30 Years of Fireblade!

30 Years of Honda Fireblade at Sammy Miller Motorcycle Museum – Saturday 9th July 2022

A change of plan was afoot for this week’s bike adventure. The original plan was to head over for the 13 County fair in Royal Tunbridge Wells, as we had such a great time last year. Unfortunately, conflicting plans meant it would be a solo adventure, the rest of our bobber/chopper crew couldn’t make it, and I didn’t fancy the 2-hour ride each way on my own.

Lucky, at this time of year, there are plenty of events going on closer to home. One of our Sports Bike riders was planning a trip to the Sammy Miller Motorcycle Museum on his new Fireblade. So, I tagged along for the 30 years of Fireblade event.

The Sammy Miller Museum is always a great day out, especially if you love bikes, it’s located in the New Forest, so it’s a nice ride to boot. We decided to make it more of a ride and avoid the M27 as much as possible. I meet Max in Cosham at 9:30. He arrived on his very sexy new CBR 1000RR Fireblade SP. The SP is loaded with fancy extras like smart electronic control suspension, extra Brembo bits and a quick shifter. Max has only had the bike a few weeks, so was keen to take it for a good run.

After the standard banter about keeping up on the Bobber, we planned the route and set out for the day. We headed up the A32 and cut through to Spitfire link via Morestead, which is a great road, then picked up the A34 for a junction and up that random piece of the A272, bringing you out on the A30, another great road. Passing through Stockbridge, we made our way down some fast B roads, to the back of Romsey, which was a mistake! Due to an event in the town centre, loads of roads were closed leading to several diversions to get out of town. Once out of town and apart from a few random extra turns, the SAT NAV decided to add we dropped into the New Forest and arrived at the museum.

There was a great turnout, lots of bikes around and as you can imagine loads and loads of Fireblades, check out the pictures. I don’t claim to know loads about sports bikes, but they are stunning things to look at, almost Art. In the 90s I had a picture of a Fireblade in the awesome orange urban tiger colour scheme on one of my schoolbooks. I was hoping to see one, and I wasn’t disappointed. We walked around, taking in the bikes which were on display in the courtyard, there was no fee to have a mooch around unless you wanted to go into the museum. We grabbed a coffee and sausage roll from the café and took a seat to enjoy the colourful view of pretty much every Fireblade from every era.

As a treat, Sammy Miller himself and Allen Milliyard fired up their classic Honda RCs. Sammy on his 1967 RC181 GP race replica, check out the Sammy Miller Instagram for a clip.

Wandering around, Max got talking to another Fireblade owner about modifications they had made and which modes they use on the road.

As always with bike events, there were loads of friendly people and everyone was in a great mood. All in all, it was a great day out, I’m glad I went along. Thank you to the Sammy Miller Museum for hosting such a great event for free, it brought like-minded people together from all over.

We headed home in the sunshine, taking a quicker route back, as Max peeled off at his junction, I decided I wasn’t quite done for the day. I headed towards Chichester on the back roads, and up through South Harting on one of my favourite routes back home.