Wirral Egg Run Tribute Ride 2017

After a successful learning experience indoors at the Manchester Bike Show, it was time to try my skills at an outdoor event. The annual Wirral Egg Run had for many years been a well attended ride for Bikers in the North of England. For 3 decades Bikers had journeyed from the New Brighton sea front at the mouth of the River Mersey to the Liverpool Childrens Hospital to deliver Easter Eggs to the kids who were spending Easter in the hospital. The event was a rip roaring success and many other organisations were included as the number of Easter Eggs donated each year filled several vans. Alas it was a victim of ever increasing red tape and with heavy hearts, the organisers decided to bring the Egg Run to an end. What nobody expected was a band of Intrepid Scousers decided they would do the run anyway as a tribute to the organisers for all their hard work over the years. The Wirrall Egg Run Tribute Ride was born.

Owen picked me up on his Bike and we were soon at the long established meeting point, "The Dips" at New Brighton. We were not alone as It seemed like several thousand other bikers had also decided to have a ride too. I soon got my camera's loaded and we wandered around taking photo's and chatting to friends old and new. The variety of bikes was matched by the variety of fancy dress some folks had chosen to wear; Rabbits the size of Bikers had sprung up and made for a great atmosphere at The Dips.
 
I had both my Pentax camera's with me, my SP500 sporting the Helios 44m-4 and the SP1000 sporting the Tamron 80-210mm lens. To be fair to the SP1000, it behaved much better than it had on its first few rolls of film and, although it still had one or two light leaks, I managed to get some useable images with it. I shot four rolls of film that day, two in each camera, and had them developed on Monday morning by my local Max Spielmann Photo Store. I had captured some decent images and they outnumbered the terrible shots by a decent margin. I was still getting to grips with using the light meter on the SP500, but I had definitely improved a lot.

The Wirral Egg Run Tribute Ride was such a resounding success that folk still attend the ride, despite it not being the official Wirral Egg Run. The original organisers have supported it too as it is keeping the spirit of the original event alive and it does some good in the community. The most important thing about the event is putting smiles on kids faces. One young chap in particular has decided he will attend every year and in 2017 he rode his little electric bike saying hello and generally making sure people are happy at his event. Jaxx claimed the event as his own and we can't let the little chap down. When he is old enough he is determined he will take part in the ride on his own bike instead of riding his electric bike for a few yards at the head of the column before waving everyone off with the biggest grin ever seen. Here's a few images from that day.