Early November, hermetically sealed suit of armour, destination the Winter Warmer – although on my trusty Vespa it felt anything but warm! Touching down at 6.30pm on the Thursday we procured our wrist bands and chalet keys and proceeded to decamp.
Charlotte, the latest addition to the Harvey clan is now a few months old and we elected to make this family friendly event her first official rally (she arrived in the car, not on my scooter!), breaking her into our lifestyle gentlyish – pity we didn’t approach the beckoning bar with the same restraint, instead a predictable lager frenzy ensued, as the first of many slipped down far too easily, closely followed by the second, third...you get the picture!.

Read more in the magazine!

SCOOTERING January 2009

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With work unfortunately knocking the Great North West Rally out of the equation, another end of season rally was needed to satisfy my needs. Step forward the South West Scooter Clubs whose event in Warmwell was next on the calendar. This small Dorset village is located just outside of Weymouth and after Friday night’s rush hour traffic with a bit of rain and some freezing winds we finally arrived there around 8pm.
Accommodation located (thanks to Stu and Andy from SWSC) we were greeted with a body-warming Vodka courtesy of Wol and Charlotte. Cheers!

SCOOTERING January 2009

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To some Weston-super-Mare may seem the spiritual home of scootering, in the South West at least

. For many years it was the HQ of Scootering Magazine and of course it is the home of the Lambretta Museum as well. It hasn’t hosted a scooter rally, however, since 1988, the first time I rode into the seaside town upon a scooter, the last time before this rally being in 2002 just before the magazine was shipped up to Lincolnshire.
And so it was a cold, blustery and nearly dry Friday afternoon that we set off from the Essex coast and headed west, stopping off in London to pick up another scooter before joining the M4 and getting our heads down in an attempt to squeeze an extra mile or two per hour out of our scooters as they bravely ploughed into an aggressive headwind. It was all looking pretty damp as we arrived in town early evening and so were pretty pleased with ourselves at having booked a B&B (we didn’t want to be carting tents around with us for 10 days!).

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SCOOTERING OCTOBER 08

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Leaving home at 2pm I allowed enough time to have a couple of rest stops en route and still get into Exmouth in time to get my gear in the digs and myself back out to the boozer…
or so I thought!

On the Avonmouth Bridge, a slightly busy one at that, my GT decided to throw its plug cap off and leave me freewheeling into the hard shoulder. Phew, that was close! After some faintly mild burns to my hand trying to push the cap back on I was back on my way and still on time to meet up with the rest of the club (Company C) and a few of the Glevum Stax lot at Sedgemoor services.

Back on track we were now nine scooters strong and making good time down the M5, heading in a south-westerly direction. Only a few stops and we were heading into Exmouth and looking for our respective hostelries before a good ol’ pubcrawl in the glorious sunshine, a great excuse to socialise even with the visiting naturist scooterists too! And of course there’s lots of different ciders in this ’ere town!

Later we were off to the Pavilion where the band and the music were. The Simmertones proved to be a real big hit coz they played a lot of original Jamaican Ska and what sounded like a lot of self-penned numbers too. I’d definitely go and see these guys again, for sure! The usual SWS DJ crew then kept everyone happy with their tight and popular set. I can’t remember too much else of the Friday night as I had to go to bed and try to sleep off what was gonna be a huge hangover…

Read more in the magazine!

SCOOTERING SEPTEMBER 08

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This year’s long awaited Invasion #5, Yorkshire Scooter Alliance’s flagship event, opened on a day on which so did the heavens! If waterproofs, scooters and tents were dampened, spirits were not as around 800 hardened scooterists arrived on site from as far as Northern Ireland, Scotland, South Wales, and yes, even Milton Keynes!

And their journeys were not to be in vain as they were greeted by friendly Yorkshire folk on the gate and a fantastic venue for the festivities ahead. The Alliance had provided a programme of events and a major step up in standards – camping on over 30 acres of north Yorkshire’s green and pleasant, and a fantastic venue with 30,000 watts of music power within. An array of catering units just outside offering everything from the finest fish and chips and stonebaked handmade pizza, to crepes and hog roast sandwiches.

Read more in the magazine!

SCOOTERING SEPTEMBER 08

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VFM's premier inland rally takes place on the large camping grounds next to the River Trent, near Catton Hall, in South Derbyshire. Although grey skies corridored our journey up from the south and through the Midlands we arrived in bright sunshine in the neighbouring Walton-on-Trent village around 2pm. We then set about following the ‘minimal’ signs to the ‘secret’ location, before finally venturing up a small track to be greeted by the welcoming grin of the gate stewards; no doubt they had been listening to our exhaust confusion over the previous 10 or so minutes!

