On their bikes for a great weekend
Vintage motorcycle rally draws 100 machines
Around 100 vintage motorcycles and threewheelers were on show at an event last weekend organised by a Dounebased group.
The Vintage Motorcycle Club’s Stirling Castle section held its 38th annual rally at Cultybraggan Camp, near Comrie.
Enthusiasts had the chance to admire makes such as Ariel, BSA, Matchless, Norton, Rudge, Triumph, Sunbeam, Velocette, Morgan and Vincent which were on show.
Some of the machines dated back to the 1920s and they joined others on Saturday for pre-planned rides of 70 or 100 miles, which took in the Sma’ Glen and Loch Tay before riders met up for a lunch stop at Killin Hotel.
Ochil and South Perthshire MP Luke Graham waved off the bikes and riders at one-minute intervals .
On Sunday the vintage bikes enjoyed a social run in the Strath countryside.
Mr Graham also had the task of choosing the best bike and went for a 1926 Royal Enfield 180 owned by David Chambers of Morpeth.
The MP sald: “It was great fun to be on the starting line. The passion was clear and many of the bikes were labours of love, taking many years to complete.”
A spokesman for the Vintage Motor Cycle Club said they had over 17,000 members, adding: “They share a love of the engineering skills and vision of those who built the pioneer machines.
“They help to ensure that such machines are not preserved as lifeless exhibits in a museum, but are brought to life on frequent occasions in order that a new generation can marvel at the handiwork of the pioneers, and an older generation can once again view with nostalgia the machines they rode in days gone by.”
Stirling Castle section can trace its roots back some 37 years to when Don Riley put an advert in the Observer.
Don, who lives in Bothwell, was of the view there was no club in central Scotland catering for vintage bike enthusiasts.
Group members met first at the Top of the Town before switching to venues in Tillicoultry and later Doune.
The section meets every second Monday of the month in the Woodside Hotel, FK16 6AB, 7.30pm.