West Wales Motorcycle Show

Well, it's that time of year again. West Wales Motorcycle Show, organised by the Carmarthen and District Motorcycle Club, was on over this weekend. I managed to get there yesterday to help man the TOMCC stand, as I was working today. Plenty of club stands and plenty of traders, plus an auction of motoring items including a few vintage bikes and cars. Better weather (despite a shower on my way there) meant there were more people than last year and the atmosphere was good.

Hightlights for me were a pair of stunt riders and a trials exhibition. I had never seen proper stunt riding up close and it was amazing. The trials riding of Steve Colley was a long way from the muddy or rocky ascents and flat caps of the trials I used to watch. He was an proper athlete with bike skills I found almost hard to believe. Yeah, bunny hopping over a series of boxes ...



But then riding up the vertical side of his trailer and landing on top? Neat trick!



(Sorry about the picture - iPhones lack zoom, amongst other things, but if you look carefully ...)

As for the rest of the show, well ... see last year's posts. We had fun, lots of tea and biscuits and maybe found a few new members. I'll leave you with some bike porn, or at least some objects of interest:



The Sue Randall Memorial Bike, a Suzuki 250-based bobber built by the father of a girl who died before it could be completed, to her design. I like bobbers, and this was a beautifully neat construction. The back story was tragic, especially to one who has seen his own daughters grow up to womanhood.



A few Triumphs ...



And a few more (spot mine?) ...



A trike Full of Bull ...



With Beer Barrels for Bollocks ...



A brace of Kawasaki triples: a learner-legal (cough) 250 and a batshit mental 500 ...



A grand Z1A from 1974, although I'm not sure about the mustard and chocolate paint scheme ...



And proof that the Freemasons have a finger in every pie. I did have a chat with him, and I won't be joining.

And finally, the One I Would Take Home If I Could:



Inspired by Steve Colley's performance, I liked this TY175. Light, simple, utterly effective, and I have wanted one since I don't know when. Sadly, I doubt if I would be capable of much more than falling off it these days.

West Wales Motorcycle Show, Day 2

As predicted, the weather today was much better - great, in fact - and the numbers attending the show were much improved. In fact, most of the day was very busy, and there were a lot more vintage bikes there, too. Half of the hall was old bikes, and the other half was old cars. There was a lot to see, and the stream of visitors past our stand was constant.

We got a lot of interest in the Triumph Owners' Club, and have probably signed up several new members. We had a policy of asking anyone who paused momentarily in front of the stand "do you have a Triumph?" An astonishing number said 'yes'. Of course, then the game was to sign them up. Of those who answered 'no', quite a considerable proportion said they used to have one, and stayed for a chat about the olden days.

News item: 86% of the population of Carmarthenshire used to own a Triumph T140R (six of which were the first one off the production line) which they sold for a song and which they bitterly regret getting rid of, as the bike would be worth millions today, seen 'em on eBay, they knew how to make bikes in them days, no mistake, aye, yes.

For someone who likes both motorbikes and chatting to strangers, this was a very pleasant way to spend a day.

I have to admit that a lot of the interest in the club stand may have been generated by the appearance of our Club Secretary in leather hot-pants and fetish footwear. Apologies for the poor photograph: there were better views, but snapping them could have got me a very sharp toe in the sensitive bits.




I had a long chat to the owner of an unrestored but roadworthy Standard 8 saloon car. This was the first car I properly remember from childhood, and looking in at the back seat brought back memories of long journeys (before they invented motorways) to various holiday destinations. No seat belts - just a blanket to cushion a youngster from the crashing of the crude suspension. And one detail I had forgotten: no boot. There was a luggage space in the back, but you had to reach over the back seat to get to it. This one was black, whereas Dad's was light blue. 603 EHN, where are you now? No longer known to the DVLA, that's where, which suggests scrappage. This makes me sad.

I didn't get out and about as much today, as the stand was busier, but I did get to see the Wall Of Death. I hadn't seen anything like this for many years, so it was worth a punt of £3 (and a bit more change when they pleaded for help with their 'accident fund' as "no insurer in the world will take on the risk of the incredibly fast and dangerous work we do"). Yeah, right, but I threw a few bob down anyway.

