Hello, Gary Sleeman from The Vintage Motorcycle Club. Just a quick tour around our stand at the
Bath and West showground. This bike's a nicely restored Suzuki GT550.
A gentleman said he'd restored it to ride, but it really is nice all the same.
There has been a lot of interest in this one. Next we've got a Moto Guzzi. Quite a rare bike.
These are becoming very popular these days. I think with the older riders,
people are looking for smaller bikes. This is a 125 Stornello. Not quite 100% original, but
very nice little bike. Very, very light which is appreciated when you've got to move them around.
This one has attracted a lot of good attention. It really is a nice, nice piece of restoration.
Really done nicely. Worth having a close look round because the
attention to detail sets this apart. Every last little screw,
nut, bolt, and washer on it really is restored to an excellent standard.
I recognise this bike. It belongs to a friend of mine. Rode with him on an event quite a few
years ago now. It's a very tidy little bike. It's had a lot of work done since then. It really does
look a treat. And it's an excellent bike for riding our events because it's quite compact,
very light, but also quite nippy. This bike is a Humber. It's a very unusual configuration being
a four-and-a-half twin. They're synonymous with Douglas really but this one was actually built
by Douglas for Humber. Humber is the name that you'd more associate with cars, but
in the 1910-1920 era they did get into motorbikes and produced quite a variety of different things.
Right the next one we have is, has confused a lot of people. It says BSA on the petrol tank
and it is a BSA rolling chassis but the engine in it is a Jawa speedway engine. It's achieved quite
a lot of success. The engine came from Dave's brother who was a very successful speedway rider.
So it's already had one life, and it's now coming back again in this very interesting special.
We had this on our stand a little while ago at another show, and a number of people who came up
and said 'oh that's a nice BSA Gold Star' and then took a second look and 'oh really it's not at all'
when it's actually a Jawa speedway engine. Right this is another very rare motorcycle. It's a
Dart Jap, V-twin. I doubt you'll see many of those about at all. I
guess there's only very few of them made and even fewer have survived. But this is a nicely
weathered-in version. It's obviously been used a bit since it was restored, but
altogether a very nice bike there. Very, very pleased to have it on our stand. Although
this is a Vintage Motorcycle Club stand, we have actually got a brand new bike on the stand.
This is a Royal Enfield Interceptor and it's the club's raffle bike.
It's the first day we're selling tickets for this one at the show but it's on sale
right through until it's drawn in July our Festival of 1000 Bikes at Mallory Park.
Right, now we've got a lovely little AJS. It's actually a 250 and although it
looks very similar to the 350, it's almost scaled down. It's quite a tiny little bike.
Talking to the owner it's not particularly fast, but it's a very tidy little bike,
and it's ideal for riding on the quiet lanes that we use for most of our runs.
Then next to that we've got a Velocette Venom, the Viper sorry. This is actually one of the
very first ones made. It's a very early one. And again a nice, tidy, usable bike,
and it is used by the owner for riding our events. And it's noticeable it's got indicators on, so
it's subtly modified to make it more practical for modern day traffic. Next to that we've got a 750
Honda. Great Phil Read replica. It's essentially a Honda 750 F1 but it was restyled by Colin Seeley
with a tank faring arrangement to make it a tribute to the win by Phil Read at the TT.
This is quite an interesting little bike. These MZs are Eastern European manufactured. Very tough
little bikes. Built really as a commuter bike but for an obscure reason, a group of people
got together and decided to create a race series around them. I think probably because at the time
you could buy them for very little money indeed. And this particular bike has been very successful
in that class. It actually won its, held the track record for its category for a number of years.
And it's still being used for racing from time to time at the moment. And then the last one
we're looking at today, it's a Norton Mercury. This was pretty much the last of the Norton
twins with the Featherbed frame which was pretty well legendary for handling. At the time this was
manufactured, it overlapped the production of the new Norton Commando that came out. But the
Norton had what was called an isolastic frame, and at the time, sort of the more die hard enthusiasts
were unconvinced that it was the way to go. And so Norton carried on making their old version of the
twin with a Featherbed frame. For a few years, catered for them for that market where people
just weren't happy with having a rubber band or rubber block frame that were convinced that it
wouldn't handle as well. I hope you've enjoyed our little walk around the stand today.
We are The Vintage Motorcycle Club. You can find out more about us on our website vmcc.net and if
you navigate into that website you can find out about all the services that the club can provide.
We have an extensive library at Allen House in Burton-on-Trent where we have a team there working
who can answer your queries. Very experienced in registration of vehicles, working with the DVLA.
We organise events all through the year in different places. We have 85 sections around
the country, bound to be one near to you who organise social events and riding events as well.
Thank you very much for listening.