Stafford; been there, done that, and I got a tee shirt!

Well, what a weekend. Up at 5am, Mrs BC ran me to the station, hopped on a train to Dundee, met Shorty, picked Bill C up, and zoomed off south to Uttoxeter to meet Muckle Flugga Man for tea. Sat'day, off to the show, weather lovely, blue sky, sort of 'English' in atmosphere. Left Pete and MFM to queue at the gate while I swanned in with my advance ticket. No sooner was I in the grounds then people started to contact me to arrange meeting up. Some were new faces and people I've only 'known' through the blog, while others were people I've known for a while but hardly ever see. So in no particular order it was great to meet you / see you again - SFB and Gus, Robin of Wales, Ivan Rhodes and his lovely lady Joy, Mr Pres of the VMCC (had to drop a Cubbie souvenir off to him), Stuart and his good lady, Pilot Rae and his neighbour (the poor chap is being initiated into the world of 2-stroke MZs), Editor Britton from Old Bike Mart / Classic Dirt Bike fame, Slick Vic from Scotland, plus PeterO from Scotland (you go all the way to England and bump into people from your own backyard), Annice from the VMCC Library and Moz, and Rick Parkington of, shhhh, Classic Bike fame, oh there are too many to list! Who else did I meet? It'll come to me.

OH, and I bumped into the guys from Greystone Enterprises, Adrian and Derek. Never met them before, but spoken to one or both on the phone and they're always helpful with advice and Cub knowledge, not to mention being one of the main suppliers of spares. What to my wondering eyes should I spot on their stall as I chatted to them but a big white envelope with "GBC" written on the front. Hmmm. Sensing danger, I enquired, "what does GBC stand for?". The answer was obvious, it was me. Apparently, I must have said something last Christmas about the lack of a festive card from the guys and somehow, word must have ping-ponged its way back to them, so lo and behold, here was my first Xmas card for 2010! Thanks guys!

Ivan Rhodes kindly took the time to introduce me to his friends on the Pioneer Motorcyclists stand, and that was the first chance I'd had to sit down all day, plus I met a load of the Velo Owners too.

I missed out on a look at the MZ stand as I had to retreat from that hall and witness my Editor popping his B40 trials bike up and over a scrap car. The trials display that followed was quite good, with Tim providing commentary on the bikes and riders. The chips, it has to be said, were hideously overpriced, and I thank all those who treated me to elevenses / lunch / afternoon tea / food. I do need feeding up ya know. At some point over the weekend I managed a visit to the Real Classic stand where I met Rowena H, and then finally made it up to the balcony above the main hall for a look. And what did I see? A lovely little Tiger Cub, all dressed up in shiny chromey bits and looking good. Also saw the new Jawas, wouldn't mind a shotty on one of them. Ah yes, how could one forget. PeterO lent me and MFM his Bonhams catalogue so that we could have a look in the secret hall - the place were hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of Vincents were up for auction, along with lots of other perhaps less hyped up machines. We got there just as the Vinnies were going under the hammer, and had to sit down; silly, SILLY prices for these things. Surely no lump of metal is worth 20k, 30k, 40k??? Especially the rusty project ones.

In the auction room...



Up on the balcony...

And around and about again...



Go on, it's a 'Onda, that's for sure, but what do you think it is? No cheating, if you were there and saw it keep quiet!

Saturday was mostly taken up with chatting and a general browse around. There were so many people it was nearly impossible to stop and look at anything, so Sunday proved the best day for looking at project bikes and raking through rusty bits and pieces, and buying boxes of mixed washers, nuts and O rings. Oh, I bought Cubbie a special pressie - a new cork for the fuel tap. Last of the big spenders eh! Just got to get round to fitting it now.


Sorry, couldn't resist that one!

So after a day off on Monday for sightseeing, it was time to hot foot it back to Cubbie Towers where work work work and more work of one kind or another, awaited me. Plus the exciting news that after Mrs BC had dropped me at the station on Friday, the fuel tank went and detached itself from the truck and the truck was stuck at a garage down the road that we've never used. Ho hum, back to the grind!

THANKS again to all who took time to meet up and have a chat, must do it again some time.