We’ve just come back from the Albany hill climb, and what an event.
Rod, Glen and i headed off Thursday morning, Rod and Glen Harley mounted and me running backup in the old ute for a nice leisurely ride to Albany.
I wont spend a lot of time on the ride details because Glen is going to cover this in detail later but in short we had a rather uneventful run to Broomehill on the first day, which was great because Rods WLA had just come out of my shed after an overhaul, so to run the whole day at speed with no dramas or leaks is just fabo. Overnight at the Broomehill pub (excellent and cheap) then on to Albany through the Perongerups on the Friday.
Saturday was the Poker run (Glen will fill in the details on this), then Sunday was the hill climb.
The hill climb is run on bitumen for about 800 meters up Mt Clarence just out of the Albany town centre, its a nice scenic piece of road that the council closes off and allows the Albany club to use once a year for this event, great scenery, nice smooth road and very well organised.
The idea of the Albany hill climb is for competitors to ride three runs and match your times each time, so rather than an all out speed event its a consistency trial. The easiest way to win this type of event is to have a low powered bike (std 741 or WLA is perfect) and go flat out every run, thus staying consistent. However quite a few of the guys do tend to run big h/p and go flat out, so to combat recklessness there is a time limit set, eg anyone running under 31 seconds is disqualified, but you can take as long as you like (70 seconds for the small machines is not uncommon) but usually most people run from 45 seconds to 35 seconds.
The event starts with everyone doing one familiarisation run up the hill (three groups), then two timed practice runs, after practice you must select the time that you want to match for your next three runs. I was having some dramas with my bike jumping out of gear (1st and 2nd) on my first couple of runs which gave me some fairly slow times (45s) up the hill, so i spent some quality time in the pits with my trusty shifter and screwed in the shifter detent a bit which helped heaps.
My first timed run went o/k, i was lined up against a Triumph twin running avgas and huge cams which sounded awesome on the start line and went very well, he ran a 44 and i ran 46 which was a bit disappointing (missed a gear) but nice practice.
A bit more tinkering in the pits and we lined up for run two, by this time i decided i wanted to see what the old girl would do rather than try and be consistent (I’d already buggered up my times anyway so what the heck), this time the old girl ran hard, i had a perfect launch, no shifting dramas and no jumping out of gears. So by the time i got to the top i had one very surprised pommy bike rider, one very happy wog pilot, and a 41 second pass, cool.
The old guy on the Trumpy found me in the pits after the run and said “Fook me Tha ol thin goes fust”.
I should mention that the organisers match up bikes so that there is one slow bike and one fast bike together, so that your not side by side going through the corners and its a bit safer, i suppose they figured a 27 Indian Scout would be much slower than a hot rod trumpy, well i don’t think they will assume that again, our old relics have some serious respect at the hill climb now, particuly since Charlie was giving the Norton twin he was lined up against a good kicking as well.
After i got the old girl running hard i just concentrated on my launches, much to the relief of the Trumpy rider, as long as i beat him up the straight i was happy. Once i got to the first of the bendy bits i let him go in front so he wouldn’t bugger up his times. So for next year i think i will dress up the gear set (grind the teeth in the gear box) to eliminate the jumping out of gear issue and fit a King clutch (Kevelar) so the old girl doesn’t pull through the clutch at full noise. And with a bit more practice and the gods of speed on my side we should be running at just under Z900 times next year, not bad for a 90 year old bike built out of junk.
I would definitely recommend this event to anyone with an old bike, its just great. You can go as fast or slow as you like in the event or you can just come along and check out all of the machinery, Lots of very well presented machines to look at and interesting people too
talk to, whatever suits you.
There was well over a hundred machines participating, mostly English and Jap machines with a few European bikes mixed in for a bit of variety. Not so many American machines competing though, only two Indians and a Harley. I think we American mounted folks gave a good account of ourselves though, they won’t forget us in a hurry.
So for next year, Charlie has been bitten by the go fast bug and wants to build a hill climber as well. We have a 28 - 101 frame and forks already allocated to the project, a 741 rear wheel, half a standard scout engine, a chief gear box and a few other bits and pieces, and the plan is to build a full house animal with a huge stroke (1000cc Scout), huge cams and open pipes so between us we can give the poms a sound kicking next year with some luck. I think i have Lyndon and Steve interested in putting a stroker WLA together as well,1000 cc with big cams should do some good times and represent Harley with some dignity as well.
So hopefully ive inspired a few of you to come to Albany next year and check out something a bit different, its definitely not our normal type of event but its definitely a lot of fun.
Wayne DAM
Member #2
El President’e - Early American Motorcycle Club Perth Western Australia
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