correct road to follow and believe being lost in a remote green hedged country lane and not knowing the area is no joke and a waste of your time.

You would also need to have some hands on mechanical ability if you wanted to get to your destination.

Sitting on the side of a road far from home is a miserable state to be in, I have fixed a puncture many times on the side of the road, after a while I became came very good at it, because I was so used to it doing it, it looked more like a pit stop at formula 1 race meeting, most of the time I would fix the puncture with the wheel still on the bike.

I found that having regular punctures was the main problem with buying part worn x police bike tires, with only a few mill’s left on the tread, they were good for a few miles, but not to far, I always rode them until I had no option to change them, fixing a puncture was a pain, but it saved me a lot of money in the long run.

I always carried a full tool kit on my bike, it took up room but it was always worth it, my tool kit would include a puncture outfit with extra everything rammed into the little square tin and with all the tools necessary to fix most road side breakdowns.

I think most bikers of the time had a good selection of tools with them, when they rode anywhere far.

( Photo 4 ) . Waiting to go onto the rally field, this was somewhere down Southampton way.

I also carried a can of W.D.40 and a very appropriately named can of Frog Juice which I kept for dire emergencies, frog juice was like (Tire Weld ).

Frog juice would fix and pump up your Tire and make it ride-able again after a small puncture for a temporary period, it was a one use product and ruined the inside of your rubber tube or Tire if it was tubeless, it would get you home if you didn’t live too far from home or get you to the nearest garage, the instructions on the product would inform you to drive carefully and not to far, and not exceed the 30 mph speed limit and was for emergencies only and only travel a short distance.

I know one of the boys who used a can of Tire weld to fix a puncture and rode the bike normally for around two months after using it on the puncture and only changed the tire when the actual tire wore out, he had to change it for an M.O.T. as the tire was so worn down there was no tread left.

Thankfully I never had to use my frog juice, I still have the can, it in my Swag-man Sling over panniers, that I have still managed to keep after all these years.

It was also important to keep a mental note of how far you had traveled mainly because of the capacity and size of your petrol tank.

The type of bike and how you were riding dictated the fuel consumption, it was always necessary to keep an eye on how much petrol you had in the tank, some models of bikes had fuel gauges on the instrument panel, but most bikes of the time did not have one of these handy tell-tail dials, if you did not have one the only way of knowing how much petrol you had left in the tank was when you looked into the tank, you could also move the bike too and fro from side to side and listen to the petrol sloshing around inside the tank and guessing how much you had left and make a wild guess on far you could travel without topping the tank buck up.

Once you left the main roads and started to enter into the countryside, you would never know when and where the next petrol station was and if it was open, smaller petrol station in the countryside did not open 24/7 like the ones you find at the motorway stations and these country folk kept their own hours that suited them, especially the ones off the beaten track that relied on local people for their everyday custom.

No-one I knew back then had any A.A. or R.A.C. rescue insurance cover, if you broke down, you fixed it or left the bike there until it could be picked up at a more convenient time.

Most of the time bikes were fixed at the side of the road unless there was something major like a dropped valve or gearbox trouble, I was on one run when someone’s bike had the crankshaft dropped out of the bottom of the engine, if it was any problem like that sort, the bike was dead and not going anywhere.

Even if someone fell off on the trip up to the rally, the bike and the rider would be dusted off and the bike bent back into shape and you would be back on the road again, if the rider didn’t need an ambulance, he would just get back on the bike and carry on riding to the rally.

If you were lucky, the rally organisers would have some homemade direction arrows on the roads about a mile or so out from the rally site, you would soon join up with other bikers on the road who were heading in the same direction.

( photo 5 ) , This how a typical rally site looked like, when it was dry.

( Photo 6 ) . A typical rally field with the old type of ridged tents.

Once you arrive at the rally site, the first thing you would see will be an open five bar field gate, this would be the entrance to the rally site, the gateway would be totally unattended by anyone from the club that were running the weekend event.

It was never necessary to have anyone on the entrance, everyone who was attending the rally would have had a rally ticket in the post and this kind of events were not somewhere you could randomly gatecrash, having 300 plus scruffy unwashed mud covered bikers milling around, may well have been too intimidating for any would be party crasher, the average person would have stayed miles away from the area, so there was no need for any entry control at the gate entrance.