The bikes were small Honda trailies, which were capable but dull, but the star of the show was a 1923 Indian Scout, which was used for the main part of the display. Low, light and incredibly loud, with worn leather saddle and padding, it was a genuine working antique. The rider mashed the throttle to create plenty of backfires that made the kids scream, and the show was exciting and, predictably, very short. What made it a bit surreal was the riders' dress. No circus outfits here: they were all young men in their early-to-mid twenties, wearing normal white shirts, blue slacks and knee-length horse-riding boots. They looked like Man At C&A on a stag weekend.

The Scout is at the top of the picture.



Life has its ups and downs. Despite it being almost impossible to find a job at the moment, I have been chosen ('elected' would be incorrect) as Chairman of the club, effective immediately. I think the role is largely ceremonial, but it does mean that I will have to organise things when the Sec and her husband go to Australia for six weeks later in the year. And I will be hosting a quiz night in January at the first club meet of the New Year. I shall look forward to that; I have done a few of these before, and I can be wicked.

Next weekend, a few of us are journeying Northwards to take in a race meet at Tonfanau, near Towyn in mid-Wales. Provided the weather stays good, that should be a decent day out. More on that later.

West Wales Motorcycle Show, Day 1

Held today and tomorrow on the Showground at Carmarthen in West Wales. Here's a few thoughts about Day 1.

Rain overnight, kind-of-dry at 8 am. So I set off with waterproofs in the panniers, but otherwise dressed for a dry ride. Correct decision - the rain didn't start until 9 am, when I was safely tucked in the exhibition hall with a cup of coffee from someone's flask. But then it bucketed down. The attendance early in the day was poor, both bikes for the show and day visitors. The hall I was in was half empty of bikes. The low day visitor numbers are understandable - anyone looking out of the window at 9 am would have reconsidered any plans to spend the day walking round a large field watching people get soaked. The absence of bikes, too - if you have spent the last three years painstakingly restoring a 1934 Blenkinsop Bastard 350cc side-valve to better than original condition, you aren't likely to want to ride it through a rainstorm just so some other people can stand around criticising the quality of the work ("no, the original black was much blacker than that") and then have to spend a full week cleaning it afterwards.

However, there were some completely superb bikes there. Half-way through the afternoon, I got a mate and took him to the centre of the hall. "OK," I said, "if you could have any of the bikes in this room, which would it be?" He named his three choices, and his order of preference, and curiously they were exactly the same as mine. We both loved a very tidy Yamaha RD400, which would remind us why two-strokes are such stonking fun:



Second place went to an immaculate Triumph T110 Trophy, with a fabulous, if optimistic, registration number:



And for us, the Best In Show was an 850 Norton Commando from 1977:



This bike was described as unrestored - in other words, the immaculate condition of the entire bike was due to years (33 of them) of careful ownership and obsessive cleaning and maintenance. It even had the original paintwork. If that is all true, then the bike is an astonishing example of how well a bike can last if looked after. I have seen six-month-old modern bikes looking in worse order. We agreed that it was a true icon of motorcyling history - a proper man's motorbike. Even so, the relatively puny 65 claimed bhp and the skinny rear tyre would put it in the also-rans today. I can remember when these bikes were first introduced, and we all stood back in awe of their sheer size and potency. Today, it doesn't look particularly big (it's about the same size as the Bonnie) and the power output is modest. Just for comparison, a modern equivalent might be the new BMW S1000, which has a massive 193 bhp and weighs just 404 lb compared to the Norton's 440 lb. That's over three times the power-to-weight ratio.

Gulp.

The Triumph Owners' Club stand attracted a fair bit of interest. We all had our bikes on display (which was great as it meant they were near at hand and in the dry for the whole day) and plenty of people stopped by for a chat. We gave out application forms and think we may have a couple of new members as a result.



Here's some of the crew:



Other features of the show were an excellent display by the Royal Artillery Motorcycle Display Team, which was both spectacular and amusing, a falconry display (these are getting to be a bit of a cliché now), and a Wall Of Death which curiously I never heard and therefore missed seeing. Maybe tomorrow.

Rain late in the afternoon meant full wets for the journey home. The weather forecast for tomorrow is good, so I am hoping that attendance will be better.

Oh, and I can't leave this without mentioning a gorgeous little Triumph Tiger Cub, which was guarded by a Cub-sized Cerberus:



Awwww - for the dog and the bike.