VMCC Festival of 1000 Bikes at Mallory Park

What a weekend! Loads to see and sketch.

In between manning my stall I went around the site and spent some time with some amazing bikes. Most of my time was spent sitting on the ground and sketching, so much so that at one point a little girl walked past and said

"Look Mummy there's that man with no legs".

Here are my sketches along with some photos of my favourites from the festival.

For info on Upcoming VMCC Events please visit their website:

http://www.vmcc.net/

First up on Friday evening was this 1903 Werner.

I'm getting more and more obsessed with these veteran bikes. The connection with what were called safety cylces (or bicycles to you and me) is still there. You can really feel the pioneering spirit when you look at these bikes.

Also thanks to the guys and gals at Vintage and Veteran for being so accommodating to my sketching habits over the weekend. Oh and for the free bottle of Cider!

With lots of fantastic old bikes for sale I'd recommend a visit to their website:

http://www.vinandvet.co.uk

The next morning with the autojumble taking shape I took the opportunity to sketch this Trojan Mini Motor, gold model a motor powered push bike.

Trojan logo on the filler cap

Also on the same stall was this BSA C15. An ex police bike with extra trimmings.

The Vincents were out in force at this event. This sprint bike took my eye. I like the minimal nature of sprint bikes, small tanks low slung frames.....

The sprint bike theme continued as I was asked to sketch the 500cc Krauser "Frankies Monster" which is ridden by ridden by Alan Tinnion.

This was a fun bike to sketch due to the complex hand fabricated outlet pipes that twisted around each other in order to utilise the empty space between the front wheel and the engine.

The Classic Bike Team were in attendance and looked to be having a great time. I have been avidly reading about Rick Parkington's 1919 Blackburne (or is it 1915 the debate continues) in the build up to the Banbury Run, which by all accounts it completed!

Rick Parkington also bought along his 1927 Rex Acme TT.

And of course the Classic Bike D1 Bantam was holding it's own in the line up sporting a rather fetching tartan seat!

For more Info on Classic Bike which is always a thoroughly good read please visit their website:

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/Classic-Bike/

I couldn't resist another visit to the Vinatage and Veteran tent to sketch this early Peugeot.

On Sunday morning I spent some time sketching this 1938 Excelsior Manxman works at Paul Ingham's stall where he was promoting his latest book "Excelsior the racing years": A fantastic book depicting the racing history of this legendary mark. The book presents a good balance of text and photographs, many of the photos in this book have never been seen before. If you are interested in the Excelsior then I would strongly recommend you pick up a copy of this book (limited to only 500) from the following site:

http://www.excelsior-manxman.co.uk/

Bonhams were showing some of there upcoming auction lots with some rather drool worthy bikes.

One of only 4 ex-works 1954 AJS E95 Porcupine

estimate $750,000 - 950,000

Unrestored Barn Find, c1955 BSA 499cc Gold Star

Estimate £3000 - 4000

Even when packing up my display I was seeing bikes leaving that I hadn't got round to seeing on over the weekend. This truly is a festival of 1000 bikes.

A fantastic early Indian.

There was a lot of Motoring events on over the weekend. Of course there was the Grand Prix but I got more excited seeing this pull up at the service station. It runs in the Nostalgia class, a late 60s style slingshot dragster. Apparently running a Buick V8 at around 11 second times.

I'm attending another event Coming this Saturday and definitely not one to miss:

Pre War Prescott

This is it's first year but with over 200 cars confirmed and a Lancaster flyby I can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday. More Information can be found here:

http://www.prewarprescott.com/

Hope to see you there.