Mersea Island Scooter Rally 2023 | RALLERY

Eternal youth

How can the Colchester DVLC’s Mersea Island Scooter Rally be celebrating its 30th Anniversary? 

I was at the first one back in 1993 and I still feel no different to how I did back then, apart from the aches, pains, wrinkles, grey hair and dome tent. I’m still enjoying every minute as if I was 30 years younger.

Doing what we do certainly keeps us young at heart, how lucky are we to have discovered the joys of Italian shopping bikes and their anti-ageing properties?

Mersea has created many memories over those years, from sitting watching scooter grass track racing to waking up in my tent to learn that Princess Diana had died (not in my tent I hasten to add). The great thing is we’re still making memories 30 years on.

Whirlwind visit

This year I was able to ride down early so arrived at an already busy gate and campsite at 11 a.m. on Friday.

I threw my tent up (not the old ridge tent from the 90s) and then rode down to Southend for a whirlwind visit to a street art paint festival where I caught up with a few artist friends. Before racing back to Mersea just in time to join the queue to get the all-new Darkside T-shirt, traditionally released on Friday evening each year. The Darkside crew were celebrating their 20 (something) anniversary but needed no excuse to get the party atmosphere pumping.

Live music

Mersea is known for its great selection of bands, with many over the years being introduced to the scooter masses for the first time.

This year the Colchester DVLC team invited back some of the favourites from over the years, with four bands playing on Friday night, Mystery Action, the Modern Apes, Epileptic Hillbillies and King Hammond keeping the marquee rammed all night.

Meeting point

The courtyard outside the main marquee and the main hall (hosting a variety of DJs… and sawdust) is always busy as it’s the central point for mates old and new to meet and do what scooterists do best, drink, chat, drink and eat from one of the many and varied food vendors.

A short walk takes you to the dining hall, which when not serving a quality breakfast or dinner, hosts the Moonstomp DJs playing ska and reggae.

Darkside Marquee

A short wander in the other direction and you’ll find my personal favourite – the Darkside Marquee. After midnight it also becomes a lot of people’s favourite as it turns into the ever-popular silent disco. With six DJs sharing duties, playing a mix of indie and dance tracks across three channels. They soon get the tent bouncing and at one point everybody sat on the floor to that scooterist classic “Oops Upside Your Head”.

3 a.m. and those left dancing were kicked out of the marquee, a wobble up to the main hall to shuffle our feet amongst the sawdust for another hour, before my sleeping bag beckoned.

Saturday morning arrived too quickly so we joined the queue for a breakfast in the dining hall to try to soak up a bit of the night before.

Custom show

Belly filled it was time to check out the very impressive and very full custom show, with 84 scooters on display making it the biggest ever at Mersea. There was a really diverse mix to suit everyone’s taste.

Check out the entrants and results in the photo in the gallery above.

Dyno shoot out

Just outside the custom show, Jonny Gilbert and the JG Scooters team with their dyno were busy all weekend and were helping to set up scooters. They were also running some power runs. Impressively there were both a Vespa and a Lambretta that broke the 50bhp barrier, both being regular rally-ridden beasts as well. Lloyd Watts’ self-tuned SST265LC hit 54.6bhp and a Vespa with a BFA306 engine apparently put out 56bhp.

The best auto was George Constantinou’s Runner, hitting 36bhp.

I raced on a Group 6 Lambretta back in the 90s and if there had been a dyno at the first Mersea we’d have all been blown away if a road bike hit 30bhp back then (my full-blown racebike was making about 31bhp). How things have evolved in those 30 years.

Blow it up!

Jonny had also been given a Vespa 150 Super (the blue one on the stands in the video thumbnail above) imported from the backstreets of New Delhi (looking at the frame it had also been cut and shut up an alley as well). This scooter was beyond viable repair and the engine scrap, so in the interest of raising some money for the Young Lives versus Cancer charity (£500 was raised) a “scientific” experiment ensued. Bets were placed on how long the Vespa would run without 2-stroke oil in the fuel and with no gearbox oil…

A young lad was given the honour of seizing his first 2-stroke in front of a baying crowd. Amazingly it coughed, farted and smoked (the scooter not Jonny) for 1 minute 55 seconds before the gearbox finally locked up. Whoever guessed at 18 minutes was probably a little optimistic and in hindsight had too much faith in the durability of the backstreet botched motor.

Beer and vomit

There is so much to keep everyone entertained at Mersea. Another reason this rally has been so successful over those 30 years has to be the fun and games. The modern safety-conscious/blame culture world prevents scooters from being involved in those games now. However, the other key ingredients, scooterists, beer and bananas always draw a huge crowd, especially if you like projectile vomiting and men in dresses.

Retail therapy

From the fun and games, which were running all Saturday afternoon, you could wander around the large dealer area and grab yourself some much-needed get-you-home spares, a nice bucket hat or a man bag.

Scooterist Internet Radio

A few years ago, a group of scooterist DJs set up Scooterist Internet Radio and through lockdown, they kept a lot of scooterists sane when we were forced to miss our usual rally fixes. Several of those DJs are regulars at Mersea and Jay Watson played during Saturday afternoon to a packed courtyard, getting a real party atmosphere going with people literally dancing on the tables.

Jay and the team did a sterling job, also helping to raise a lot of money again for the Jessica’s Journey Charity through an auction and bucket collection.

International flavour

Aside from all the fin and games, singer/guitarist Kevin Iverson put on a great acoustic set as part of the afternoon’s entertainment. With so much going on, all on one site it also helps with the great atmosphere at Mersea.

As usual, there was a large number of German scooterists at the rally with a couple of new tyres being fitted by them as they did a few burnouts over the weekend. A common sight over at their rallies.

Musical cocktail

After a decent meal from the dining hall it was soon time for Saturday’s bands.

There was a real buzz about the talented youngsters The Molotovs who kicked things off and had the packed marquee bouncing. Playing a blistering set of their own original tunes and a handful of well-selected covers. Keep a watch out for them.

They were followed by the slick Senior Class, then folk punk band, The Lagan and finally scooterist favourites Smoove & Turrell.

This has to be the best lineup of bands ever seen at a rally and seeing scooterists dancing throughout all bands across the weekend it seems many others agreed.

It’s all over

A quick wander through the main hall and then back down to the Darkside Marquee. It was soon in full swing with the DJs battling to get the silent disco headsets of those dancing changed over to their channel colour.

All too quickly the 30th Mersea Island rally was over. It was another cracking weekend with more (hazy) memories made.

Roll on the 31st Anniversary…

Get in early!

I’m sure next year will sell out quickly again, so grab a ticket as soon as they become available as sadly many missed out this year.

Huge thanks and well done to Niamh and the Colchester DVLC team for organising another great rally.

Ride safe, Shaun

Photos: Shaun and Booga