The Beacon Message Board

I had the pleasure of having Gary Mac as my minute man in a Lake District 25 this morning (After he did a PB 10 the previous evening).Talk got round to 24s and he expressed his possible intent to ride one next year.
That set me thinking,does anyone in the club know of any 24s completed by Beacon members since I rode my first in 1967? I know of one who has done so but will wait to see if anyone can identify that person or any others. Over to you lot!

The late Bill Oakley certainly rode one back in the seventies.

If Gary rides in 2015, I hereby volunteer myself to be a member of the support crew.

Bill's is recorded on the web site, I have a feeling it wasn't until a friend of Bill's who had a record his ride pointed out the omission.

Correct.Bill did 406 in the 1968 champs North Rd event.We had entered a team of Bill,Jeff Gould,Dave Duffield and myself.Dave only lasted about 150m,Jeff fell asleep riding at about 250m,hit the verge and sprained an ankle.It was a foggy night and about midnight someone drove into my support car parked on the verge but fortunately Chris and Steve Faulks were not in it at the time.I rode through the night unsupported,having to beg relacement twin cell batteries for my Ever Ready ligh,, eventually finishing 6th with 460 odd.Bill had trouble free ride and finished still going strongly.

I did about 8hrs in the Mersey RC '24', sometime in the early 60's. For some reason the ride is not recorded in my little book... I don't think I was knackered, just bored. A limited attention span, even in those days.

Snail Male wrote:I did about 8hrs in the Mersey RC '24'

Hah slow coach, I bet even I could do it less than that, much less in fact!

Rod. Just to be pedantic on detail. Chris was executing a three point turn as we were a little further ahead of you than planned. The nose of the 1800 was fairly well onto the verge so the car was on the correct side of the road for the retrace (though sideways). The other car came barrelling along from the direction we had been travelling, but was in the centre of the road....

Whilst we were trying to sort things out, you turned up, took the feed and departed with advice to 'just sort it out' or somesuch.

The police arrived (somehow) as did the tow truck and 'essentials' were transferred from the 1800 into the police car. Don't know how, but Chris managed to work some kind of magic and one of the Bobbies volunteered to drive us round for the rest of the event as support crew. We then went to his house, where he drained the petrol from his boat engine to top up his A35 van to keep us going until the petrol stations opened in the morning. Were'nt our police wonderful!

I think you rode for at least six hours without any kind of support until we managed to find you. With all that aggro and stress going on, it's a wonder you managed to finish at all - so hats off

I think the driver of the car that hit us may have been prosecuted for lack of due care.

Hi Rod it was great talking to you last weekend. Nice finally being able put a face to the name on all those club trophies.
I hope the rest of your season goes well and it would be great to see you at a Beacon event some time.

Gary

P.S. Thanks for backing me into a corner with the 24.