Every May the grubby but practical little Cheshire town of Northwich hosts the Thundersprint motorcycle festival devised by our Frank Melling. The main event is a GP in the car park, with 440 yards of endless right-hand bends on a dreadful surface but in the morning a cavalcade of motorycles around the town takes place where there is at least one left turn not counting the exit from the Tesco roundabout. There are also trade stands and other attractions over the weekend such as the stealth spitfire and greasy burger vans. Andrew English gives a near factual account of the event here.
Participation in the cavalcade of Northwich town centre (closed off specially for the event) is now in its 4th year for Highwaylass and me: we (and Clarky) were invited to this event by Frank Melling through our Daily Telegraph Motoring Section blogging activities for the first time some 5 years ago (and indeed Highwaylass became a DT MS guest blogger for a brief but golden period).
Highwaylass and Ruby pose next to Ferguson Doodlebug in the cavalcader's paddock.
It's Ferguson Doodlebug's third year at the event but my 4th. Every machine requires a technical inspection - even race machines that are not road legal are permitted to cavalcade but must be scrutineered first. The race machines feature heavily in the time trial later on - that is the ones that survive 3 laps of Northwich town centre.
Here is the riders perspective of the cavalcade (warning - it's long...).
The main attraction appears to be the scantily clad Bennetts Babes supplied by one of the sponsors - the only way an old letch like me can get good frontal shots of them is by asking them to hold up a map showing where Jack Riepe lives.
This is the GP in the car park bit: here in the car park various classes of classic machine run a time trial over 440 yards. This is scooter number 98 seen outpacing a portaloo.
No. 287 appears to have a rather large engine (or is it a domestic appliance on wheels?).
I'm on my way towards Cheshire and I change my route to visit Coventry to drop my seat off for height reduction at Swindling Melvyn's. This turns out to confuse Tomtom who then directs me up the M6 Toll rather than A515. In my attempt to recover I cross the Coventry canal at least twice, the Mersey and Trent once and inspect at least three dreary townsworths of confusing one way systems complete with learner drivers and Aldis by the dozen. I celebrate the discovery of the A515 at Kings Bromley with a layby tea. The Cat and Fiddle pass proves tricky with gusting wind and driving rain - Tomtom confuses again at Macclesfield (Garmin only knows where she is trying to take me) but luckily I'm familar with the run in to Knutsford - Northwich will wait until Sunday.
You are all supposed to admire my new LED day time running lights. What's more she started first crank thanks to the new Odyssey battery. Northwich here we come.
