This was our (and the clubs) second year of going to Chateau Impney and a weekend I always look forward to selfishly because it’s our nearest event, and because there is so much “other” stuff to look at.  A weekend full of vintage racing up the old hill climb track, that first started in 1957 and then was abandoned in 1967 as the sport of hill climbing fell out of public favour.  Only to restart in 2015 with a bang and a full 2 days racing. There are many many historic vehicle’s to be seen including such classic marque’s as Jaguar, Ferrari and Maserati’s all trying there hardest to tame the hill and sometimes going quite wrong.  I witnessed a Morgan 3 wheeler get it wrong at the chicane and overturn, the crowd gasped as surely he had been squashed, but modern (hidden) roll cages saved the day and the poor gentleman with a crumpled Morgan walked away.  Who doesn’t like to see the odd crash?
As for the Indian Riders, we were given our normal plot near the start line and settled into a weekend of chilling out mainly. We had about 6 bikes on show plus Peter’s monkey bike, which mainly got used as a mule bike to ride to and from the camping area, one of the club members even turned into Evil Knievel and performed a massive wheelie (by mistake) and ended up kissing the dirt, much to the amusement of the others (after they made sure the rider and pillion were ok obviously).  I soon learned to wheel it past the marshals after a stern telling off, but that didn’t stop me or everyone else riding it around (being rufty tufty bikers lol). One member even insisted on riding it to the toilet every time, which was only 200 yards away (you know who you are Lazy boy)
It is a really busy event and the public seem to like the Indians on display and were eager to ask questions, which the more experienced INDIAN owners were happy to furnish them with the information.  I like it when the public has gone home and the field and hill climb is all ours, myself and Vera took the opportunity to ride the bikes up the hill in the evening and down again in the mornings, obviously we were the fastest things on the hill all weekend (not).  Saturday evening I decided to try, once and for all, fix the clutch on Vera’s little brave so took it apart on the grass and with the help of Peter’s “snap off” screwdriver as a replacement clutch rod.  It seemed to work fine. It was nice of Chateau impney to supply a wooden bench which also makes a great vice for sawing the screwdriver shaft to the right size. It took some sawing to cut through the high tensile shaft and Peter’s “butter saw” as we call it in Coventry did the job, (would be a great saw for butter but useless for metal). Whilst the bike repairs were taking place our dog “ava” had obviously got bored and discovered she could carry her favourite laser pen in her mouth and chase the light all on her own, which kept everybody amused and more importantly kept her amused for at least an hour.

On the Saturday our Daughter Georgia and her boyfriend Callum had joined us for the day and we had a real good wander around looking at all the cars and a few old racing motorcycles, it was nice to spend some time with the family without the normal distractions of life and off course you are always in good company with the Indian Riders.
The screeching tyre’s and smell of burning oil is what draws the crowds (and that was just on the monkey bike).  If the Indian riders go next year it would be nice if a few more made the pilgrimage to the midlands to show the people there are more than 6 Indians left in existence.  It is a great weekend, well worth the trip from the south.

Andy Townsend