The idea is to visit a number of waypoints around the edge of Herefordshire within an eight to ten hour period, including a compulsory half hour stop. You set your own route but to gain a "Gold" award the minimum distance you will travel is about 160 miles, to which you need to add your mileage to and from the start point. The majority of the waypoints change each year so you cannot simply use last year's route.
Roger Gwynn and I rode together this year. It was Roger's first attempt but my fifth. I had booked in to ride my newly restored 1935 built (1936 model year) LG250 but the extremely hot weather of late had restricted my intended test rides with the result that I left home with a mere 41 miles on the clock! Roger kindly rode his 1940 VA500 on the grounds that it should be slow enough to match the (running in) performance of the LG250. We started at the southern start point, some 24 miles from home at 8-30am and travelled clockwise round the County. As may be imagined, to be close to the County border, many of the waypoints are on minor roads and you have to use a very high proportion of such roads in order to keep the distance travelled down to a sensible amount. Typically, you are talking single track roads, often with grass or a fair depth of mud in the centre and an abundance of potholes. Indeed, Roger claimed one road to be the worst he had ever ridden over, in the UK or abroad! I had ridden that road before when it included the unique sign "Unsuitable for Heavy Goods Vehicles and Cyclists". Why cyclists, you might wonder? One section of the road, about 1/2 mile long, is between vertical banks either side, barely wide enough for a car, a good 2 to 3 inches of hardened mud in the centre of the road and just enough room to ride just to the left of the mud without catching the handlebar end on the vertical bank. Out of the vertical bank stick lengths of nettle, bramble and other such pleasant delights so any cyclist silly enough to ride the road with bare arms and legs would be severely stung and lacerated by the end of this section. Added to that it is pretty steep down hill and probably impossible to turn round on, due to its narrowness. Great fun!
The VMCC covers any two wheeled machine over 25 years old so the variety used by the 100 or so entrants is huge, including what to me are modern machines like Ducatis and even an electric machine.
So how did we get on? Both of us completed the event to Gold Medal standard and additionally received awards for riding Girder Forked machines, together with 150 awards for the combined age of rider and bike exceeding 150. Hmmm. The best comment from another entrant (riding a trail bike no more than about 30 years old) went along the lines of "How on earth did you two manage to finish before us on those old bikes?"
Total mileage for the day for us both was 203 miles and according to Roger's satnav we averaged about 28mph when moving. I led for most of the way using my roller route for navigation but we did find that the satnav was better at locating which particular telegraph pole was the waypoint so Roger used to pass me to find those.
En route, Roger had zero mechanical problems.
For me, an early issue of the LG250 jumping out of third gear was due to rider error. I need to move the gear lever one spline clockwise to suit my riding style. The kickstart end pushrod adjuster needed lengthening by half a turn and, although we made it to the finish, it was necessary to adjust the points gap (due to wear on the heel of the points which are not completely square against the cam ring) before the bike would start for the trip back home.
A great day's ride through some fabulous scenery sums up the event so our thanks are very much due to the organisers. The event is usually advertised in Cheval so UK members might want to consider entering next year. Day VMCC membership is included in the pretty nominal entry fee for those who are not already VMCC members.
Roll on next year!
