25/26 August 2019 - Jack Taylor group weekend - Swainby North Yorkshire

Finally got the Super Clubman finished on the Thursday night and loaded into the van ready to leave straight from work on Friday to head to Perth for the first part of the journey down to Swainby for the Jack Taylor Facebook group and VVCC meeting on the Sunday and Monday of the bank holiday weekend.
Will write up elsewhere about the weekend. other than to say it was a great couple of days and well worth the trek down. Weather was great, rides were great and the people friendly and so welcoming. Spent Sunday morning enjoying chatting with Ken Taylor, who has some really great tales as you can imagine. More than happy to talk about frame designs and why and how they did this and did that, but above all else a real gentleman.
My Super Clubman ran really well with the upgrades which I was more than pleased with as when I fitted the Arabesque rear mech and shifters, I thought, just maybe, putting on the long cage rear mech and the friction shifters I just might be able to make it shift the seven speeds instead of six. No chance, just wont shift onto the out small gear, which is fine, could have been worse and not shifted onto the biggest Otherwise it shifted faultlessly. I was also really impressed with the Jack Brown tyres from Planet X. They are the old Rivendall Jack Browns that they bought the moulds or rights from Panaracer but are made exactly the same compound. They are really supple tyres and these ones are 700 x 33.5 and they soak up all of the rough farm roads laneways we rode. Really nice. I ended up putting the cork/white bar tape on and it was pretty comfortable with the new bars and the old Mafac levers now fitted. Thankfully everything was in the right spot and was working and comfortable throughout the ride. Well happy and while still maybe needing to change the shifters no to at least get the 7 speed back and maybe fit the Stronglight triple, it is much more riding how I prefer it. All coming together
I did also pick up a frame on my way south that I had purchased a while back and had been waiting in Durham for me coming this weekend. It's a 1963 JT Sport which for reasons we haven't been able to uncover completely was partially built then put in a loft in about 1963/4 and had been moved once and then forgotten about until a few months back. Blue and Canary yellow and looks like it was painted yesterday. ….but that's a story for another day. except to say that Ken signed the back of it's seat tube on the yellow band with his trademark ' Have a nice ride'

Jamie