View of the arena from the bike campsite
The 19th
Rock & Blues had all the right ingredients – good weather, a great line up of
music
and entertainment and, most of all for me anyway, good people to party with and
a great
selection of top quality bikes, both in the show and around the campsite. The
return to
Pentrich Farm after last year’s foot and mouth outbreak was also a key factor in
the
weekend’s success.
View of the arena
from the bike campsite
JAI’ s Razor Max
and Paul Roberts monster rear wheeled offering – class!
Despite a good
few wanders around the early Friday morning show tent, Paul, Jesus
and I all managed to miss each other – Cheddar, OK? Too much last minute
cleaning and
fettling, huh – but Fen and her bloke Chris turned up to say Hello and
assure me that
my old Max was heading for yet another transformation – good stuff. Had a good
chat
with the owner of a very compact and bijou V Max trike in the show and was
pleasantly
surprised how well the Maxes went down with the other exhibitors, and later the
visitors
to the show tent.
My Tiger Max and a
very clean and tidy V Max trike with solid rear end
It was
sweltering hot in the show tent and the sun lighting up the blue and red panels
of
the structure hampered my attempts at photography. Nevertheless, the bikes
were
positioned by 10am and we had all received our exhibitors T Shirts, plaques,
RBCS
pens and side stand thingies. My girlfriend, Di, headed for the cool outside as
soon as
we’d set up the stripy one and renewed a few acquaintances, but not before she’d
blagged a near full set of freebies herself - I let her have the pen, too!
It was then off
to pitch the tent, bimble around the stalls and sample the various food
and beer opportunities. Made mistake of eating garlicky Thai on my own in true
Homer
stylee!
Top marks to
the Outlaws MC for keeping the beer cool, the campsite and bins cleaned up
and providing the cleanest loos I’ve ever seen at a bike show. This combined
with a friendly
, no attitude atmosphere gave the whole experience one massive grin factor.
Respect.
Yet again, a
good deal of the show bikes were wearing Steve Taylor wheels – but how about
these beauties – split rim billets with 32mm bullet proof glass centres! I
belled the incredulous
Mr Taylor as soon as I clocked them. Seeing, sort of, is believing!
See through, bullet proof wheels anyone? And the builder and
owner
of this beast had ridden 280 miles down from Scotland – well wicked –
when will we see the first see through wheeled Max? Would they
handle the torque etc?
Zan turned up
on her black V Max trike, Marmite, on Friday evening but we had to wait a whole
extra twenty-four hours for the advent of Griff with his redder by the week
Canada spec Max.
There were some
superb paintjobs at the show and many of the Maxes were sporting non-standard
livery.
There were, of
course, a wide array of tasty Maxes around the camping field and I felt it my
duty to grab
a few shots for the website – anyone recognise their bike in the following mini
gallery? I know, I know, you
all wanted me to take pictures of Girlschool and Doro, didn’t you? Well,
you can check this out on Bikersweb
but these are the pics that no-one else was taking, as far as I know. The
only thing that outnumbered the
Maxes was the vast numbers of Harleys and Buells at the show!
We all had a
great time – here’s to the 20th Anniversary Rock & Blues Custom Show
and even more Maxes next year.
Maxtorquer.
Just
a small selection of the many V Maxes on the site – and not one the same!