From Then Till Now
(A tale of undying friendship and alcohol abuse)
Chapter One (The Seventies)
Two Stroke & Brown Ale
The year is 1975 the Olympics Scooter Club based on Stone Cross are in their final death throws after finally giving up on trying to get the skinny kids from the 64 youth club based next door to their club house to give up their Garrelli Tigers and buy scooters.
The age of the two strokes had arrived and Parkas and Motown had to give way to Dodgy Flairs and Black Sabbath.
The Olympics name was ditched and Stone Cross MCC was born, headed up by the late Alan Hale (The best organiser I have ever known) a motley crew of bikes and for the first year a few scooters took to the road touring the Midlands and Wales every Sunday morning and I mean every Sunday which is unbelievable considering we would be out on the Saturday night consuming ridiculous amounts of Newcastle Brown Ale and falling asleep in gardens or roadside verges on the way home from the “Rock Night” at the Dirty Duck in Walsall.
As the members who had joined from the Olympics slowly drifted away after not being able to cope with the Rock n Roll life style being set by the young whippersnappers on their Kawasaki & Yamaha 250’s new members joined and the club continued to flourish with the consistent factor being four members and the ever present driving force of Alan Hale who as well as being the ultimate organiser had an unbelievable knack of knowing when a Slot Machine would pay out which helped fund many drinking sessions.
Camping or Caravanning weekends became an annual event at such wild hot spots as Weston and Ilfracombe, it was on these weekends that we began to learn the benefits of a good sleeping bag as Glen and myself nearly froze to death in the long hot summer of 76 when we failed to realise that just because it was 90 degrees in the day it was still bloody freezing on the night and we had to spend the night huddled in a telephone box (there was another alternative but we are sworn never to mention it).
A variety of bikes were being ridden mostly 250 two strokes with the occasional 350 0r 750 (Flash Bastard) but whatever bike you had you were made welcome and the club rule was that we rode together and this was adhered to until we got to within a couple of miles of the club house when it became a kamikaze race to see who could get back to the club house first.
Chapter Two (The Eighties)
The Gentler Sex & A Sad Loss
Not really a lot to say about the eighties, from the club point of view this was the worst time. Pressure from the gentler sex to settle down and grow up led to a brief period when the club became a Bike / Auto Club and one by one the members succumbed to marriage and settled down, resulting in a decade of weddings and christenings which finally resulted in the club going into a period of no one owning a bike and drifting apart, to this day I still blame Europe and that bloody Final Countdown record as it has got to be the worst rock track ever as it sucked away our will to live and we turned into henpecked wimps whose highlight of the week was to get together for a few beers on a Friday night, but this was still fraught with danger as Glen found out when he arrived home a little merry and late to be faced with a Freeman’s Catalogue hurtling down the stairs at him, it took him under the chin and put him down ( The marriage ended later that year ).
It was at this time we lost Alan Hale a bloody nice bloke R.I.P.
Chapter Three (The Nineties)
Back On The Road Again
Honda Fireblade’s ruled the roads and Rock was back, one by one the four remaining original members got back in the saddle and the time of the Bike Rally was born.
Just as The Final Countdown had robbed us of our virility in the eighties rallies turned back into raging beer monsters who danced until they dropped (literally).
Loaded up with single skin tents and cheap sleeping bags (will we ever learn ) we hit the road to as many rallies as we could find.
The decision was made to get the club back together again and as new members joined we searched the local area to find a pub to run it from and finally settled for The Globe in West Bromwich
John the gaffer thought it would be a good idea to let us have our meetings and parties there, little did he know what was to come.
Numbers grew and we settled down to a routine of rallies and fortnightly meetings, something new was needed and The Globe was going to bare the brunt of Glen’s dreams of becoming a Rock Promoter.
Chapter Four (What do you call this decade?)
Rock “n” Roll & The Black Hills
On a freezing cold day in June 2001 the first Stone Cross Bike & Music Bash took place, from that humble beginning it has now grown into a annual event attended by hundreds of bikers and rock fans.
Each year the event raises funds for local charities and the club is supported by local businesses and bands who donate their services free of charge, bands include Busby Babes, The Wazzocks, Stax, Motorkill, Crazy Horse and many more.
In 2005 the club embarked on their first overseas trip a ride to The Faro Rally in Portugal 9 bikes rode through France Spain and Portugal to get to the rally and were met their by another 9 members who flew into Faro Airport. The weather was hot, the music was loud and the toilets were unforgettable.
After taking two years out to recover the club took on their biggest challenge yet flying out to the states to visit the legendary Sturgis Bike Rally 14 members flew to Las Vegas to collect the assortment of Harley’s we had hired.
We set out on our 5,000 mile round trip and after less than half a day on the road we were stopped in our tracks by an unbelievable storm which closed the interstate and forced us to stop early for the night.
The weather after this stayed kind to us and we ate up the miles up to Idaho falls through the Teeton National Park and on into Cody a Rodeo Town which was to be our last stop before Sturgis ,after a great night in Cassies bar complete with line dancing cowboys we headed into Sturgis to be met with the continual roar of thousands of Harleys cruising down the main strip.
After four days of drinking and riding out to places such as Mount Rushmore, Devils Tower, The Badlands and Deadwood we headed south back to Vegas taking in The Rockies, The Grand Canyon and Route 66, one hell of a trip but made easy by the never faltering Harley’s.
2009 saw 12 members head for the Dordogne in France, this was a to be a more relaxing holiday as the hot weather and lure of the pool at the farmhouse limited the riding to local attractions.
2010 see the club head back to Sturgis via Chicago watch this space for the report.
TBC
CLUB HISTORY
