The week leading up to the first Thumper Club rally was a week of stress and wonder. The previous weekend I had ridden over to a singles run near Bath, where I'd met a Belgian fella who was planning to attend our bash. But what if it was crap? People were travelling hundreds of miles to our club’s first rally and I started to feel pretty nervous about the whole thing. If I was worried then Steve Hayward, the rally organiser, was close to heart failure. About a hundred emails passed between us that week, as we tried to sort out the inevitable last minute problems. Steve had spent months putting the rally together, handling virtually every task from booking the accommodation to organising the publicity. All I had to do was knock up some road signs and make breakfast, but more of that later.

On Friday morning my email inbox finally went quiet, Steve had set off for the rally, and it was too late to worry. Over the afternoon and early evening, keen rallyists arrived at the bunkhouse that Steve had booked near Abergavenny. Despite my dreadful undersized road signs, thumper riders from five countries had found the bunkhouse and made their way to the nearby pub. Alcohol is normally the easiest way of overcoming language differences but it wasn't needed, most of the guys could speak excellent English... but we had a drink anyway.I'm not sure what time the pub chucked us out but we were a cheery, singing bunch who made our way back for another hour of drinking and discussing the varied range of thumpers that were now parked outside the bunkhouse. The Belgian and Dutch boys from the SRX Connection had turned up on a number of SRX's, a Harris Matchless and an MuZ Skorpion, albeit not without drama, the MuZ had sheared a suspension bolt on the journey but our intrepid chums had effected a repair. One chap had travelled over from Ireland on a pristine SR500 and, more amazingly, another bloke had come down from Preston on a Z200... with his 12 year-old son on the back.

Early the following morning my wife Sue and I had to crawl out of a remarkably comfortable bunk bed and make breakfast for 17 people. Our mood wasn't cheery. Slowly the dining area filled up with coughing shuffling bikers, all eager for a coffee and some grub. An hour later we'd scoffed two day's worth of food, downed gallons of java and coaxed a variety of thumpers into asthmatic life. Then we headed off to Abergavenny bus station, the meeting place for the day's run. The bus station is a well-known biker's haunt and it made a refreshing change for the dayglo sportsbike brigade to be outnumbered by 'traditional' bikers... bless 'em, they looked quite worried when they saw us turn up.

If anyone knows how to keep a large group of motorcyclists together on a run, please let me know. We left the bus station in small groups and made our way out on the Brecon road, but soon my small group got split up and when we stopped to wait for stragglers we had our first disaster. Bruce Nichols and his wife had joined us on his 600cc Goldie, and while waiting in a petrol station forecourt a car smacked into his bike, toppling them both off. In no time, over 20 bikers surrounded the bike and car and the situation was sorted out; details were exchanged and the damage didn't seem too bad. We set off again. Our route took us through Crickhowell, over a

mountain to Talgarth, onto Builth Wells, and ended at the Elan Valley visitor center near Rhayader. The Dutch blokes were impressed by the scenery and I had to chuckle because I knew that we hadn't even started to see the best views because after lunch we were due to head off alongside the reserviors of the Elan Valley.

The dams, reservoirs, and 73 mile aqueduct of the Elan Valley waterworks in mid-Wales were built a hundred years ago to supply clean drinking water to the city of Birmingham. It was an epic feat of civil engineering, and it's one of the prettiest places I know. The poet Shelley certainly found it attractive, after a visit in July 1811 he wrote: "Rocks piled on each other to tremendous heights, rivers formed into cataracts by their projections, and valleys clothed with woods, present an appearance of enchantment... This country is highly romantic; here are rocks of uncommon height and picturesque waterfalls. I am more astonished at the grandeur of the scenery than I expected...I am not wholly uninfluenced by its magic on my lonely walks."However, not all of the dam's visitors have had such romantic sensibilities. In the Second World War a great deal of highly secret experimental work was carried under the direction of the aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis, and the small, disused Nant-y-Gro dam provided a valuable test bed for the explosive charges needed for the famed 'dambuster' raids.

The locals might have thought that the bombers had returned as our group of thumpers thundered onto the valley road that twists along the water's edge for several miles. We finally had an open road to play on and in no time we were happily dodging sheep at slightly illegal speeds. By the time I reached the turning for Aberystwyth, Jethro had disappeared off into the distance on his stupidly rapid KLR250, leading a bunch of SRX's along the wildly twisting and undulating mountain road. They all looked happy so we let them go, I learned a long time ago that following Jethro nearly always leads you into trouble and this was no exception. We'd been stopped for five minutes at a fork in the road when the distant thunder of thumpers warned us of the impending arrival of the group... from exactly the wrong direction. The whole bunch hurtled into view, all with broad grins on their faces. Jethro had missed the turning and taken them to Devil's Bridge, they seemed to have enjoyed themselves though.

