Small Fry’s day out

HMCCQ Pine Rivers Stinkwheel Rally 2020

23 August, 2020 – Brisbane, Qld

The Brisbane Exhibition (Ekka) holiday signals a special rally each year for the HMCCQ Pine Rivers Area. If my memory is correct John Finglas created an annual ride on this day to celebrate our 2 stroke motorcycles and he named it (appropriately) the ‘Stinkwheel Rally’. In later years Ralph Roles took the reins and decided to add small capacity 4 strokes to create the ‘Twoies and Tiddlers Rally’. In essence it was created to cater for the slow speed machines which would otherwise sit in the shed.

Of course, a curve ball was thrown as the qualification for historic machines changes as each year goes by. This allows 2 strokes of large capacity from the ‘70s and ‘80s which are indeed faster than even large capacity 4 strokes. This year COVID saw the cancellation of the Ekka however the holiday was still granted but moved from the traditional Wednesday to Friday the 14th of August.

A healthy group gathered at the HMCCQ Pine Rivers clubhouse which was shrouded by a heavy fog that persisted well into mid-morning. Richard Speck had again printed rally stickers while hot drinks and toast were also supplied before the sign-in and briefing. I counted around 20 twoies and 7 tiddlers. 2 strokes ranged from a tiddling Francis Barnett and BSA Bantam to a stonking Suzuki 750GT. Japanese makes dominated, closely followed by the Europeans, then a few English makes. The tiddlers