Ogri Rally

Ever since discovering there was a rally named after my hero Ogri I've been promising myself I'd get to this one day. A combination of work commitments and rally tickets selling out have put this back until now.

The Ogri Rally, organised by Ogri MCC wouldn't ya know, has a reputation as being one of the best and I'd heartily agree. A great location on Gloucester's Kemble Airfield with plenty of room for camping. Very well laid out beer tents and stalls area enclosing tree covered picnic benches where you can chill out with an afternoon beverage after a hard day perusing merchandise and the bikes on show. Plenty of real ale on tap as well with some particularly potent ciders. I got quite attached to the rum cider but that ran out on Friday night, still there was enough Old Rosie left to console myself with on Saturday.

 

Some quality music over the weekend starting Friday evening with Welsh all girl trio The Kix, always a rally favourite and ending up Saturday night with the last ever performance for the Glam Gitz. Plenty of fine bands in between but for some reason things got a little blurry.

All due credit to Ogri MCC, a good bunch of people who know how to throw a party. Cheers also to Jerry, Sara and the rest of the guys from Rugby for being great company over the weekend. Hope to catch you guys again soon.

Faro Run

Now this is my kind of holiday - three weeks off work, my arse in the saddle, 100's of miles of road, a rally, constant sun and a bunch of mates to share it with.

 

The run to the MotoClub Faro rally has been nearly two years in the planning, mostly organised by Pete and Steve, well done guys, excellent job. 

Although originally numbers were going to be 20+ the head count for the trip had narrowed down to 13 on the day.

The only down side to the whole experience was having to slog down to Portsmouth for the ferry, from that point on it was party time, particularly for Steve who managed to peak early (with the aid of duty free JD) the first night on the ferry.

                                                                               

After a good night out in Santander we had two days of long riding, first to Salamanca then Seville where we spent two days. This gave us a chance to chill out for a while, have a decent drink and take the tour bus around the city.

We'd elected to get to the rally at Faro a day early. This meant there was plenty of room to find a good shaded pitch beneath the trees. A good atmosphere built up across the site as people rolled in from all over Europe.

Although the focal point for entertainment was the arena I personally preferred the Oasis bar. This had more of a traditional rally feel and we had a great time partying with a bunch of Spanish guys. Even though we couldn't understand each other at first it turned out we all spoke fluent 'pisshead'.

  

Although we enjoyed the weekend, a combination of heat, fatigue and maybe too many days in one spot was starting to wear us down and I think we were all glad to get back on the road again.

The journey back took us to Zafra, Jafira and Valladolid with two nights in Santander before boarding the ferry home to a wet and windy England. 1760 miles in the saddle, good company, good times.