It’s grim oop North!

Well, Peterborough isn’t really ‘up north’ for most residents of the British Isles,  I’m talking about Grimsthorpe Castle near Bourne in the East Midlands.

 

That’s where we spent the last weekend of August, swaggering around the picturesque Grimsthorpe Castle, home to the Grimsthorpe Speed Trial  and I have to say it was bloomin’ great to be back at a riding event again – remember them?

We’d not heard of this event until it was mentioned in conversation by CB Editor Gary Pinchin. I knew about Grimsthorpe Hall because it was this year’s venue for the formerly Kent-based ‘Malle Mile’ event, which my buddy Will Coleman enters. He had a bit of a crap time this year due to bad luck and punctures – you can hear the sorry tale straight from the horses mouth over on his ‘Coleman Customs’ youtube channel – but Gary said t we might enjoy the Speed Trial with its pre 1939 theme – cars as well as bikes.

Well, I admit cars aren’t really my thing – especially since my unpleasantly close encounter with one earlier this year but each to their own and pre 1939 cars are at least a more attractive threat to other road users than modern ones – and these little fellas look like fun…

They’re Cycle-karts; I hadn’t seen this class before. Inspired, I guess, by the spindly racing Cyclecars of the 1920s – from whose ranks the Morgan ultimately emerged a survivor – they’re small-engined miniatures like deluxe vintage go-karts and looked great.

The event is deliberately low-key, run by a very small team of volunteers but – like our favourite Kop Hill and Shuttleworth events – was well organised while still being relaxed and friendly with a minimum of rules. Entrants and visitors are encouraged to dress the era, you don’t have to of course but I think it adds to  the enjoyment of the day, and the Speed Trial attracted some very interesting vehicles. 

It’s a 1/4 mile sprint up the Castle’s main drive, non-competitive but – unusually for a demonstration – the runs are loosely timed, mainly to add a bit of spice for spectators, but also making it a bit more interesting for entrants.

Grimsthorpe has an association with motor sport that dates back to 1903 when it was used by the Lincolnshire Automobile Club and the present event, organised by ‘Vintage Speed Trials’, has been run since 2018,  with the inevitable gap last year.

There were around 40 bike entries, kicking off with this jolly ‘Harper Runabout’ that spent many years in the same family until the owner’s death resulted in it being sold. Happily his nephew managed to buy it and it’s Villiers 2 stroke motor purred up the track in fine style – it probably should have had a scrap with those Cycle-karts.

I was also interested by this Excelsior, which the owner tells me came from a man who used to work for former Brooklands race team manager Nigel Spring, so while he doesn’t claim that the bike is an old Brooklands campaigner there is always that possibility….

A period photo displayed with the bike reveals the inspiration for this idea. The rider is Chris Staniland, a famous car and motorcycle racer who, like my Rex Acme hero Wal Handley, lost his life in a flying accident during the second World War.

Staniland was at this time riding for J S ‘Woolly’ Worters, whose machine it would have been, and the two bikes are certainly similar.

These BMWs are classy things, I always think. It’s a bit of a shame that  for all  their qualities the postwar BeeEms never really seemed to recapture the sporty look of their forbears.

Now, this was a bit of a momentous event for me – my first ride on a vintage bike since getting battered by a car in late March. Expecting to be all sorted by now I had entered the Rex Acme for  this event but I was too optimistic. I’d heard that fractures take about 2 months but a recent visit to the surgeon (it’s now five months) revealed that my broken leg is still healing – evidently a fracture like mine is more likely to take around six. Either way I couldn’t bump start the Rex so I decided to take the Martinsyde. It hadn’t run since late 2019  so I was pleased when it fired up second kick – but it was only on one cylinder; it does tend to oil its rear plug ( a common problem on vee twins) but  was pleased to find it  left the line reasonably well on my first run.

Having done a bit of sprinting in her time, Judy always likes to ‘walk the course’, I have to admit I can’t usually be bothered even though we’d been advised it was a bit bumpy here and there – my leg gets pretty sore if I walk far and it was likely to be a long day anyway, so I didn’t go.

Well, the trouble was that when I roared off the line all I could see was this:

Somewhere over that  horizon I knew there was a wall of straw bales; we’d been warned in the rider briefing that the run-off wasn’t massively long because the public’s cars were driving in at the other end of the road we were using. I’d already noticed that the tiny front brake on the Martinsyde barely slowed it down rolling down the ramp out of the van and well, having not had a very good year so  far -even though I am not generally a nervous rider, I decided it would be particularly daft to run out of road with an already broken leg and backed off a bit over halfway up the track.

Of course when I crested the rise I saw that although the wall of straw was definitely best avoided, there was plenty of braking room and in fact my front brake was quite adequate – I  forgot I fitted some Ferodo green racing linings which work much better hot than cold.

My first time was thus 51 seconds – but never mind, we get three runs.

But for run two, I’d pumped in too much oil, see the cloud of smoke? It cut onto one cylinder again so I had another lousy run – 37 seconds, I think.

Meanwhile Judy was running pretty consistently at around 25 seconds – and thanks to Gerry Allen from the Cotton owners for this photo.

Third time lucky then? Fortunately yes, the old Martinsyde went very well on my third run. Although it jumps out of first gear at high revs and there’s a big leap to second, it piles on speed quite impressively and I didn’t have room to pull into top. This time I managed 27 seconds – nothing in sprinting terms of  course but thinking about it, modified though it is, it’s now 100 years ago that my bike left the Woking factory!

Somehow I still expect a 100 year old bike to run on steam not crack on like that!

We were delighted to find there was time left over for the bikes to have a fourth run – maybe I could match Judy’s 25 seconds after all… Well, maybe my last run was a shade faster – but they’d turned off the clock so I’ll never know.

A much greater disappointment was reaching the end to find I had lost the bell-mouth from one of my Bowden carbs, dammit! But a fellow rider said  he saw something fly off not far from the start and seeing that the grass was well trimmed, I rode back to  the start end with my eyes peeled. Of course I didn’t find it but passing a couple of marshalls walking back I called out to ask them to ‘look out for a small chrome trumpet’; they called back that it had already been found and as I rode back over the start line,the flag marshall dropped it into my hand! Thanks guys and especially to the spectator who picked it up!

We both had a brilliant day and it wasn’t till we were on the road home that I realised that apart from my initial concern about the run off, I hadn’t given my injuries a thought when I left the line, I’d just been so happy to be back on my old twin again that the last five months faded away.

We’ll definitely be making a date for next year’s event  and let’s hope we’re all allowed to make up for lost time in 2022!

Cheers Rick