( Photo 7 ) . One of my old rally badges.

Somewhere on the rally field there would be a large white well-used looking marquee, and this large tent would be one of your first stops, when you arrive at the rally site.

The field would be scattered with randomly placed tents, there was never any organised layout, every tent was placed down in a random fashion in small groups of friends or just placed near some hedge for shelter, near these tents there would be hundreds of bikes parked alone side their owners tents, this was done to keep an eye on the bike and to find your tent again, as many tents looked exactly the same, especially in the dark, my group of friend always took a large Welsh flag with a large fuck off red dragon, this was draped across two tents so any late arriving friends could find where we were on the rally field, if you have read any of my other blogs you will know how we obtained the flag.

( Frog and the flagpole ).

Once your camping place was chosen you would make your way to the booking-in tent.

There you would register your arrival and show your ticket number to the guys sitting behind a wallpaper pasting table that would be set up in the tent, this table would have a number of uses although the weekend, it could be a bar or a breakfast table and may end up at the end of the weekend as a place to display the rally trophies.

After registering you would receive a number of goodies.

What you would receive depended on how well off the club was that organised the rally, the goodies you received for turning up, was a compulsory enamel rally badge, this badge was exclusive for that particular rally, sometimes a number of stickers with the same rally image as the badge and maybe a booklet or a single A4 sheet of paper with details of the weekend events at the rally, this A4 sheet would highlight the details of the times for the games, tug of war etc, and the whereabouts of the disco and maybe a local biker friendly pub, some enterprising clubs had bobbles hats and t-shirts with the club or rally images displayed on them, these would be up for sale for anyone interested in buying them.

If it had rained on the way up to the rally, all you're biking kit would be wet, so it was common to see gloves hanging off handlebars and other bike gear draped over bikes and tents, hoping they would dry out before the end of the weekend for the ride home.

You could quite safely leave your kit lying around outside or inside your tent, there was never any danger of any theft or anything going missing, even in the evening when it was dark, all your kit was left in the tent.

I never knew of anyone having anything stolen.

The rally was basically a reason to get drunk in a field for the weekend and making new friends and of course the ride itself, this would give you an opportunity to see another part of the country which you may never had a reason to see.

Water was normally obtained from a single stand-pipe with a Brass tap ( water forcette, if your American ) which were fitted to the outside of a stable or a pigsty or were very commonalty found in the middle of a field over an animal water trough.

No corner shop back in the 70s or 80s sold bottles of water and no-one in their right mind would spend good money on spring water in a bottle, if it was free from a tap.

The only other option in obtaining water was from a pub, if you were lucky and the rally site was near or close to a pub, and they would let you in, you could always pop into the toilet and fill up an empty lager can or if you were lucky to have a glass bottle handy from the sink tap, most bottles back then were made from glass not plastic.

Most people drank alcohol on rally weekends, but water was needed for washing and maybe a cup of tea or coffee in the morning, after a few years I learned to take a vacuum flask of hot water with me and keep it for the morning to make tea.

Before 1988, pub’s closed for two and a half hours every day between the hours of 15:00 ( 3.00 pm ) and 17:30 ( 5:30 pm ), just to make everything a little more difficult.

The standpipe and the pub toilets were the only option to wash your hands or wash your cooking equipment, like army mess tins, after you had cooked your beans in them, they got very messy.

Everything back then was very rudimentary and rustic.

I also went to a few rallies that did not supply toilets facility’s or just possibly one mobile toilet which brought on some unique and interesting problem solving scenarios, taking your own toilet paper was always a good idea.

Average petrol prices in the UK in 1980,1986,2020.

Year Gallon / Liter

1980 £1:26p / 28p.

1986 £1:73p / 38p.

2020 £5:45p / £1.19p.

Going to bike rallies, you tended to meet up with other bikers that have also been to the same rallies as you had previously been on, and after a while these bikers became casual friends that you would only see at rally weekends.

A large bonfire was always expected and sometimes a small fireworks display was put on or you could take your own, there were no rules and it became a bit of a ritual of some bikers running through the middle of the bonfires, some people did this on very regular occasions.

You know who you fire walkers are ( Brian ).

