London Classic Off Road and Racing Show 2022

 

London Classic Off Road and Racing Show

December 3^rd 2022

 

It had a feel of an on-off build up to this show. Wey Valley pulled out because there was a more important thing for the members to do that Saturday. Understandable but it did leave me in a predicament of how to fill the stand with five bikes. I sent out a plea to MAG to generate numbers. Fortunately Spen responded and then sent out a plea to local MAG members. From nothing I had three people and three bikes. I was persevering with Wey Valley and had one taker but he contacted me that he could no longer come as his BMW 1200 had be stolen off his drive. A few days later I was contacted by Chris and he could display his Triumph T100. Things were getting better. I sent out requisite application forms to be filled in on-line. The theme of Adventure Bikes was lost but what more could I put on the stand to invite the visitors in. An inspiration struck me, I had read in the LE club magazine about an artist who travelled around to vistas in remote place in the Dales on his LE with a stack of art accessories to be able to paint the scenes in situ. He was Henry Mortimer Batten a well known journalist and broadcaster for the BBC in the 1920’s and the article was written by Paul Elliott who described some of Henry’s life and his appreciation of this motorcycle. I have my LE with a few accessories, some off road paintings I did fifty years ago with an old easel and equally old paint box and paints. I had a bit of astro turf to add ambience. I prepared my old Mac with videos of my trip to India on a Himalayan. Other than assembling and loading my bike trailer I was good to go. Spen, Graeme and Nic from MAG, Chris from Wey Valley and myself made the team for the event.

Thursday I built the trailer, Friday I loaded it with my LE and filled the EL Cid with props and delivered everything to the stand at Kempton ready for an early start on Saturday. This year the stand was on the first floor and bike access was by wheel chair ramp. Riding up it was interesting with a cold engine and shuffling it around the tight turn mid way was physical. Bigger bikes would have problems.

Saturday was a cold start and everyone arrived in good time finding alternative ways in using the goods lift. The stand was finally decorated with posters, a painting and the MAG banner. I should have brought my selection of coat hangers and pliers for hanging the banner. In all I was happy to have a presentable stand with interesting bikes to display. There was a great deal of interest in Nicks Norton Commando which had been much modified, Graeme’s Guzzi V7 and Chris’s T100 throughout the day. My LE proved to be a spark that brought people to the stand and prospective members for the LE Club. The IAM and Wey Valley were doing well and MAG was doing their bit.

Everyone had a chance to see what was at the show even viewing prospective purchases. The main event at the show were interviews with the former Speedway Champion Peter Collins. More interesting for me was who was doing the interviewing.

It was none other than LE Club Historian and Motorcycle Journalist Denis Frost. That name may ring a bell with Motorcycle road tests in the distant past. There were interesting bikes among them was this Benelli. Very much like the Aermacchi of that era.

It had been a long cold day and we started wrapping up at three in the afternoon. Even so there was still interest in the LE from one gentle man who had limited internet access. He was a little disappointed that the Club had moved away from paper. Where can you get membership to a club that is not on-line now? My advice was to get a friend to help him with the on-line application. Perhaps a Christmas present? It took me an hour to load up everything that I had brought including the LE and equally as long to unload it. As it was now dark a secured the trailer outside and dismantled it and put it away the next morning.

November 2022

 

November 2022.

 

An interesting month with finally getting to see my GP about ongoing health issues from having had Covid which have left me under the weather and not my usual energetic self. Even the cat was sick. Enough said. At the Observed Sunday it was raining so hard that I took the El Cid to the meeting. The driver’s wing mirror was a little out of place and I thought I would give it a little tweak to better position it and it came off in my hand. The internal bracket had broken. A job to do when I got home. It was a bit more complicated than that. I needed to get access behind the mirror glass. Fortunately the rubber was so old and hard it disintegrated under a little pressure. The broken bracket could now be removed and a replacement was found in my store of bits along with a new nut and bolt. I had to wait a few days for set of replacement rubbers from ECAS 2CV spares to complete the job. Looks nice again. 

The continuing saga of things for the van was sorting out the front brake callipers. Both had seized with lack of use. The dilemma was how to push them out when they are no longer connected to the system. A novel approach suggested by my brother Adrian was to make up a piston on a screw thread that could compress brake fluid and so force the calliper pistons to come out. To make the piston I enlisted the help of my engineering friend Bob. After a few days Bob had made the item and I set about the job of removing the pistons from the callipers. I have done one piston from one side of a calliper. It is not a quick job screwing down the piston and recharging from the bleed nipple as you undo the bolt. I may or may not be finished by Christmas.

I gave the Buell a run out one Sunday morning in sunshine and a warm start descended into bone chilling cold as I went up the M40 towards Oxford. Fog was never far away and it was not long before my outing was curtailed and I returned home. Another day ,after giving the Valiant a run out I seem to have got the ignition right for the carburetion to be right. How many weeks, on and off, have I been playing with it?  Any way it is now good enough to get parked at the back of the garage and get the LE out for the London Classic Off Road and Race Bike Show. Washed, polished and fired up it was prepped for the event. I only had to get the props out of storage to be ready. 

A bit of effort had to go into this one as Wey Valley had the toy run the same day and I could not rely on their support. The Le Club was similarly unavailable. I contacted Spen from Motorcycle Action Group to see if anyone from them would like to help out. Fortunately for me they were or it would have been me on my own. I had one taker from Wey Valley, Chris, to help out. I had five bikes for the display. They were standard bikes, but as you know you don’t need a specific off road bike to go off road and that was the theme.