Isle of Man National Rally &  LCGB 50th Anniversary Rally
Mayday Bank Holiday 2-5th May 2003

Planning for the Isle of Man started for us back in January 2003, when we decided at our AGM that we should book up early to avoid disappointment. This year is the 50th Anniversary of the Lambretta Club Great Britain, so a lot of us were keen to make an effort to get over to the Island, which held a lot of history with scooters in the sixties.

By the end of February most of us were booked into a couple of hotels, and had managed to get booked on the same ferries, so the stall was set for Doncaster Hunters to travel over as a club, with quite a large group of us making the pilgrimage to the Island.

The following is an account of my trip (Craig) which left on Saturday morning and returned on Monday afternoon.

Following our usual nightmare getting babysitters sorted for the weekend and the dog into the kennels we were ready for the rally by about midnight on Friday night. Nicola's GP was sporting its new 200 engine, which had gone in 5 days before, thus I worried all weekend that it would complete the full journey, as it had only completed less than 200 settling in miles.Yes the barrel and piston were already run in by the previous owner (thank god)!

So, 0400am Saturday and the alarm goes off, weary eyed we got ready and were off to meet Dan in Hatfield at 0515. We made it to Mel?s on time for 0545 to meet him and Chris, Graham and Linda. So we had 5 Lambretta's in tow by then.

About 25 miles into the journey we passed through Penistone, when I heard this almighty bang at the traffic lights. I look round to see what looked like stuff coming out of Grahams exhaust tailpipe, for a minute I thought his engine had popped its clogs ! Next thing Graham and Mel are stood at the side of his bike patting out flames like a scene from ITV's 'Londons Burning'. His exhaust had only 'heated up'  the contents of his holdall as the support it had under it had failed so to say. The BANG I had heared was poor Linda's hair wax canister blowing up.

There wasn't much we could do apart from re-position the now burnt bag and get off again as we had to make tracks to meet the conisbrough crowd and push on to Liverpool for the ferry.

So off we went, we soon arrived at the rendez-vous point, bang on time, but no conisbrough possie. We waited until the agreed time, no-one showed apart from Col and Julie in the van, so off we went.

Stopping for petrol at Tintwistle Stan and Phil turned up telling us the others weren't far behind. Bri had some bother with his gear cables, he had finished his re-build about 4 hours before setting off and had put the gear cables in the wrong way round, Bri you plonker, ever heared of a trial run !!!

Anyway, 20 minutes later and we now have Chris, Bri and Bear, so 10 Lambrettas (1 in a van) and 1 Vespa, not bad !

The remainder of the journey to Liverpool was pretty smooth and dry for a change with no problems and nobody getting lost, we made the ferry terminal at 0930, which was exactly the time we planned on being there.

So we all got booked in and waited for the ferry, most of us were surprised that there wasn't many more scooters on the same ferry after the hassle some of us had had trying to book on it.

After boarding we managed to take over a large area at the bar and some of boys commenced their drinking binge, names omitted to protect identities !!

At this point we had 20 in our Doncaster Hunters party, which included 13 members, and 11 scooters.

Two and a half hours later we were approaching Douglas, the weather starting to look decidedly dodgy ! We were soon off the boat and heading for our digs which we found quite soon. Steve's GP200 was outside, he and Margaret had been on the ride out round the TT course.

After getting unpacked a few of us made our way to the TT grandstand to sign on and get our welcome packs. We parted with the usual silly amounts of cash buying a souvenir T shirt and mug a piece, shouldn't these be free ??? No such luck.

After that we made our way back to the digs and out for some tea at a local fish and chip restaurant, not to be disappointed.

So that was Saturdays daytime entertainment, for those on the Island from Saturday morning the TT ride out to endure, but for those of us arriving early afternoon, not much to offer was the general feeling. I personally was disappointed.

Saturday evening and most of us met up in the Hilton then made our way round a few pubs arriving eventually at The Venue, where Edwin Starrs band were playing. In my own opinion they were excellent, at the end of the set his manager said a few words which most of us were quite emotionally moved by.

We danced until the early hours meeting up with old friends from a far and most seem to have a good time, the ale getting some looser than others !!! Again, Names omitted !!! Anyway for me and Nicola it was snap and bed around the 2:00am mark.

Sunday morning saw the weather quite dull, but dry, so after breakfast a number of us headed for Jurby to see what was going on at the sprint meeting. To reach the said event we rode around literally half of the island which was quite fun, Martin managed to run of petrol as we passed the Laxey wheel.

On arrival at the sprint I was quite disappointed (again) that there wasn't more to do, there didn't even seem to be any bikes actually sprinting. So Nicola and I went off and did our own thing, riding all the way around the Island, taking in Peel, Port St Mary, Port Erin and Castletown. This was quite nice, though the weather could have been better.

Sunday night and we were back out again meeting at the Hilton before heading off to the Venue once again. The Venue seemed to have a lot less numbers in on Sunday night, so a lot must have caught the ferry on Sunday going home.

Monday morning came and was departure day for most of us, up at 5:00am for the 7:00am ferry. Alas we made it, though I had a scare as when I came to book on the ferry I had not noticed my ticket had 5th July on it and not 5th May.  Anyway they let me board.

We had a trouble free trip home, as did all of us I believe.

It had been a good trip but my personal opinion of the IOM rally was there was not enough organised by the LCGB, considering it coincided with such an important date milestone for the club. Those present on the Saturday for the TT course ride out seemed to have got the best of what was on offer in the things to do stakes.  Ah well, in years to come we can say we were there on the Island for the 50th, that's good enough for me.