International Motorcyclists Tour Club

The IMTC was the brainchild of three people:  Eve Simmonds, Ida Crowe and Harry 'Stubby' Stubbings.  Eve and Ida had first toured together abroad in the late 1920s; the latter had responded to an advert Eve had placed in 'The Motorcycle' and they camped in Switzerland.  Ida recalled how cold it was in the tent sleeping on the hard ground without a sleeping bag, just a shawl.  'Stubby' replied to an ad. Ida placed; she had concerns about camping in Mussolini's fascist Italy.  Encouraged by Stubby, Ida and Eve ventured further in the next two or three years, taking in the Black Forest, Italy and Spain.  After each tour the three would meet in one of London's Lyons Corner House - the IMTC is keen on its food and drink! - to compare notes and admire photos.  Stubby suggested forming a club; Ida wrote to the motorcycling press and, with 28 people attending a meeting on 14 December 1932, the IMTC came into being at the Camden Head, London N1.  Ida Crowe was elected to the chair... and stayed there until 1965!  Club rules were drafted and one is still very relevant today:

"The objects of the club are primarily social in nature and concerned with such matters as the arranging of companions for trips abroad, the interchange of information and experience and generally to assist foreign touring among motorcyclists of all countries."


The club's first tour came in 1933 to Bilbao, taking in the Spanish TT races.  After an Easter 1934 trip to Belgium - in 2010 we are doing the same - five more tours that year included one to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany to the International Six Days Trial in which members Ida Crow, Maurice Greenwood and Graham Oates competed.  The IMTC has always steered clear of organising motorcycle sport but has frequently attracted sporting, not to say intrepid, motorcyclists!  In 1928 Manxman Oates had made the first crossing of Canada coast to coast with a rubber-tyred vehicle, riding a 500cc Ariel single with sidecar from Vancouver to Nova Scotia.  A single-cylindered combination was also favoured by Theresa Wallach in 1935 who, with Florence Blenkiron, rode a Panther from London to Cape Town and crossed the Sahara Desert to do so.  Theresa later emigrated to the U.S.A. but not before becoming one of only three women to gain a Brooklands Gold Star, in 1939 persuading Francis Beart to lend her a 350cc International Norton, recording a lap at 101.64 m.p.h.  In the rain...  That same year, Jim Kentish also won a Brooklands Gold Star on his Vincent-H.R.D.  Jim came to prominence in the IMTC in the late 1970s and early 1980s, organising the popular fly-ride tours to the U.S.A.

Later in the 1930s the IMTC spread beyond the metropolitan area to the North (centred on Manchester) and the Midlands (Leicester, then Birmingham).  By the outbreak of the Second World War membership had grown to the 300-plus that has remained the norm since.