Brett memorial Ride 11/05/08. Review & Pics

The day of the big memorial ride-out for Brett finally came and as the sun shone down on a glorious Sunday morning, I had a feeling it was going to be a day to remember.

Here in Kidderminster the sleepy suburban close where I live has rarely seen anything like it as my house became the focal point for the riders coming from the South Midlands.

By 10am no less than 12 superbikes were lined up behind my Thundercat for the run to Crossgates, including Imperial Data on his recently resurrected GPZ900, Thumper, Toggsy, Champs, Blade-Rider, Mads, Gone to Mars and TT07 with his crew.

The full South Midland crew cramed together outside my house

We headed towards Crossgates steadily as holding 13 bikes in line can be tricky, especially with quite a few junctions and islands to contend with, all with potential to split the group up.

I took my usual route up to Crossgates as a few of the others are familar with it if anybody got split up, while TT07 acting as sweeper on his Gixxer thou to ensure we didn’t loose anybody. The A456, then the A4117 over the spectacular Clee Hill, nipped past Ludlow, briefly onto th the A49 before taking the A4113 through the beautiful village of Leintwardine. Finally the A488 after turuning at Knighton onto the A44 for the last couple of miles into Crossgates and Cafe that was the meeting point for the day. Loads of bikers were already there and the number of friendly faces from a variety of forums and 1066 MC indicated that most were here for the ride out and to support Simone (BigKatz).

Gix, Rocket-Ron, Eggsy, Max, Sid, R6 Bird, SirDuke, MrM,Fast Eddie, Robertcains even Speed Monster in a Ford Mondeo, to name but a few!

Some like Sid and R6 Bird (Peterboro), Max (Manchester), Eggsy (Livepool I think)had riden big distnces to get here. Eggsy on a 125!Only one key person was missing; BK herself and her escort. News was filtering through of a very bad accident on the A483 involving a group of Gixxer riders. Not one of our groups, but still unsettling as it always is to read of any biker going down. The A483 had been shut, so BK was steadily picking her way to Crossgates via diverions on her Skygo 125 with Bikerchick escorting on her trusty 600 Bandit.

She eventually rolled in to warm applause and Gix called togeteher the troops to explain the new plan. Looking for all the word like an odd mix of Joan of Arc and the Mel Gibson portrial of William Wallace, Gix atop of Speedy’s Mondeo called out to the massed ranks of bikers. She has always has been a nice quiet kid, our Gix. The A483 was a key part of run, but now it closed and the decision was made to ride to Newtown and on back on the A44 & A470 instead, rather than do a loop taking in the A483 as well. A cracking run too so no matter. Lets just hope the downed biker is Ok.
BK was clearly moved by the turnout and said a few words. The biking community is fantastic and on day like today we can all be proud.

Joan of Arc addresses her troops! Strong lad is our Speedy!

Sid and R6, made the run from Peterboro

I didn’t know Alf Garnett had a VFR400, one of TT07’s crew in rather natty headgear

Max of Manchester

Simone (BK) arrives on her Skygo (isn’t that a TV Channel?)

1066 Marshall on his 79 GS750

Try and spot yourselves!

The big roll out

Of seventy bikes or so that arrived at Crossgates, 56 so I am reliably informed, actually joined the run up to Newtown and back. Here I must pay tribute to the excellent Marshalling skills demonstrated by the 1066 MC crew and the others helping them (Toggsy, Thumper) as they kept the bikes together through juctions and islands. The pace was quite good too considering the number of bikes involved. One 1066 marshall whose name I did not catch was having a real ball on his 1979 GS750 hacking past everybody to direct traffic at the next turn. It was good of him to bring a bike older than Imperial Data’s GPz900 too. Incidently he was wearing a grin like a Cheshire cat, he is clearly enjoying riding the old girl again after a lay-off of a few years.

BK eldest lad, Bretts brother was enjoying himself on the back of Thumper’s Thundercat too! Nice one

It was superb to see so many bikes together, I was towards the back of the line and on one or two downhill sections it was possible to see nearly all the bikes strung out into the distance. What an inspiring sight!

Back at Crossgates, everybody was in one piece, despite the efforts of one idiot in a black 4×4 cutting up the line; What a tosser!

So thanks to Gix for organising a fitting tribute to a great young lad, and thanks to all to contibuted to the appeal fund.

A memorable day in great company for a good cause. Spot on.

PS:
I have taken many more pictures, as has ID and Speedy. The plan is to make them available on a CD, proceeds to Brett Memorial fund. Gix is working on price/availability