festival of a 1000 bikes

 tougher than a junkyard dog moto guzzi, sitting on astralite's and no, there's nothing in those megga's, 'you what? i heard that, pardon, half- past three'.................

festival of a 1000 bikes

looking for footage on you-tube of the irving vincent's at the festival of a 1000 bikes and i stumbled upon this gem, posted as 'ajs 7r and vellocette venom at the festival of a 1000 bike's', there was still a recovery van on the circuit, hence the slow start at the beginning of the footage as the travelling marshal's try to keep everyone in check, but check out the view and the sounds from the rider's point-of-view, of the racing heritage out on track, at 0302 the first of the irving vincent's makes an appearance, at 0318, your's truly appear's, [on the left of the camera bike], only racing the fucking norton tt bike, [on the right of the camera bike], and the second irving vinny at 0319, into the shaw's hairpin and matey on the norton goes in too hot and i pass him! [0330], this is 1500 hr's on sunday afternoon, most of the punter's are on the way home and we are out there, riding the bollock's off old bikes, we ought to have a chat with ourselves, check out the legend sammy miller at 0920, stood at the side of his van waiting to make a sharp exit from the paddock..........

festival of a 1000 bikes

 tucked against the armco barrier adjacent to the start and finish straight, we stumbled across this little gem, i thought it was a rob north framed trident on first peek, [hey, i was  thirty yard's away and the old eye's aren't what they used to be, give me a break], as we got closer i realised it was a 500cc twin tucked inside the frame rails, it really is a jewel like little bike, the engine sits high in the frame, only the primary chaincase protudes outside the genuine rob north frame rail's, the bike wasn't running, the bloke who own's it had just run out of time but was riding his other bike at the festival, he told us the story about he got the bike as a project, he was laid up in bed with a migraine and his mate came around to see him, his mate picked up a copy of 'classic racer' magazine and on flicking through it found the bike in the small ad's, he show's it matey's missus and she buy's it him for xmas! that's what's brilliant about the festival, it's not just the bikes, but the stories of the people behind them too..........

noise.

noise. pure noise from the jesus and mary chain, from a mad week back in the late 80's a trip down to llaaandahhn town, midweek to see the legendary big audio dynamite at the town and country club, next night saw me checking out the jesus and mary chain at the de-montford hall in leicster, my hearing has never been normal since, seen some loud band's in my time, motorhead?, whatever, the j.a.m.c gig stand's out as probably the loudest gig ever.....................

c.r.m.c. practice day

a week before the 'festival of a 1000 bikes' and the loveless equipe are at mallory park for some shakedown time with the boxer racer project, as you know, we spat out the crank seal seven lap's into our first session resulting in much burning of the midnight oil to get us to the festival, after i got changed, i had a wander around the paddock and found this outfit, it's an imp engine, full of goodies from the 'states, crammed in an original windle chassis, the driver and passenger are beavering away, spannering on the outfit, i stand and watch for maybe 20 minutes, matey pokes his head out from under the outfit, 'only managed a lap and a half in three season's but we'll get there eventually' his girlfriend/partner/wife offer's me a brew, fuck me, that's what it's all about, i ask why they persevere with it, ' what else you going to do at the weekend, we fuck about with bike's, get pissed and have a paaarrty......'

festival of a 1000 bikes

water-cooled........

festival of a 1000 bikes

 the festival of a 1000 bikes, i reckon it's the two-wheeled equivalent of glastonbury, all life is here that's for sure, from polished and pristine to oily rag, from concours perfection to barely legal, from ground up, nut and bolt resto job to step-through's, great then to see this couple of vespa px's, one the epitome of '80's scooter chic, matt green army paint-job and be-stickered and the de la soul,  '3 feet high and rising' daisy influenced paint job, big up's to the scooter boy's..........

festival of a 1000 bikes

continuing the early morning tour of the paddock and tea mug's in hand, we are like two excited kid's, i deadleg dangerous as i spot the two guzzi's, i'm telling him about the v8 guzzi and 'bicylindical' he's too busy clutching his thigh and swearing at me...........

festival of a 1000 bikes

early walkabout, sunday morning, mug of tea in hand, it's the best time of the day at the festival, general public not allowed in yet and just a scattering of bleary eyed, beery breathed 'weekender's' staggering around trying to find the bog / greasy breakfast van / ibuprofen / welly emporium, i chance upon the mighty 'thor', the famous jap engined / norton framed sprinter, built by francis williams using a combination of a manx norton frame from the early '50's, lock-up srtut's, early norton 'box and a v-twin jap engine, 994cc, 14:1 compression ratio and twin magneto's, it pushes out a really healthy 95bhp at 6500rpm and originally ran around 11.5 second's in the standing quarter on nitro in it's prime, to put that in perspective, i was running 11.8 second standing quarter's on my suzuki gs 1000 in the 'superbike' magazine series back in the early eighties, that's thirty year's after this beast was streaking up the strip .3 of a second faster than me, respect due.......

festival of a 1000 bikes

 norton's, from this year's tt machine to the perfect little manx, lovely, oh yeah and trevor nation and some jasper carrott look-a-like, captured by dangerous, the world's worst photographer..............

festival of a 1000 bikes

the irving vincent's.............told you didn't i?