Investigation
Social distancing and Covid-19 have taken their toll on bike meets and sport. What have we got to look forward to?
What events are we going to get to this year?
THERE IS NO getting away from the fact that Covid-19 has decimated some of our most-loved motorcycling events and the breadth of the cancellations makes for pretty depressing reading.
Isle of Man TT and Classic TT? Off. MCN Festival of Motorcycling? Off. British round of WSB? Off. British Motogp? Off. And that’s without all the smaller shows and events up and down the country that have also had to be cancelled.
The UK’S biggest show, Motorcycle Live at the NEC in November, was cancelled in early June following the Covid-19 outbreak. Now its boss, Finlay Mccallen, has told RIDE that, despite some relaxing of restrictions, it still can’t happen.
He said: “Covid-19 is still an issue and we’re still under lockdown. Social distancing still exists. I have to put people first and that includes exhibitors and visitors. But also, if you take what the show’s all about — seeing, touching, interacting — if I can’t deliver that, then I can’t do it at all.
“I don’t think any event organiser, despite the fact we’re all desperate to get going, would like a Covidrelated death. While that risk exists, I’m afraid we’re out…
“There needs to be a situation whereby we can all interact with each other without any social distancing for our show to work.”
And the Ace Cafe has taken a similar stance over its hugely popular Rockers Reunion run down to Brighton in September. Despite the Ace opening its doors on July 4 to serve food and drink, founder Mark Wilsmore has decided to scrap the September event.
He said: “With the easing of lockdown, we’ve seen huge crowds in places like Soho and it could cost us dearly.
The virus is here, it ain’t gone away and it could come back and bite us. And that’s a great concern to me, especially looking at the demographic of those that come to the Ace. It’s a recipe for disaster and I’m very aware we could be in the epicentre of that.
“Our desire to have gatherings won’t go away. We’ve just got to be careful.”
Not all doom
‘Our desire won’t go away — we’ve just got to be careful’ MARK WILSMORE, ACE CAFE
The Malle Mile — a three-day biking festival in the grounds of Kevington Hall — will be going ahead on August 21-23. There are still plenty of tickets to the event, with prices starting from £45.
“It’s been hard work and there’s some big changes but the essence of the event will remain,” says Robert Nightingale, founder of Malle. “Obviously all the indoor stuff will now be outdoors and we’re spacing things out more for social distancing, so we’ve been granted an event licence. We’re returning to our roots a little and focusing more on the theatre of close-up racing.”
If you’re after a traditional biker rally, MAG still has plans for the Yorkshire Pudding
Rally from Friday-sunday, August 25-28, while autojumblers will be jumping for joy at the return of Kempton Park and ’Normous Newark on September 12 and 20 respectively.
Day at the beach
Malle are also planning a day of beach racing down in Margate on September 26, while those who fancy heading abroad might want to look up Wheels and
Waves, which has a weekend of sun, sea and surf pencilled in for September 3-6 in Biarritz on the southern Atlantic coast in France.
Then of course there’s the hundreds of meet-ups and bike cafés that are gradually slipping out of their slumber up and down the country.
So there’s still some good stuff to be looking forward to. Just make sure you keep your distance.