The
Saundersfoot
weekend, September 2019.
(Click any
photo to see a larger picture - then just follow the slide show.)
South Wales section entrants:
Bruce and Di - 1975 Honda 400/4
Rob Jones - 1959 Velocette MAC
Bill and Jean - 1982 Lomax
Jon and Mandy - 1984 Pembleton
20th-22nd
September 2019 - Saundersfoot
This year, Les had some help with the event, Kim Booton took the
entries, Linda Challis prepared the route - and Shirley provided all
the back-up for Les. Mustn't forget the marshals, of course, but I
don't know their names, I'm afraid. As Les hadn't prepared the route he
was able to take part, for a change.
Anyway, the weather promised to be
good for the first part of the weekend, as we headed along the M4 to
Saundersfoot. The Friday was taken up with a social run, organised by
Chris Thomas, through some lovely country lanes
and ending up in Laugharne. After a roll and coffee in one of the local
eating houses, Rob and I decided to visit Dylan Thomas'
boat house and only got as far as the Writing Shed, which is in an
idyllic setting, I must say. The boat house was a fair bit further on
along the path
and not easy to access, so we called it a day at the writing shed. It
was then back to base to get ready for an evening visit to a local
Chinese restaurant.
Saturday
dawned and 60+ entries lined up at a different venue for the first time
in the 63 years of the event. The Saundersfoot Harbour Commissioners
had demanded a rather high fee for the use of the harbour
car park for the start of the event, which was all due to a third party
organisation running a similar event from the harbour in 2018 and
objecting to
being charged when the VMCC weren't.
So, we all
assembled at Coppet Hall for the start, which turned out to be an
ideal, and welcoming, venue.
By
the time the start was to happen, Bruce and Di had arrived on their
Honda 400/4 and at 10am riders were leaving in pairs and it wasn't
before long before we were all under way and out into the country.
After 6 miles we came across the first checkpoint and were soon on to
the morning coffee stop at Slebech Country park. This was a place that
I had not heard of before - so, a 30 minute break for a cuppa gave a
chance to take a few more pictures.
From
Slebech we headed off towards Haverfordwest before turning south to the
lunch stop at Milford Haven. 60 minutes was allowed, before we set off
for the afternoon run back to Saundersfoot. We wended our way through
Neyland on the
coast road before crossing a rather windy Cleddau bridge to enter
Pembroke Town. Luckily, the tolls to cross the Cleddau had been removed
back in April. Out the other side of
Pembroke Town and the route took us to Manobier before turning back
inland
to Manorbier Newton after which we came upon another route check. We
eventually arrived back at Coppet Hall after having had a super day.
Linda had done a good job in preparing the route, for sure.
That
evening was the gala dinner in the Merlewood Hotel followed by
entertainment from a singer, who's name I cannot remember, but he was
good.
Sunday Morning - and it was raining, as we all assembled at
Coppet Hall for the Concours. Eventually, most people crowded under the
canopy of the loud speaker van for the award presentations. Yours truly
was presented with the Travellers award - all for being the furthest
travelled to the event. I should say that there were others from
further afield but they all trailered to Saundersfoot and that didn't
count. It just goes to show that most don't ride
their bikes nowadays to events - years ago we always rode 'there and
back'.
Some left for the morning ride, but as it was raining quite heavily, we
were
soon on our way home with the weather turning out to be quite patchy -
one minute the
sun was out, then it was raining again, then, as we approached the M4
and Pont Abraham, a deluge happened. I knew there was a vehicle just in
front of us but couldn't even see a shape, the rain was that heavy. So
it was a case of pull off
the road as quick as possible. Luckily there was a layby and I stopped
the Lomax under a nice big tree. Within minutes Jon & Mandy
arrived
in their Pembleton and made us jealous as they had an umbrella. After
the heavy rain we plodded homewards. - a great weekend again,
with a super route
that took us to places in Pembs that we've never been to before.
Anyway, the
results showed that our Rob was a
member of the winning team, along with John Webb and Les &
Shirley.
Rob had done all the route finding with Angelo Conti simply following,
only for
the both of them to end up with the same score
- however, Angelo won the runner-up in their class as his bike
was older than Rob's.
BP