On 26th September the VC crew woke to a beautiful autumn morning in London….
The birds were singing, the sun was shining, the leaves were turning - the perfect day to race unsuitable bikes down a stretch of the English coastline! As we got closer to Margate, a sense of foreboding began to set in…the skies got darker and the temperature began to drop. Eventually we pulled into Dreamland car park (do all off-season coastal fairgrounds look forbidding or just this one?), ready for Malle’s first festival by the sea and promptly almost had our car doors ripped off their hinges. Our fears were confirmed - it was going to be a breezy one! Monique immediately lost her woolly hat and had to settle for her second choice bonnet, which had not been pre-matched to her beach day outfit and snakeskin winklepickers. Not to worry, to the sands we went!
In normal times, Margate has a number of exciting local attractions, including the aforementioned Dreamland, the Shell Grotto (way better than it sounds - some sort of bonkers underground tunnel filled with mosaics and shells, it’s ‘Kent’s greatest mystery’!), a Turner Gallery and the Hornby Visitor Centre (for model railway enthusiasts). However, because of Rona all this stuff is shut, so I put all thoughts of mysterious grottoes and tiny trains completely out of my mind and focussed all my attention on Malle’s inaugural beach race.
This year only Gemma was brave enough to put her ancient British steed through its paces down Malle’s sandy track. In preparation, she and her crack mechanical support team (husband Howard and tiny tool carrier, Stanley Spike) had installed state of the art sand exclusion technology on all of the Triumph’s air inlets and outlets. I think this may have amounted to a couple of slightly better carb air filters as opposed to the wide open ones she’s usually has on there and the introduction of a filter on her engine breather but so far this is very high tech for the 5TA. We got down to the beach and WOW what a lineup of bikes had turned up ready to shoot it out down the ¼ mile stretch of beach. Everything from customs to ancient brit bikes and dirt bikes to hooligan racers all clubbed together into different classes for a fun “run what ya brung” fight to the finish.
Surprisingly, Gemma and the 5TA even made it all the way to the starting pen before the old Triumph was struck down with a familiar spark plug issue. This issue happens so frequently that Gemma actually orders sparks plugs in quantities of 20, however, no-one in the 3-strong mechanical team had remembered to pack any. Stanley Spike often likes to wear a lil hat emblazoned with the Champion spark plug logo so I think it’s safe to assume that the plugs were his responsibility. Sadly, neither Gemma nor Howard were able to interrogate him about this dereliction of duty because he was having his mid morning nap. I fear Stan will suffer a reduction in his race team responsibilities going forward but it’s important that he learns these lessons early on.
One quick Howard trip to Halfords later and Gemma was ready to blast down that stretch of sandy shore. And blast she did, seemingly possessed with the spirit of a wind God, she won all of her 5 drag races (two practise runs and 3 heats) against a woman on a similar era Matchless. Sadly, Gemma’s bobber decided it had had enough and fun racing times were over. Gemma abandoned it on a dune and set off to find the extended pit crew (the other VC gals), who had by this point retreated to the shelter of the van to warm up and try and eat their packed lunches without a seasoning of beach sand on the top.
Suitably refreshed and cockles somewhat warmed, we marched back to the beach en masse, ready to watch some of our pals pit themselves against Kent’s soggiest sandbanks. A late morning start meant that we were still in the various classes’ knockout stages as the weather really began to turn, making the conditions truly difficult. A few hardy spectators remained on the sidelines, but by this point the 45mph wind and driving dagger-like rain made it difficult to look in the direction of the race. Still, riders seemed to be conquering the hard, wet sand with little problem and there were surprisingly, no calamities. The Malle Mile event in Orpington usually gifts spectators with a few spectacular and hilarious crashes, but, given the conditions, we actually didn’t see anyone hit the deck during the Beach Race. There were a few wobbles towards the finish line due to a wetter patch of sand, but everyone acquitted themselves remarkably well - especially those on really heavy bikes.
Eventually, the rain got so intense that the decision was made to abandon all individual classes in favour of knockout rounds for all riders. Sadly we don’t know who won because we were quite wet, windswept and tired at this point, and we also went to the pub. An action-packed day all in all, but to be frank, we were pretty happy to return to the calm of the capital at the end of the day. Kudos to the Malle lot for putting on such a great event despite the circumstances and well done to everyone who braved the weather to race and to spectate - hopefully it’ll be a sunnier affair next year!
By Rosalind Duignan-Pearson and Sarah Emma Smith, with all images by Sarah Emma Smith
