Southern
Classic Bike Show 2016
When
putting on a stand some things never go smoothly. At the beginning
when you need to submit bikes and riders and helpers you call on
every able bodied person. This year was no exception, but the
exception was so many bikes were out of commission and so was one of
the riders! To this side of things you have to look around to see
what you can do. This time I enlisted the help of the London
Motorcycle Museum to help out with the bikes. Manning the stand on
the day were Chris, Gita and me. With Gita's help we got the Valiant
there on the Friday and set up as best we could. Chris arrived early
on the Saturday morning before I did and had his part of the display
set up. Unfortunately the large pictures I had put up on Friday night
came down by Saturday morning and it was a battle to keep them in
place all day as the adhesive I had used was not doing its job. I
have to think about something different next year.
On
the display this year were my Valiant, Chris's Police LE with
Constable Noddy and his Police box along with the LE MK2 cutaway and
the Viceroy scooter from the LMM. It was an early start with
everything needing to be in place by 08:30and the gates opened at
09:00 sharp! There is an auto-jumble going on as well so some of the
punters are scrambling to get in for the bargains of the day.
We
were busy all day with much interest in the LE cutaway and the
Viceroy. Many mugs of tea were consumed to keep the voice going and
we all had a few breaks from the stand taking a wander around to see
what was about. There was an LE that would need quite a bit of TLC
and a green Valiant Veeline that had Del'Orto carbs fitted and a very nicely turned out Deemster with the Viceroy engine too.
There
were some nice thirties bikes that a 500cc Moto Guzzi and a 250cc
version. Later on that day I went around again to take photos and
both of these had gone. Someone else had thought these were good too.
I have always liked the Aermacchi 250's and 350's and there was a
harley badged early model with a blue tank for sale. Perhaps I'll get
one one day. I did see a sad one with the head and barrel off showing
a very big hole in the piston. Each year there are more foreign bikes
on offer some are rare but I think the MV's, Ducati's and Gilera's of
the 50's have unique styling with Italian performance that made many
of the bigger British bikes look a bit out dated.
By
the end of the day we had talked ourselves to a stand still. The
stand was very busy with at least three people going away with club
application forms and a many more asking questions about the club and
technical stuff. Ay 3pm was the prize giving. We didn't win anything
again this year but did get a few bottles of wine from the organisers
for our troubles. Nice as the wine is my personal preference are the
medals that used to be issued to the exhibitors. Something small that
you can keep as a memento.
It
didn't take quite as long to take the stand down and pack it away as
it had taken to put it up. Bikes supplied by the LMM were wheeled
away to put on a trailer to be taken back. My big thanks to the LMM
for letting me have the bikes on the stand and getting then there. It
made our display so different from previous years. Chris's bike was
loaded on to my trailer for him to take home and as the last bits
were sorted it started to rain. So it was a wet trip home for me on
the Valiant with only main beam working and something to sort out
later. I got home safely through the Saturday traffic. Gita
complained to me that my indicators were not working! I was more
concerned why the brake light wasn't. She didn't notice that or my
hand signals! The Valiant has not got indicators fitted. The point
here is that people expect things to have modern bits fitted to old
bikes and that it is worth considering that when restoring or
rebuilding one. I think that safety over accuracy is most important
if you are out on the roads these days. Never mind the brake lights
I'll just have to fit indicators!
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