Best of Bristol!

For me, it’s an annual day out at the Bristol Classic Motorcycle Show and one which I always look forward to.

After what seemed to be months of rain, the day had come for our trip to the Royal Bath & West Showground in Shepton Mallet and it seemed to be a fairly bright and clear day as I made an early start to pick up Peter Culver and Pete ‘Frosty’ Frost.

With us having bought advance tickets we were aiming to arrive at opening time and indeed parked up bang on 9.30am, accessibility and parking being painless and well organised as ever!

Once inside we always do a quick tour of the halls to get any photos of the bikes on show before the halls get too busy.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the show and I have attended well over half of those. The show has a very friendly, family feel to it, and is well laid out with a great mix of owners club stands, trade stands and a good auto jumble.

The range of bikes on display varied from 100-year-old Triumphs to 1990s Japanese models and everything in between. The LC club stand is always impressive, as is the Laverda owners one. Some of the highlights were a positively gorgeous Laverda 1200, which was the centrepiece of their stand. The LC club had a stunning 500 there as well as several 250/350 models. It was a pleasure to chat to the people on the stand, especially former neighbour and LC aficionado Steve Bowers.

This year there seemed to be a larger range of Japanese motorcycles on show, due no doubt to the organisers having a 70s/80s theme to celebrate the 40th anniversary. A few caught the eye, from some beautiful Kawasaki triples, a very clean unrestored Honda CL360 Honda, Honda CBX1000, Suzuki GT380B, early Honda CD175, a stunning Z1 and a very cute Kawasaki KC90 Kawasaki. Some very nice 70s British iron too, including a beauty of a T160 Slippery Sam replica. The mix of motorcycles, from unrestored barn finds, through regulars users to fully restored machines means there is something for everyone’s taste. We had a look at the motorcycles up for auction,with some great Japanese bikes from a very early Yamaha YR5, stunning Suzuki GSX750ES and GS1000, to two Martini Yamaha XS1100S. If you haven’t attended this show I highly recommend a visit. It’s family friendly, the showground is in a fabulous location, with a large range of eateries to settle the hunger pangs and a decent bar too. It’s my second favourite show after the October CMM Stafford one. www.classicbikeshows.com