( Photo 8 ) A tug of war game, we won a few of these with trophy’s to prove it, this photo show PJ in front, I am directly behind him with Beaker and Fat Mike behind me, in front of PJ out of the photo is Bridgeman, Simon and Galen are watching from the crowd, I have no idea what rally this was.

Come on, we all like fireworks, you are never too old for a Ho Ah watching the night sky light up in various colours for a few fleeting seconds, well I know I did, especially when there was no light pollution and the area was only lite up by the bonfire.

The sky would be black with only the stars casting any form of light, that is of course if there were no clouds trying to spoil the atmosphere.

On the Sunday with the weekend festivities over, there would be a great number of people packing up their tents and their gear and starting to leave to make the trip back home .

The last thing the rally organisers would do before everyone stated to leave was to present the rally prizes, there would be a number of sections to be awarded, tug of war, furthest foreigner traveller, best club turnout, plus others, I remember joss Batey or Simon, I could never tell which one, as they were twins, well one of them won the furthest foreigner traveller at one of the Vine rally’s for riding from Berlin in Germany to the rally in England and him being welsh also qualified for the most travelled foreigner, I believe this award may have been a little on the dodgy side as whoever which batey it was, had ridden back to Wales first and then continued on to the rally in England on a different bike that he used to ride from Berlin and it may have been a week earlier that he did his German trip.

Sometimes we would leave as a group and often as not in smaller groups and not necessarily with the same people that you rode up with, after the rally weekend it would take a week or more to get over it, I know it did for me.

Today 19 years into the new millennium a large number of things have changed at weekend bike rally’s.

Gone are the days where you would ride into a muddy field and pitch your heavy cotton ridged tent with its unbending steel poles, nowa days the modern bikers use the light pop up tents and there is no need to take any food or cooking equipment as there are mobile food and drink outlets available on site, I have been told that many modern born again bikers just show their faces, and only spend a couple of hours at the rally and ride back home before it gets dark.

Some of these food/drink outlets take the form of Gin and Cocktail and Whiskey bars and oriental take away outlets and not forgetting the Burger vans and Trade stand area and the Custom show.

Some rallies actually allow cars at a bike rally. Sacrilege.

Disabled cars I can understand or a biker who can not ride because of an accident or some other ailment and can only attend by using a car because his or her bike is wreaked, this I can understand, but not normal cars, in my opinion if there are standard road going cars at a bike rally it's not a fucking bike rally, you may as well rename the rally as a country fair with bikes welcome.

No fires allowed anymore, no dogs and god knows what else, most likely the rally would be cancelled if there is any danger of it raining, just in case someone slips on the newly mowed grass.

( Photo 9 ) One of the many trophies we won, this one was for the best club turnout in 1979 at the vine rally.

The type of biker that attend these new type of rally’s as changed beyond recognition.

They all seem to look the same with their immaculately manicured grey hair with their trimmed goatee beards and their immaculate black leather waistcoat’s wrapped around their beer belly’s and the way some of these guys ride, they give me the impression that they have only had a full bike licence for about a month and of course most of them are riding ridiculously overpriced factory custom tractors straight off the Harley-Davidson show room floor, many of them look like clones from the TV series ( Sons of Anarchy ).

There is every likelihood that a very few of these bikes have ever gone over 45 mph.

These middle-aged bikers are even cleaner then their shiny show room bikes, they must spend more time on their image then ridding, I’m not saying they are all like this, but the majority that I have seen are.

Time has moved on and maybe it has left me behind, who knows and who cares, I know I don’t, there are bikers and there are people who own motorcycles, I know which is which,y opinion of course.

I dare say there are many old type rally’s still out there and the old type of biker, still riding around that clock up more than 500 miles a year.

At lest I do not have to suffer watching these weekend road warriors riding around when it rains.

I am very glad I went to the rally’s during the 70s and 80s and not the present day.

I can't start to imagine what the next generation of bikers will be riding around on or what they will look like.

Most likely they will be zipping around on silent electrically powered scooters, wearing inflatable body armor and wearing electronically illuminated bright orange day glow riding gear with a rain warning HUD device fitted to their visor.

Well my rant is over and that is how I remember how the rallies were set up back in the day, and I would not have missed it for the world, I would do it all over again, without question in a heart beat.

( Photo 10 ) . Me after a rally weekend.

(Photo 11 ). A typical scene at rally on the Sunday morning.