Classic Clubs Show at Stanford Hall 2010

The concept of this show is good.  It aims to get the Classic Clubs together on one site.  The great variety of one make clubs for classic/vintage marques along with the VMCC form the staunch heart of the old bike movement.  This event started small a few years ago but had a chequered career as far as getting good weather.  Unfortunate weather conditions have sometimes kept attendance down and one year the monsoon rain forced the show to be abandoned.  We have to thank the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club and their hard working members for picking up the baton and keeping this event going.  Last year the weather was superb and this year, Sunday May 30th was a fine sunny day, albeit with a fairly cool wind.  Better that than the marked contrast of the day before when we had quite a downpour.  Enough of the weather, what of the actual event.  Gloria and I arrived on the Rapide at around 9.00am to find that Tony R, John B, and Rob and Val S were already there and had completed the erection of the gazebo and club banner.  Thanks to Tony for passing up the chance of a ride on his bike to transport the gazebo in his car. Although some Coventry Section members were involved doing other things  that day we still had a nice line up of five twins from the section.  John B had to leave quite early but Peter B from the E. Mids section rode in on his his twin to make a welcome addition to the line.  The organisers usually have a few bikes from each of the club stands circling in the arena while the commentator talks about them.  Jin Reynolds was in charge of the microphone  and he did his usual professional job.  Most of our  little party expressed a reluctance to run their Vincent's around in circles on the grass arena.  After a bit of thought we decided that as the VJMC had put in a lot of effort to put on the show we should repay them by some of us riding in the arena.  The organisers appreciated that we had made the effort to take a more active part.  I lost count of the number of laps I did but  Chris C probably didn't get as dizzy as me as he was fortunate to be stopped for an over the loud speaker interview with Jim Reynolds.
It was a good social day with the usual visitor interest in Vincent HRD machines.  There were the usual questions about how much is worth, how fast will it go but also some interest in the technical aspects of the design.  
The tea and cakes in the hall café were up to their usual high standard and I sampled a slice of very nice apple pipe and cream that was fully two inches deep!
The wind was quite gusty at times so mid-afternoon we dismantled the gazebo while there were plenty of bodies about to prevent the shelter becoming a hang glider.  This was obviously "men's" work.  The ladies looked on with amusement and enjoyed the comic cabaret.  All packed away we circled the chairs and sat talking in the afternoon sunshine before making our separate ways home.  Many thanks to everyone on the stand and to all the people that stopped to look at and talk about our bikes.  A special thank you to Val took the photographs below and emailed them to me.  I don't know how she got the gazebo dismantling pictures to be so clear as she must have been shaking with laughter as she clicked the camera shutter.

Starting up to go to the arena.

Waiting to go into the arena.

Waiting to go into the arena 2.

The wind makes one last grab at the gazebo cover.

Martin strains to reach new heights.  Linda (far right) continues to giggle.

The cover now almost fully removed, the team prepares for the next stage, synchronised frame folding.
(N.B. No animals were harmed in the photographing of this scene and no fingers were lost.)

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