London Classic Bike Show December 23

 

London Classic Bike Show December 2023

 

Another show successfully completed. This one was a bit special as celebrities Henry Cole, Guy Willison and engineering maestro Alan Millyard were in attendance filming a show and being a major attraction. The organisation of the Wey Valley stand had the usual hiccups. We had a battery failure and an illness reducing our numbers by two to eight for the display. The weather played its part in making it a very cold day. Everyone kept their jackets on in spite of nearly record numbers there were insufficient punters to raise the temperature in the hall. I had a thermos of chai to keep me warm and I devoured two bacon baps to help. This year all our exhibitors arrived in good time and we were ready for the punters.

It turned out to be a busy day for us talking about the bikes on display and what the club is all about. My LE is always a centre of interest and keeps me talking for ages but this time we had Elspeth Beard and Chris Arthey signing books drawing people in. I did think at the time we should rename the club as the Wey Valley Advanced Motorcyclists Book Club. I did manage one walk out into the cold and met Franc the Frog and Phillipa from the, now closed, London Motorcycle Museum. Nice to see old friends are still around post Covid. On the way back I spotted a Cotton with a Starmaker engine.

 I think it was called the Telstar. I did buy some chain lube for the Kawasaki and headed back to relative warmth. After a circuit on the ground floor and the Rumi stand I headed upstairs to see what was there. I was impressed by the Speedway display with race winning bikes of Barry Briggs and Ivan Maugher and many others that were not from my era. 

There was quite a variety of machines from the beginnings of Speedway to the present day and covered most of one side. Impressive. Opposite it was, by comparison the small Greeves stand, but just as interesting was the unusual twin port 350cc single.

 I understand that only about twenty were made making it a very rare beast. It looks fast and would have been competing against the  Japanese twins of the time. In the 250cc class it would have been the Silverstone. Not far away was the MV stand with the OHC 175. So advanced for 1951. Like all the Italian bikes of the time they were cleanly styled and looked fast. 

Trying to compete with styling was the Puch Split single 125cc powered EMC of 1952.

 Parked in the entrance was an old favourite and loved by Henry Cole a Raleigh Chopper and this one was. 

We had a visit by Henry to our stand posing by the Guzzi Californian. Henry and Louise our Social events organiser.

 All in all a very good day for the club and our book people even though we didn’t win any prizes as we did in May but this was a different event. I made it home in good time on the LE with only a little steam on the faster dual carriageways keeping up with the traffic.