When the Quarrymen first came together three years ago, we needed an event to kick start our season. At the same time the Distinguished Gentlemens Ride decided to move to a date in May. With this great event taking place and much larger that anything we could come up with, we decided to start supporting the event whilst using it to mark the start of our main riding season. At the same time we would raise funds for the events nominated charity.
This year sees our third time at the event and, beyond all expectation, every single one has been glorious sunshine. This year started a little later than normal as we wanted to be mid pack, rather than close to the front. Meeting at set points along the way our small team of dedicated riders made their way to Poole Quay for the start of the event, meeting up with a couple of other Quarrymen who could not attend the ride, but still wanted to come and support us at the ride start.
The ride started as normal with some minor route changes for this year. Traffic flowed well and we all gathered back up at Bournemouth Pier. This year there were hundreds of people gathered to see all the motocycles arrive.
After around an hour chatting and eating ice cream, the group headed towards its final stop in Christchurch. This time with a brand new route. The streets were lined with onlookers all waving and smiling as we rode past. An utterly fantastic experience.
The sheer number of bike is hard to capture in an image but I understand there was just over 1000 riders on the day. Some of their bikes can be seen in the car park image below.
All in all, we had a great time, with one of us taking part for the first time. We maanged to reach our target for fundraising and all bumped into lots of friends during the course of the day.
We are looking forward to attending again.
