Continuing to be ably hosted by the North West NSW Chapter of HOG who are based at it’s starting point in Tamworth this year’s event had the biggest attendance of riders to date, I would venture a guess and say that it would have been close to the three hundred mark judging from one section of the run where there was at least three kilometers of bikes that I could see at the same time, plus, I also knew that there were a fair few behind me as well.

The hospitality of the towns and pubs that were the stopping points for drawing cards could not have been better, and especially at Nundle, where the local Lions Club had set up their barbies on the footpath outside the pub and were serving up a huge swag of damn good tucker, whilst the local copper stood out in the sun in the middle of the crossroad directing traffic so that the riders did not have to worry about looking out for tintops whilst they were looking for parking spaces, I was actually directed by him to park on the footpath under a tree when I asked him if there was any shade nearby on account of not wanting the cameras getting too hot in the bikes gear-sack, and later on he also allowed the Jack Daniels car to park right in the middle of the intersection for a quick photo shoot with the Jack Girls, its nice to see that a bit of good old fashioned policing is still being practiced and that bloke certainly deserves a pat on the back for making us welcome, I have absolutely no doubt that his great attitude towards us that day would have earned him a lot of respect from all the riders, myself included.

Needless to say it’s always going to be a great day out when you are riding with that many like minded people, but, when you chuck in the added bonus of it being held at the same time as the Tamworth Country Music Festival, well, that more than makes it worth the effort of lobbing up a day early and taking in both events for the weekend, so, all in all, another well run event taking in a good cross section of riding conditions and as far as I know there was only one rider who detoured off the road to do a bit of ploughing in a farmers paddock, hopefully its not too long before he’s recovered and back on the road again.

Congratulations to the North West HOG Chapter for a job well done, and see you there next year.