BANBURY RUN & ISERAN - 2014

Year 2014 is dedicated to the ennoblement of  flat tank. Project is to bring my Triumph SD 1924 to UK to participate to the Banbury Run and to France to climb the Iseran pass. My old fellow of motorcycling is with me, with his new entry Rudge 350 1925.

I discovered this gathering some years ago, when, having bought my flat tank SD, I went to Banbury  to gain documents and information in order to better restore my bike. I was so much impressed by this event, that I promised myself to participate with my bike, as soon as restored. Here I am; June the 8th Giorgio and I are in the town of Banbury to participate to the 66th edition of the run, reserved to bikes built before 1930. This event, maybe non so well known in Italy, is so much famous in UK that Brits define it as “The largest gathering of veteran and vintage machines in the world”.

Is non easy to describe the great emotions felt and the satisfaction to participate at this huge event. I will never forget the time spent in the apron before the start with 600 bikes, aligned to their places and the excitement of the start, structured in 5 bikes leaving every minute. The unforgettable experience is enriched with the concomitant visit to the close-by “The national motorcycle museum” and the “Coventry Transport Museum”, in the town where two bikes were built.

As conclusion, I would like to reassure who is thinking to participate to the event, because it is easy to comply. I am thinking to come back in company of a wide company of Italian  riders or bikes, that would rise high interest and maybe some envy. I am available to give my support to volunteers for the next editions.

SOME INFORMATION THE EVENT

To better understand the level of the event, here some following elements:

1. •   550 participants bike, none failed to start;
   

2. •   more then 50 bikes aging before WWI;
   

3. •   3 Brough Superior on the run;
   

4. •   bikes mainly built in UK, with some very rare trade mark;
   

5. •    only 6 foreign riders, among them 3 French, 1 Polish and we 2 Italians.
   

The idea to climb Col de l’Iseran dates back to our 2012 trip to the 6 highest Passes of Europe, carried out with our Moto Guzzi V7 Special. In that occasion we met the mythical Noel Wittall, who arrived on top the pass with his Triumph model H year 1918. Easy friendship and desire to  emulate him.

Left Banbury, on the way back to Italy, proud of out participation as only Italians to the Banbury run, Giorgio and I decide to stop in Val d’Isere. Remembering our meeting with Noel on top Iseran, we download our two flat tanks  from our trailer and slowly but happily reach  the pass. As it is imaginable also we receive the compliments from all the bikers on top the pass, but Noel was luckier than us. He received the compliments from nice Italians, instead we receive the compliments from as nice bikers as us, but Germans. We are grateful to Noel for this emotion: after the Noel 1918 Triumph, also the Giorgio Rudge and my SD reach the highest pass of Europe.

During my climbing to the Iseran Pass, that represents a tiny part of the journey of Noel, whose story you may read below, I realize the meaning to ride this type of bike for hundreds of kilometers per day and to climb mountains above 2000 meters. Maybe Noel, when he rides his long distances journeys so easily, he enters in a kind of mutual symbiosis with his bike, where time, distances, weather conditions, technical failures are not variable elements  to calculate. Important thing is to be patient and to keep on riding the bike, without warring what and where it may happen. I see a lot of similitudes with the ascetic pilgrims  of the Sanitiago or Francigena walks.

MY FRIEND NOEL

My knoledge of Noel Witthall dates back to 2012, when Giorgio and I, engaged to climb the 6 highest passes  of Europe, are on top the 2770 meters of the Col de l’Iseran. Proud of our overfourty Moto Guzzi V7 Special, we like to look down the new bikes ridden by young martians wearing gaudy leather suits. Soon after, the silence of the Alps is broken by the sound, familiar to me, of an old low rpm engine. Here arrives a flat tank  ridden by an elder biker in perfect British style with his bike. He is Noel Witthall, who, strong for his 76 years, reaches easily the top with his sputtering 1918 Triumph model H. After having looked down to the other bikes, Giorgio and I must bow to this living myth, whom we pay the highest homage to. Our friendly homage surprises as much our British biker, maybe not so much accustomed to this warm welcome, that he mentions this meeting in his book and he says he keeps it in his mind for the rest of his journey. Chats, address exchanges and good still lasting friendship made.

After our initial surprise, we think Noel brought his bike, with whichever transportation vehicle, from UK to a close town in France ready to climd Iseran and to come back to his vehicle, but we are  wrong. Noel comes with his van to Genevra, initial point of the Route de Grand Alps; than he download his bike and starts his journey, that it will bring him to Menton, on the Mediterranean Sea, climbing all the passes of the route. He will come back, always alone with his bike, to Genevra.

This exceptional enterprise, carried out with few equipment and his also vintage clothing, becomes more interesting  for a story. Half way back from Menton, in a forgotten village of the Alps, the Noel’s Triumph experiences a failure: the rear rim presents many and evident cracks close to the nipples holes. For Noel it is not a problem; with his poor tools dismantles the rear wheel and all the spokes in order to have the rim ready to be welded. He founds a  country welder, who says the rim cannot be welded because the inside of the rim is too thin.  Noel founds also a ride for himself and his bike to Genevra, but he refuses the offer and does not give up. He founds some metal sheets to be welded and riveted outside the rim; the welder operates in this way and the failure is somehow solved. Noel reassembles the spokes, the transmission rim and the tire, whose tube is inflated with the bicycle air pump of the bike. Noel starts his way back, but he still has a problem. The rim, due to the asymmetric weigh of all the external welded metal sheets, is not balanced. No problem; he connects one of his original  spanners to some spokes, in a position evaluated by him. Problem is finally solved and Noel can go back happily to Genevra.

I am still in contact with Noel, who is always happy to give me advises and technical tips on my bike, six year younger then his, but very similar. Some time ago I receive his book “An alpine thing to do”, where he talks of our meeting on top Iseran. I am grateful to him for this mention. This is the second book he wrote about his motorcycle adventures. In the first book he tells his stories of the journey he made in UK, from the most northern point in Scotland to the  most western in Cornwall.

Noel is a real biker and a master of life!!!

i miei viaggi
my trips

i miei viaggi
my trips