UK Bike Forum / UK Bike Forum / Rallies

No to parking charges

rebelman — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 13:39:20 GMT

So if you have not heard, Westminster council in London is considering putting parking charges on bikes to park within it's borough. There is to be a protest ride to Westminster on 31st March to end up by the town hall where the meeting to decide to go ahead or not will take place around 7.pm. I think if this gets the go-ahead then it will signal to all local authorities that it's ok to make us pay for riding the least congestable form of transport to work ect. I hope to go down to the Ace cafe for 3pm ish for a trundle (with a lot of others hopefully) down into London at 4pm.

Hope some of you other people can make it, if not to the Ace then just get up to London Westminster and cause havoc to show suport.

Have a look on the Ace Cafe site, I think there is more about it there.

MCN Show

endemoniada_88 — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:54:40 GMT

Any of you folks planning to take a trip to the MCN show? Haven't been since it moved from the Ally Pally to the Excel venue, but it always used to be the first proper event of the year...

Anyhow, it's the 29th Jan to 1st Feb, so if anyone is going to be there, let us know which day!

Brightona 2008

roadhoover — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:44:07 GMT

Make a note in your diaries for The Brightona Bike festival Sunday 12th October.

Madeira Drive Brighton.

Eddie Kidd special guest signing autographs, stalls, bands all day - three stages, custom show, hot rods, food, dyno, loads of bike parking space and loads more going on, entrance on foot is still free (though donations are welcome) and a fiver per bike (not per rider)to get into the event (that includes a pillion if you bring one).

All welcome, bikers, trikers, scooters, rock n rollers, hot rod fans, family's.

Custom show entries and stall holder enquiries welcome

The organizers are hoping to raise over £20,000 again this year, so come along and support the south coast's leading bike event.

Who says bikers have a bad name?

All profits donated to The Sussex Heart Trust

If you need more info http://www.ukbike.com/Brightona/GalleryIntro.aspx where you will find links to the organizers and archive pictures.

Sponsors of the event include

UKBike -

http://www.ukbike.com/

UKBike.com are looking for blog writers!

tom@ukbike.com — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:09:33 GMT

Hi everyone, I'm Tom from the UKBike.com team.

We are looking to launch our new blog soon, which will highlight the latest bike reviews, news and video items, information on UK bike events, and updates from UKBike.com.

Our blog is also a platform for quality writing. We're looking for bike riders who can regularly turn their stories, thoughts, bike reviews, and most of all their passion for motorbikes into words.

UKBike.com is the UK's leading motorbike reviews site - in August alone we had 90,000 individual visitors. Today there are 4,401 bike reviews in our archive, and we'd really like to bring the qualities of these reviews to our new blog.

If you're interested in writing for UKBike.com, then please drop me an e-mail at tom@ukbike.com or leave a private message through this site. Look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers

Tom @ UKBike.com

UNITY RIDE 17/08/2008

Biker Biker — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:17:02 GMT

Unity rides again!

This year Unity Ride promises to be the biggest charity motorcycle ride ever undertaken through the Capital. 15 members of the Metropolitan Police and 2 Paramedics will be assisted by 55 trained Unity Support Riders (USRs) to make sure this year’s event will also be the safest.

Every year we give bikers a day out in London where the freedom of the city is ours, the Motorbike is king and we can enjoy the sights from a totally different perspective. No filtering through traffic and no stopping at all just a cruise with a 1000 or so other bikes enjoying Summer time in the Capital.

Riders will meet at London Excel on 17th August and we will commence the mass ride through the city at 1.30pm. We are organising meeting points for riders to gather at and ride to London Excel together so feel free to join us at these satellite points or make your own way to London Excel at Docklands E16 1XL ;

Fox's Diner - Oxford Rd, Dorchester-on-Thames, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, OX10 7LY

Box Hill - http://www.boxhill.co.uk/information/where.htm

Ace Café - http://www.ace-cafe-london.com/Find-us.aspx

Oakdene Café - Oakdene Cafe, London Rd, Wrotham TN15 7RR

High Beech Tea Hut - Epping Forrest (both Tea Huts)

Eastern Counties - Haverhill, Suffolk

The West Country - Avon Heath Country Park Cafe Brocks Pine St Ives

Luton Hein Gerick - 326 Dunstable Road, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU4 8JS

Satellite ride start times will be posted on the Unity website closer to the date of the ride. Please contact us for assistance if you wish to organise your own satellite ride in amd we will promote your store for bikers to meet at.

This year’s route is extensive, and is available to view on the Unity website (www.unityride.co.uk) under the "where" link. Past historic monuments, down by the Thames and past the parks, just another excuse to ride and get pleasure on two wheels.

The registration cost for joining the ride is the same as last year £5 and through your generosity last year we raised £5400 for Children in Need and Help a London Child. This year we are riding to raise funds for two charities - "Children in Need" and "SERV".

SERV (http://www.serv.org.uk/Home/Default.aspx) who are also know as the 'Blood Runners', is a charitable organisation that delivers blood products to the emergency and accident hospitals across Southern England at night free of charge whenever and wherever it's urgently needed. The service has saved many lives and is run by volunteers at their own expense, giving their time, petrol, cars and motorbikes to ensure blood supplies are available when needed.

