South West Scooter Clubs: BSRA #2 -Weston-Super-Mare | Rallery

One thing we’re not short of at the minute is Bank Holiday weekends. The first of three in May saw us heading to Weston. 

Having just picked up a new Vespa GTS SuperSport from Piaggio for a future SLUK road test, it made sense for me to use that for the 175-mile mostly motorway trip down south. It’s the first time since 2015 I’ve not used my geared scooters for a rally and it seemed weird not having loads of stuff to check/fix/adjust beforehand. With the GTS I simply put a chain under the seat and I was ready to go. I did find myself doing the odd unnecessary hand signal though whilst following my mates on Lambrettas.

Bulletproof

Our riding group was made up of four TS1s and another GTS and we certainly weren’t hanging around. Three fuel stops, a gentleman’s lunch at a pub near Tewkesbury and we were there. No bother (apart from losing Twister after his ‘Bulletproof’ GP blew up yet again).

Up and coming

Weston is one seaside town that has improved over the years, it’s quite a smart town these days and has a lovely pier which was to be the home of the rally entertainment for the weekend. There’s also an abundance of pubs, busy ones if you want them or backstreet if you prefer. We opted for the latter and our crowd of friends stuck to (the carpets of) most of the spit and sawdust-type establishments over the weekend.

Camping in comfort?

Ziggy Stardust’s mate on the smallframe wasn’t taking any chances of missing a good night’s kip, a full-sized sofabed made sure of that!

Meat feast

Wobbling along the pier after sharing a chicken kebab with a ‘vegetarian’ meant we’d already had a good night before we even got to the do. The band were just finishing their set to a packed room and like almost all scooter events these days there’s a mass exodus as the band exits the stage. The majority tend to treat the do as a gig rather than a night out. It leaves behind the rest of us but also a quieter than it should be main room, which is a shame for the DJs and people like me who like a mixture of musical styles.

Soul time?

The soul room (up about 10 flights of stairs – lifts are available) was still heaving though so that was the place to be later on if you wanted a dance and didn’t want to feel self-conscious on a quiet main room dancefloor. Soulies seem to keep the night buzzing until kicking out time at 2 am.

Raincheck

Walking back to the digs with Col and Mark after getting thrown out of the do by South West’s finest security personnel on a lovely clear evening/morning, Col remarked about how misty it was. Both me and Mark exchanged puzzled glances as we looked out to Barry Island across the moonlit sea. Between you and me, I reckon he’s losing the plot a bit. Earlier in the evening he was telling a story and completely forgot what he was on about. Then the lad from Scarborough was trying to point out to sea and his hand was pointing east. He’s the Rainman of scootering and doesn’t forget a thing but Weston’s sea air and beer, coupled with a long 270-mile solo ride down on a bog standard PX 125 (by choice rather than licence permitting) seemed to have taken its toll.

We thought he needed looking after…

As the seagulls started their very early morning cacophony outside the ‘after show party’ (AKA Col’s room in our B&B) the three amigos realised we’d stayed up way too late chatting shit and it was way past our bedtime. Even though Col still hadn’t finished his story.

Fast forward about one hour…

With a pounding head and an annoying roommate (Snooty) who kept talking to me about inane early-morning stuff, I realised the quest for any resemblance of sleep would be in vain. The beer in one of those dodgy backstreet bars must have been off. Even my teeth and the stubble on my head were hurting. Luckily a full English helped to ease the pain slightly and revive me ready for day two.

As it happens, it was really misty on Saturday morning so Col must have had a weather premonition.

Campsite

A ride down to the campsite also helped to blow the cobwebs away and although the Rugby Club’s pitch wasn’t as full of tents as it would be during the summer months when we usually visit Weston it was still busy enough. To be fair, the weather wasn’t too bad for late April/early May.

Aside from a good selection of traders, the site also boasted its usual informal custom show where plenty of scooters were on display. The good thing about this type of show is that the owners only need to hang around for a couple of hours, and then they can go off and enjoy themselves.

Royal ride out

After the trophies were presented riders started to congregate around the site for the ride out, with a good 100-150 scooters heading into town and mobbing the seafront, much to the delight of the tourists. They love to see a procession. It seems like most ride-outs are sponsored by Royal Alloy these days, with the popular retro scooters making up significant ride-out numbers.

Sun trap

Thankfully by this time, I was back in the land of the living and ready for a good few beers sat in the sizeable outside frontage of our hotel, along with around 20 other friends. That’s where we spent the afternoon, with people coming and going throughout the day. In fact, we spent seven hours of beers and laughs in the lovely sunshine before finally heading into town.

Saturday night

Again, we swerved the queues and noise of the busier drinking establishments and found mostly more pleasant establishments before heading up to the do again. The Pier was bouncing to the sound of Heavy Sol when we got in but only for a song or two before the DJs took over.

Saturday night always seems quieter than Friday night dos these days. As people get older, the thoughts of riding home safely overtake an extra night on the pop for many. Even so, the soul room was banging again until late o’clock. Do soul fans have more fun than everybody else, or are they just hardier? I don’t know, but that seemed to be the room to be in at Weston and Scarborough. I was a little jaded from Friday night/Saturday morning so dipped out and went to bed at 1 am.

Sunday for us was time to head back home. Some scooterists stayed the extra night for what was said to be a very busy night in The Vaults.

We made good time riding back, missed most of the rain and got home in time for a bit of sofa recovery.

A great weekend, as per usual from the hard-working SWSC scooterists.

Words: Iggy

Photos: Booga and Iggy