A slightly less frantic ride took us into Tregaron for a well-deserved coffee break at the quirky Talbot Hotel. It's famous for being the only place in Wales that can boast an elephant buried in the garden. Apparently, a travelling circus came to town late in the last century and the poor beast ate something it shouldn't have. I first heard this story when I stayed at the Talbot some years ago. The slightly mad landlord left an impression on me then, and he hasn't changed. When we asked if there was any coffee on the go he said, "F*@K off, I can't be bothered making it," but fortunately he was joking, he's got a strange sense of humour. However, It was pretty heartening to see all the bikes lined up outside the hotel, my worries about the rally disappeared; it was an impressive sight.

If the roads to Tregaron had sometimes been tight and twisty, the road out to Beulah was unreal. We all felt sorry for Bruce on the Goldie as he slipped the clutch and wrestled with his clip-ons as we followed the writhing road over to Llyn Brianne reservoir. Then it got worse. The local council had obviously decided to resurface the roads sometime recently, and unfortunately they hadn't finished the job; it was like riding on ball bearings. By the time we had descended the aptly named Devil's Staircase, we all needed to stop and relax. Whilst we were chilling out, Jethro provided us all with a display of his off-road prowess... and his wading skills when a piddling little stream halted his progress. Bruce was thoughtful enough to attempt to reduce Jethro's embarrassment by stripping to his pants and giving us a demonstration of low-diving. Yes, low-diving. Anyone can hurl themselves off a high board, but it takes guts to dive into a rock pool no deeper than a puddle.

At this point we said goodbye to Ron and Bob who had to head home, a bit like Cinderella leaving the ball, except Bob's FT500 had been a pumpkin all along. Ok, that's not fair, but he does call it 'the shed'. The rest of us decided on a leisurely run back to Builth Wells and then on to Abergavenny. How wrong we were. As we approached Beulah I came upon most of the group stopped and some obvious commotion at the head of the pack. For the second time that day my heart was in my mouth, did we have a faller? It seems that Bruce's earlier encounter with a car had done more damage than we'd thought. The road was littered with shards of aluminium, and the Goldie's barrel sported a horrible looking hole at the flange. Bruce's run was over.

I told the rest of the group that we weren't to have any more incidents, something that Simon, a dispatch rider by occupation, obviously forgot. Within two or three minutes he overtook me at 70mph, alongside an equally rapid Vauxhall Astra. 'What the hell...?' flashed through my mind as they came together, forcing Simon to within inches of the kerb. Eventually Simon managed to free his rear footpeg from the Astra's wheel arch (still travelling at over 60mph!) and we continued on our shaky way. I guess it wasn't surprising when, at a brief stop in Builth Wells, a police car pulled up. Simon's big mistake was in wearing an entirely orange outfit; the policeman walked straight up to him and said, "can I have a word sir?". An hour later, after the copper had had a word with most of us, it had become obvious that our 'evidence' was overwhelmingly in Simon's favour and he let us go. Fortunately, the remainder of the ride was comparatively dull.

That night we all had a store of fantastic biking stories to share and we retired to the pub for another slap-up meal and another ten gallons of ale. As we started to tuck in we heard a thumper arrive and it turned out to be Bruce and his wife on his Thruxton. That wasn't the end of the surprises; he came into the pub playing the bagpipes! I can truthfully say that I have rarely been so amazed, the man had survived a collision, a blow up, and a half-naked dive into a puddle, and here he was playing a tune for us. What a hero. He was a deserving winner of an award, it's just sad that it had to be the 'Rally Disaster' trophy. After supper we presented the remainder of the trophies. Our visitor from Ireland, Anthony Ross, received the 'Best Standard Bike' award for his lovely SR500. Gerard Van Dijk was the easy winner of the 'Best Modified' award for his SRX620. Rene and his chum won the ‘Longest Distance Travelled’ award. Derreck (and his SR500) took the 'Oldest Bike/Rider' award, and I tried hard to get the 'Most Pissed Person of the Night' award, but I think I failed, at least one Belgian did loads better than me.

The following morning saw some weary faces at the breakfast table, and we had a leisurely time before the lads set off to Aberdare Park for the annual road races. My wife and I packed up the cooking gear and we headed off too... to home and a big afternoon nap, I was shattered. As we said our goodbyes, we all agreed that we'd had a hoot and that we should do it all again next year, but without the blow-ups and near-arrests. Watch this space.