Thames Valley UK Chapter Harley Owners Group

As was two years ago, we were invited, together with the Morgan cars owner group to the Upper Thames Motor Yacht club for a BBQ and swapping of pillion rides on our Harleys for rides in Morgans and, after lunch, a stroll up the river to Caversham lock.

A good turnout of some nine bikes (considering 18 of our chapter were sunning themselves in Wales for the weekend) and including the newly founded Heritage section of TVHOG met on a glorious Saturday morning at WAMSAD. Following the usual briefing, we set off at 10:30 collecting Don W and Andrew, a visiting relative from the Southern Hemisphere on a TVHD loaned Sportster 1200 on the way, ready for a 20 mile gentle stroll through the country lanes via Twyford, Wargrave, Henley and onto Sonning.

The “new” system of point was used again with great success, thank you Fred, (for those who have not seen this yet on a ride out, lead bike rides the route, with the second bike doing the drop-offs, effectively having two bikes at the front of the pack and allowing the more difficult drop-offs to be handled a lot easier),with tailbikes Russell and Colin ready in case we had any errant riders, although not needed on this ride-out.

Going through Henley, Causie told us of new surfacing of the road after Shiplake and to take care, however no-one could have anticipated the amount of road chips they had used (are we in a recession where surplus material can be used elsewhere or maybe this was a Friday job and they did not want to return the unused chips to the depot – cynical me ???) however the pack successfully negotiated the usually lovely sweeping bends at 20 mph using slow riding skills in the narrow tracks.

We arrived at the UTMYC to be greeted by rows of shiny Morgans from all eras and were soon taking their members out on the Harleys for a ride round the Sonning area – all had a great time and many thanks to those who loaned their helmets, jackets etc. to those who had rides with us. The Morgan guys did their rides as well as a character Noddy (503cc) car which had lots of takers and was the smallest engine there. After a great BBQ laid on by our hosts we all went off on their boats to Caversham lock and had a chance to admire those sometimes massive boats using the river on such a perfect day.

Many thanks to our hosts for the day and especially Richard Orton who was Officer in Charge for the day and made the day such a success.

It was great to see Causie on his immaculate Deuce, and James on his FXR, both of whom rode all the way from Reading, some 2 miles from our destination, to Wamsad just to turn round and go back again. Causie is back in to have some more surgery on his leg this week; we wish him all the best with that – get better very soon Causie. Likewise it was good to see Trish there for the day, wrist plastered and still feeling sore—Trish a swift recovery from us all.