Children in Need is the children’s charity which is run by the BBC and their aim is to positively change the lives of disadvantaged children and young people in the UK

This is our 3rd year of running the ride and which is a totally non profit making motorbike ride and all the funds raised through ticket sales go to charity. Everybody working on the ride has volunteered their time and commitment to raise money to make a difference and create a positive celebration of Motor biking in London. The Police are assisted by Unity Support Riders and they provide us with safe passage along the route and ensure that we are kept moving as we understand how bikes keep cool.

We may have to limit the number of registrations this year, we therefore suggest that you register as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. This can be done by following the links on the Unity homepage.

http://unity2.unityride.co.uk/

T-shirts for this year’s ride will be sold on the day at a cost of £10 per t-shirt but there are only 500 available. If you wish to pre-order your t-shirt for delivery before the ride, please contact us at admin@unityride.co.uk.

We have a much larger area at Excel this year, and so are in a position to offer space to biker clubs and charitable organizations so that they might promote their causes. Please contact us with your suggestions so that we might ask them to contribute to Unity III, so that we are able to plan our Biker Village.

Welcome to Unity III

http://www.unityride.co.uk

Video Trailers from previous years

2005 Unity Ride

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vujagyv2Prc

2007 Unity Ride

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YFQjo1rUYiY

Press articles

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults/archive/86493/87056/87118/87136/?&R=EPI-87136

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4170524.stm

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults/user/21713/July/The-Unity-Ride-2007/?&R=EPI-93140

Brooklands 20/04/08

Mazz — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:54:43 GMT

Did you go? If you did, what did you think?

I went.... I thought it sucked!

Admitadly, old bikes really aren't my thing, but I was expecting so much more from this event than it produced. You'd've thought, it being the Brooklands Centinery Meet that they'd've done a good job of sorting out loads of things to look and do, but there wasn't much. Ok, there were loads of old bikes doing the Hill climb, and commentators talking about the bikes and riders, but that was about it.

There were no stalls to buy stuff from. I was hoping to get some nice new boots but there was nothing there. Fortunately, because it's a museum of sorts, and an old aircraft manufacturing plant, there were lots or aeroplanes you could walk around... including Concorde! But once again, it dissapointed as the next tour was in 4 hours, and it was already 1pm!

The one big gripe that sticks in my mind however, was the lack of organisation. They were charging £10 to get in. A bit pricy, but it looked good from the outside! And that was the thing... they were charging riders to get in whilst they were still on there bikes and not even parked up yet. This lead to confusion and tailbacks as riders were having to dismount, remove gloves, open top boxes and pay. Why not wait until the bikes are parked up, then charge us as we walk in? Makes much more sense! And then trying to get out... what a nightmare! They literally enclosed the centre of the place so the old bikes could ride around.... and there were no exits for the public. We couldn't get to our bikes to leave as we were surrounded by metal fences. I wasn't the only one to complain about this as other riders were causing a huge fuss. Eventually a marshall opened a gate and we marched across the track. I thought it was against Health and Safety to enclose a space without exits... but obvious;y not!

In all ,a dissapointment. Didn't get to go on Concorde, but I did sit in the Pilots chair of another plane... and had a good look around an old Mk1 Harrier too!

Brighton 09/03/08

rebelman — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:52:34 GMT

Had a really nice morning/early afternoon down in Brighton yesterday. Self and my mate Norman the Hornet owner started off about 8.30 from Newport Pagnell and despite a couple of people on the motorways wanting to kill poor Norman (Bloke in an Alfa trying to overtake him without moving out first missing him by about a foot down the right hand side and a bloke in a mpv thing who let me past then pulled out on him nearly side swiping him) we got down to Brighton about 10.45/11. Did a couple of breaks on the way down and took the long way from M25 to Worthing then along the bottem end into Brighton Via the tunnel, not done that way before and did not even know it existed.

Some amazing machines on display and not just from the run. Its so nice to travel over 120 miles to a place where when you get there everybody is friendly and sharing the same interest to chat about. Not only that but strange to say that most of the people down there were either lifetime bikers or born agains, there did not seem to be many under 30? Maybe it was becouse it was a vintage run or is it that at an older age we just do as we please and hang the consequences with the bank, telling our youngsters to be carefull with thier money and to get something sensible like a Corsa. LOL

Had to walk the pier and get chips with something.

Gave Mazz a quick shout but put him off meeting us as there were too many people about and we would be just wandering looking out for eachother.

By the way you guy's Myself and Norman want to know what the Exciting Stuff is that is going to be on display at Brightonia this year? Is it stuff that our wives are going to like or is it stuff that they should not see?

Anyway a nice day out and my 1st real run on the RS we left at about 3 and took the motorways straight back too include a downpoor just as we got on the M23 outside Brighton which had soaked everything from there on up to about Heathrow. Anything going past covering us and the bikes in the residue of salt still on the roads. Still meant I gave her a good seeing too when I got back and a good rub down with me shammy. (I think this might belong in another post) Got back about 5.15/5.30.

Rallies

Number 6 — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 14:25:31 GMT

The WRC leg in Finland is a top rally. And the Mexican one is pretty good, too. Anyone disagree? Real shame about Gigi Galli not racing at the mo. Why don't they send bikes down the stages, eh? I know they do the Paris-Dakar, but it might make some great supplementary viewing if they went out on a few select events.