As seen issue 24 of 100% Biker

Well it seemed a good idea to do it all again, well that and so many people asking when is it next year. The premise being simple, to say thank you to all those folk who invite me to events and put up with me and my camera, also to give people a chance to ride somewhere.

Nice simple idea, find a motorcycle friendly pub with car park/check (same as last year), find a spare date/check, ask Yoda for a cool poster/check, invite people/check, make trophies/check, move publicans bikes out of the bar/check, hope for they will appear/check I’m sorted.

So all organised and even the weather started to pick up so one happy Bosun and on the day of the show it was scorching.  As part of the event my good lady has a rat bike review, but this year she was off to football as she is an avid follower and season ticket holder of a local team. So this left me 1,unsupervised in a pub (the fact yoda is there still classifies me as being unsupervised)  and 2,with the unenviable task of deciding which of the rats she would love things could only go one way.

There is an active “spirit of 59”  group who meet at the pub for those of us with a fondness for the Rocker style scene, riding all sorts and having fun, it seemed only right to add a café racer trophy as well.

But these were the only specific categories as all the rest battled it out for land lords choice, a bike of the hour trophy in the shape of a Bosun's Whistle and the runner up Easter eggs which it seems that they are all after. For those that want to know, a pretty blue triumph with detachable pillion won 1st bike of hour and latter won land lords choice, a neat Honda won best cafe racer, Agitator won best Rat, other bike of the hour awards went to a dodge trike,   a rust style Harley, a Vincent and a turbo Suzuki bandit as ever a eclectic. Easter eggs went to a triumph thruxton, a XV125, BMW k100, Panzershrek and RD250.

With the sun out and Yoda steadily going beetroot by 1 o clock the car park was full and the bar queue huge. In fact by now parking on the grass and local roads was the way to go. there were folk telling me we that we had out grown the venue, but then people decided as I hoped that it was drop in and off to seaside weather and we survived. no precise idea of numbers but we think over 500 during the day.

I was also as ever amazed at the distances people came, and it was great to see so many friends I haven't seen in ages. I may be lucky in that the weather was ace, and the pub is cool about the event, this makes it a great day for all, and I have to say a huge thanks to Mark and team at the Plough for making this such a success.

Will it happen again, we shall have to see but I may have created a thing and for those wondering, my good lady did not appreciate my choices and her team lost. I had an ace day though.