london Classic Bike Show 2023

 

London Classic Bike Show 2023

 

To begin the week was Wey Valley Advanced Motorcyclists Observed Sunday where I had the chance of recruiting more bikes and people to exhibit and help on the stand. It was an opportunity to hand out vehicle passes that contained a QR code that would gain entry on the day. A couple of the people were not able to come that prompted the scramble to fill the vacancies caused by their absence.

 All he changes needed were facilitated by Louise our off road event’s organizer with setting up of a WhatsApp group to distribute electronic vehicle passes for all the people who could not get to Sundays meeting. On the Friday I loaded up the Valiant on the trailer and after lunch I headed off to Kempton Park in the El Cid to set up as much as I could for tomorrow. Louise was trying to contact me while in transit to say no one was coming today as her reason for coming was to assist someone in the delivery of his bike to get him home again but in the end he was not able to ride his bike so I was left alone to unload the Valiant from the trailer. Doing it on your own presents a problem when releasing the final securing straps all the tension on the suspension is released and the bike springs in an unexpected direction so it is good to have someone steady it at this time. I found a security guard to help me with this. Something to do instead of walking around doing security things to fill in the day. The area of the stand was opposite the exit doors and on a corner, a prime position. The back boards were of a low level type so there was nothing to hang anything on. I spoke to Andy Kitchen about that and organised chairs for the stand. I had to find something to hang the banners on, Tonight’s’ project make something for the show. I had the MAC for showing my Himalayan adventure and set that up. Not much else I could do so I headed for home.

Tonight’s’ project was to find some rope to string across between the end panels of the back board and having two spaces required two sets of attachments. Luckily I had some old gazebo poles and rope to use. The back board ends fortunately had a large diameter hole in the aluminium extrusion that the gazebo poles could fit so attaching the rope to a bit of pole through the pole so that when there was weight on the rope the pole stayed put and with no stress on the back board. I took about an hour to make this adjustable masterpiece and I was ready for the final set up early on Saturday morning.

I was up at six and on my way by seven. Most of the bikes were already on the stand and Louise, Janet and Chris arrived shortly after with all the club bits to finish off the display. Time was ticking away. Where was James and his K100 outfit?  It was nearly nine, then he arrived but could not get through the side entrance. The outfit had to come through the front entrance where there was a bi-fold door. Such fun as it was stuck fast and needed the efforts of five people to unstick it. It was getting busy as I helped push the outfit to the stand through crowds of people. Just about set up by 9:30, ready for the day. Our team from Wey Valley included: Nick Ellerby, Martin Barnes, Kevin Fryer, Tom Gould, Paul Barfoot, James Cashmore, Janet Jones, Chris Webb, Gavin Caddick, James Dwelly and probably a few more that are not on my list.

It felt crowded from the start with a continuous supply of punters visiting the stand. There didn’t seem much time for anything else but, or me it turned out to be a special day meeting many of my old colleagues  from the London Motorcycle Museum, catching up on how they survived Covid as I had not seen them since the Museum closed at the end of 2019. I managed to catch some of the interview of special guest John “Mooneyes” Cooper. 

I remember him from my youth and the reports in Motorcycle News of the late sixties and early seventies. Once again the interviewer was LE Club Historian Dennis Frost to whom I must apologise for giving him one n in Dennis. I caught with him a week later at the LE Club AGM in Pailton. I think we had a good display this year with pride of place with the Suzuki 750 two stroke triple winning second best in show.

 I did my usual walk about taking pictures of the bikes on display among those catching my eye were the Rudge super sports, the MV Augusta and Gilera lightweights because they look so stylish for the late fifties. After the prize giving we packed up, I retrieved the El Cid and trailer from the car park which took me ages, loaded up the Valiant and headed for home reflecting on having an excellent day.