Every year in Kirby Stephen, there is an Easter Fayre. This consists of loads of classic vehicles coming together, some tours on the buses, a classic vehicle drive around the surrounding area and lots of stalls selling locally made products. You can also get on the steam train and go for a train ride. It's also a weekend of the locals coming together for a catch up after the winter to share stories and touch base.
Martin, the owner of MHB set up a BBQ and was happily doling out bacon butties, burgers, tea and coffee to all comers. Meanwhile the folk that turned up all had a bit of a gossip and talked all things bikes and especially classic bikes.
This year, I took my BSA B40 to the classic bike section, held at MHB Motorcycles on the St Lukes Business Park at the north end of town. It's a very relaxed set up there and the ambiance caters very much for the just turn up a see who's there style of event. I've not done this sort of thing before, so had to play catch up a bit. The other bike owners had little info cards and copies of certificates etc to have for folk to read through, so I quickly made up some on Martin's computer.
Over the weekend, I stood and chatted with a lovely Scottish guy who turned up on a Brough Superior. He'd rescued it from a river about 30 years ago and after restoring it, was riding around on it regularly. He had a rake of classic bikes and this one only came on on dry sunny days! Not surprised given their value these days!!
I'd gotten talking to a lad from Liverpool on the VMCC Facebook group, Steven. He decided to bring his Bombardier 250 2 stroke up, so we had a bit of a military bike theme going at one point. Like me, he was new to the classic bike scene and was a little cautious about his knowledge. His bike was a cracker though and so smooth!
Then we had two bikes from a local guy, one was a Panther with a sidecar, the other was a BSA Goldstar. The owner and his wife went all over the place with both of these bikes and had no modern bikes at all. He was a guru on all things mechanical, so a lot of good chat was had there about little jobs to do...
There were around 40 ish folk turned up over the day with classic bikes, then around another 30 - 40 on modern bikes out for a ride on a sunny day. We saw Matchless, more Panthers, a couple of the Royal Enfields, some old and some new.
We also had a play on one of the new trials bikes from China, the 2023 Tenacity Wong 200. Electric start, nimble and a proper little beauty to play on. Martin is being asked to be the importer for these, so watch this space.
Over the two days, I had some cracking chats and it set me off thinking about making it something a bit bigger for 2024. Some discussions to be had, but its such a nice chilled out event, it would be great to get the bikes out for a ride around the local area at some point, maybe just to the pub even!
The only thing I didn't get around to doing, was going for a wander around the main town and having a mooch at the rest of the show. Maybe next year now!!