Read more in the magazine!

SCOOTERING AUGUST 08

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The 10th anniversary!

It has been10 years since this event first exploded on to the scene and to celebrate that fact The Chelmsford Scooter Club managed to put together one of, if not the best rallies so far. If you cast your addled mind back a decade you
will remember that this type of rally was somewhat frowned upon by certain individuals in the scene;may be a break in the normal traditions unnerves certain brethren? Camber Sands has sold out well in advance continuously for the
past decade. This year alone 2569 registered souls were booked in (use your imagination).

On the Thursday night I fired up my P2 and Bulldog and I set off for the promised land. We left before it was dark, (well it was light, weren’t it!) and once off the M25 it was a lovely ride down the A21 to the back of beyond, arriving at 10.30–
and straight in the battle cruiser to get ham shankered with CSC!

Read more in the magazine!

SCOOTERING AUGUST 08

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Speedboys SC, Belgium

For the musicans out there: ‘New York, New York – so good they named it twice’. Well you ain’t been to Boom then have ya? An amazing place that John Lee Hooker name checked four times at the beginning of his Blues masterpiece!

OK, so maybe he didn’t visit this small Belgian town located just outside Antwerp, but over a couple of hundred scooterists did at the beginning of July for some serious frivolities, as well as singing and dancing.

A new location for the Speedboys SC rally didn’t put the regulars off, although an ever more crowded calendar and the threat of bad weather did seem to affect the total of attendees compared to last year. On the ferry from Dover we met Dangerous Doug with Johnny and Helen from Bristol’s Chosen Few SC who were spending a week in mainland Europe, travelling on to the Hellraiser Rally in Brittany the weekend after.

A mere 100 miles from Dunkerque the other side, Doug’s borrowed Lambretta kept forgetting how to spark, which delayed our ride somewhat, had Johnny replacing stators at the roadside after we’d exhausted all other possibilities and ended with one of the Speedboys kindly fetching the stricken rider and scooter the final 20 miles or so back to the site on a trailer. Still, at least that meant Johnny wouldn’t be bored over the weekend…

Extra photos in our online gallery >>

Read more in the magazine!

SCOOTERING AUGUST 08

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A fantastic rally and a wonderful there and back. We took literally hundreds of photographs so here’s a link to our gallery where we’ve posted some of the extras that couldn’t be squeezed in to the mag.

Extra photos in our online gallery >>

Read more in the magazine!

SCOOTERING AUGUST 08

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23-26 May 2008

Thursday

Another rally in Scotland! Oh yes, sore arse time again and as the years go by it don’t get no better either (written in a Wiltshire accent!).

I planned to break my journey up into two parts; I’d ride up from Cardiff to Manchester and stay the night there before continuing up to Kelso the next day with Disco Daz (Stockport Crusaders) and Andy Lamb from Winchester.

Upon arriving in Manchester, I arranged to meet up with the boys and have a couple of beers and a curry (mine’s a Korma, ha ha ha!). At least I didn’t have to stop to sort out my bottom unlike the other two curry fiends, who had very slight wind problems and itchy bot-bot on the way over!

Friday

Leaving just before midday and after a pleasant and slightly amusing three-hour journey, we arrived at the campsite at Kelso’s ‘Border Union Agricultural Showground’.

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SCOOTERING JULY 08

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For the past few years the SRP Sticky Rock Rally has been dogged with bad weather and, for me, a sub-standard venue. This year, however, it seemed all change as the sun greeted our arrival at the Lincolnshire coastal resort just after lunch on the Friday, and we first saw the excellent Embassy Centre venue on
the seafront.

On the way up we had come across several large groups of riders,which
also made for a refreshing change and gave the indication that this would
be a busy event. Although a new, larger campsite was available on the Burgh approach road we had decided in advance that our ‘toned’ bodies weren’t up to the two-mile stroll into town. With this in mind we had booked into the very
reasonable Richmond Holiday centre, sharing a six-berth ‘luxury’ static caravan with mates from around the country working out at only £25 each.

Read more in the magazine!

SCOOTERING JULY 08

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A full review and report can be found inside this month's Scootering, and the exclusive gallery of  EXTRA images is here >>

Read more in the magazine!

SCOOTERING JULY 08

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A full report and images inside Scootering this month, plus extra photographs in our online gallery here >>

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