The South Durham Section is one of 79 sections of The Vintage Motorcycle Club Ltd (VMCC). This serves the area surrounding Darlington, which takes in part of Co. Durham, North Yorkshire and Teesside.

Our nearest neighbours are the Northumbrian section, based in Birtley Tyne & Wear, and the North East section, based in Boroughbridge Yorkshire.  A few miles to the west of us is the Lakeland section, based near Keswick, which serves the Cumbria area.

We meet at 8.00pm on alternate Thursdays at the Middleton St Cricket Club, which is situated 3 miles east of Darlington. See Multimap or Google Maps (links open in a new window).

The first club night of each month comprises a business meeting, where future events are discussed and planned, past events reported upon and any other business discussed.  Other club nights throughout the year include talks on many subjects, occasionally by someone famous, quiz nights, film shows and domino nights.

Our events from around April to October comprise of six road safety runs, four held on Sundays and two on weekday evenings.  The average  length is 100 miles for the day runs and around 50 miles for the evening ones. They are generally open to all VMCC eligible machines (25 years old). Competitors are given route sheets and checkpoint locations, where questions on motorcycling history and road safety are asked. Awards for these runs are presented at our annual dinner dance held in January.

Throughout the good weather period we also hold various evening social runs which are generally non-competitive. Sometimes they are just a run to the seaside by a totally obscure non direct route. Other times you are taking part in a signpost rally, looking for monuments or finding a date on a building.  It doesn’t really matter, as you are riding your bike on a usually (but not always) pleasant summers evening, amongst some of the best countryside to be found anywhere.

During the winter months many of us keep riding by participating in green lane runs on many of the splendid non sealed UCR’s & BOATs in the Dales and N. Yorkshire moors.  In addition some members take part in observation trials, of which there are around 11 held throughout the year, culminating in the Trials Championship Award.

Many of our members travel to other sections events to enjoy the areas we don’t normally see. Some examples of these events are:

The Northumbrian Gathering

A weekend event by the Nothumbrian Section in late June

Topcliffe Run

North East Section in August

South Lakes Mountain Run

Lakeland Section in September

TT Rally

May/June

Hesket Newmarket

Lakeland Section in late May

Felixburke Weekend

Cotswold Section in April

Some non-VMCC events are attended by a few of our members.  One example is the Irish Rally, organised by the Munster Vintage Motorcycle & Car Club, which is based in Kenmare Co. Kerry. The event takes place over four days, although the trip over there tends to run into ten!  The daily mileage during the event can top 150 miles over some extremely rough roads, therefore spanners and spare nuts and bolts are a necessity!

Some of our more adventurous colleagues, who have plenty of free time, take part in social runs to such places as Bavaria and the Alps.  These are not club runs though, as they are usually (but not always) carried out on more modern bikes or, at least, ones with some suspension!

All in all most of our section members enter, and enjoy riding their bikes, in the various events.  It is, after all, what they were built for!