Festival of 1000 Bikes

The '1000 Bikes' is unique and one of the biggest events in Europe. Entries for the track sessions have already reached the thousand mark. And we still have nearly five months until the event! They'll be around 1200+ riders to accomodate this year.

It is an outstanding achievement, no doubt about that, and exceedingly well organised thanks to all the volunteers that make it possible. But does anyone else wonder if it will become a victim of its own success?

Without wishing to be overly critical it has to be acknowledged that much of the 'maxium of 15 minutes on track' is frequently spent queuing in the pit lane. This can be due to all manner of things such as oil on the circuit, fallers, or broken down machines that need to be recovered. The organisers have an extremely packed schedule, which to their credit they manage efficiently. But the many unadvoidable delays can reduce track time to little more than four minutes including the speed controlled sighting lap.

Still, whatever, the fact that the sessions are run without the wretched Bus Stop and Edwina's, has got to be the number one redeeming factor. Long may it continue.

The possibility of just four minutes including the speed controlled sighting lap would definitely put me off if I was still riding.
Preparation, travel and expense for just 4 minutes - No thanks.

Although I´d not attend now (for other reasons) -- I agree with Ned. Very good friend in Chelmsford entered and said never again because there were the "fast men" who wanted to show their "showing-off skill" -- I think at the wrong time -- causing all sorts of difficulties for others wishing just to parade that he was completely put off going again.

However it is great to see that the event has such a support for just a few minutes on the track.

Actually, I do wish I could be there to have a QUIET ride round -- on anything reliable.

Cheers!

Hi all I was at the 1000 bikes last year and rode in nearly all the track sessions over the weekend and can not remember any session only lasting four minutes

I enjoyed all of my sessions at the Festival none of which were shortened.
I would recomend it to all road and race bike owners - money well spent.
Come along and enjoy...

my entries are in and hotel booked what a great weekend would miss it

The organisers state that the sessions will be a 'maximum of fifteen minutes'. And obviously one doesn't need to be clairvoyant to know that, for a variety of reasons beyond the organiser's control, some sessions will be unavoidably shorter, considerably so in some cases. And it's not hard to see why when you look at the format: the huge numbers of riders and the tightly programmed time slots. Any incidents will impact on the available track time for the following groups. It's fair to say, however, that most people consider they get adequate time on track, since the greater part of the entry list is composed of returning riders.

The sessions are similar to a track day with no speed controls and overtaking permitted on both sides. The Travelling Marshals take up positions between the faster and slower riders, a system that works very well indeed and contributes to the Festival’s good safety record.

But I must stress that it isn’t a steady old parade, and there is plenty of scratching and duals being fought between machines of similar performance. In fact two Bantam riders in the 2011 Festival led one session with their own private race (in Group Q, for race machines nominally up to 350cc). No prizes for guessing, but one was in blue livery and the other red.

Didn´t want to put anyone off---

-- just tellong how it was told to me.

I reckon -- from what I have read on here -- that a keen entrant can get out onto the track quickly by making sure of being early in the pit lane ... Anyone who tends to be a bit shy -- or hold hold back -- gets relegated further back. Sort of sounds wild and quite hairy and not for the timid....

Cheers!

john bass wrote:

Didn´t want to put anyone off---

-- just tellong how it was told to me.

I reckon -- from what I have read on here -- that a keen entrant can get out onto the track quickly by making sure of being early in the pit lane ... Anyone who tends to be a bit shy -- or hold hold back -- gets relegated further back. Sort of sounds wild and quite hairy and not for the timid....

Cheers!

Actually John, from what I've seen and experienced, it doesn't seem to matter where people are in the pitlane queue. The faster riders soon pick their way through the field, which is then well spread out all around the circuit. The quicker guys have no trouble lapping the slower ones. Everything seems to go pretty well, considering the assortment of machines on track and the various abilities of the riders. The organisers stress that it is not a competion and riders are free to 'ride at their own comforable pace'. I should add, though, a 'comfortable pace' invites widely different opinions as to exactly what that might mean.

As a general point, it's worth mentioning that even if track time does get shortened, the riders still have another one or two sessions (entrants can have up to 3 track sessions).

Oh Heck!

I feel myself building up to forge a fake medical certificate' -- donn a wig and get some unsuspecting nice-guy to lend me a bike. Now where did I leave my teeth??

Trouble is the rumour that I destroyed Ned´s lovely Bantam at a Snetterton Parade -- 1981 -- might have got around.


' psst! It´s been done before....!!

john bass wrote:

Oh Heck!

I feel myself building up to forge a fake medical certificate' -- donn a wig and get some unsuspecting nice-guy to lend me a bike. Now where did I leave my teeth??

Trouble is the rumour that I destroyed Ned´s lovely Bantam at a Snetterton Parade -- 1981 -- might have got around.


' psst! It´s been done before....!!

Go John, go!

Oh, the wig, something like this?

Yeah! something like that.

It was an annual dinner up town (Café Royale, London, I think) in the days when the club had about 650 members and half of them seemed to be there. I had the flu, strongly dosed with Glen-Fiddick-gargle and felt like crud when standing up to give my carefully prepared and rehearshed speech. I had brought a long-haired wig with me and couldn´t find it... Someone had nicked it -- probably when I was chatting with `Ace` John Brown of MCN and Mick Grant who were to share Prize Giving and we had some throat-clearing gargle together.

The Master of Ceremonies announced me and I stood up... As I was looking at my notes the laughter started. A lot of people were looking directly at my trouser front. My hand strayed down the front of my trouser flies and I realized where the wig had been fixed ....The laughter increased and the Master of Ceremonies banged his gavel again -- "S!LENCE for your Chairman!!" he thundered but the laughter increased a hundred-fold as others caught on to what the laughter was about.

Eventually silence came. Without saying a word I stroked the wig and said, "I have prepared a marvellous speech ... " which was then flooded with the laughter again. The gavel banged and again the Master of Ceremonies called for silence. The silence that did follow was awsome because I´d become totally tongue-tied.

I threw the notes across the table and started talking and everything I said was greeted with laughter and applause. To this day I have no idea what I said except for one bit I did remember. It was as the Wobbleyman (Colin Aldridge) was driving us up to town another passenger in the car said,
"I hope you ain´t gonna´ give us another bleetin´borin´speech like what you did last year."

For a while I thought perhaps in choosing engineering I had made a mistake -- I should have tried the stage as a comedian. I wonder if anyone reading this, was there and remembers what I said during that speech ....?

Cheers!

john bass wrote:

I wonder if anyone reading this, was there and remembers what I said during that speech ....?

I don't remember that John. But
I remember when it was standard procedure for the Eastern Centre mob to unload their vans at Cadwell on the evening before a meeting, before preceding down the hill to congregate at the local watering hole . And one evening the whole place erupted into laughter when our esteemed chairman stuck his head in the door with that wig on .

Right Ned!
That was the Wobbleyman´s idea -- to stay overnight in B&B. It was a pub in Horncastle a couple of times and at Llandow a pub in some little village ... More dangerous hazards in those places than on the track -- old Wobbles was always inviting trouble -- one time at Horncastle we were violently assaulted by a coachload of drunken women. At Llantrisant the Welsh Nationalists wanted to punch us back over border... I was not with Wobbles when there was some bother in a Cardiff Chinese restaurant when the police interrupted proceedings. I think Jimmy Wells was involved in that one.

Cheers!