Mersea Island Scooter Rally 2025 | RALLERY

Within the scooter scene, there really is no other scooter rally like Mersea. To describe it as a freak of nature event is possibly an understatement.

This one club organised rally is bigger and more popular than many National Rallies on the calendar, and for nearly 30 years, it’s been top of the ‘to visit’ list for many scooter riders from both here in the UK and Europe.

Ticket only

A rally that has continually used the same venue on the same weekend each year, ever since 1993, is now a ticket-only event. The ticket allocation completely sells out virtually as soon as it’s announced; A waiting list to grab any returned tickets must be a rally organiser’s dream (albeit extra work for someone).

Tens of thousands of scooterists have attended Mersea Island over the years, and the live acts that have performed on the stages there are now into triple figures. If that doesn’t scream out ‘well-run scooter rally’, then I don’t know what does.

Mersea memories

If you’ve attended Mersea over the years, I’m sure you’ll have many memories. Still, the most vivid for me is waking up in a tent early on Sunday morning in 1997 and overhearing conversations about Princess Diana having been killed. With very few mobile phones or readily available internet at the time, it wasn’t until stopping for fuel on the way home that the story could be confirmed by headlines in the Sunday papers.

Darkside of scootering

Arriving at the campsite only two hours after the gates opened on Friday lunchtime, it was already plain to see how busy things were. Although many riders were hanging their riding gear out to dry, having had a deluge of rain fall on them on the last section of their journey.

Well sorted

The campsite layout has had much shuffling and re-jigging over the years, but the current set-up seems, by far, the smoothest and easiest to navigate around. The courtyard and patio area is the meeting point for most folks, surrounded by a posse of food vendors. Although my target was to head to the small square of chalets, which are usually occupied by the collective group of wrong’uns, that stand under the banner named the “Darkside of scootering”. A bunch of old-school scooterist friends who embrace a modern view of what scootering should be. If you don’t have a sense of humour, avoid these lot at all costs!

In the zone

If you consider Friday evening to be the warm-up night, then think again. Four different zones of music, multiple DJs and three live acts – Monumental, The Zipheads and Faintest Idea – all had the whole site bouncing, with thirsty scooterists at the onsite bars all night long. The lights and laser shows in the Darkside and silent disco tent ended a chaotic first day at Mersea.

Start it up

When a rally is situated at the very Eastern side of the UK’s coastline, it’s always going to have a dramatic sunrise. This seems to trigger the mindset of some scooterists, ‘Oh good, it’s Saturday 6 am, I must climb out of my tent and see if my Lambretta still starts up OK, even though I won’t be riding it anywhere for at least the next 24 hours.’ Please stop doing it near my tent.

Rudely awakened, I found myself wandering around the campsite, drinking coffee and watching the dealers’ stalls setting up (a mammoth 50 had booked to trade).

High power

The outdoor basketball pitch area was always going to generate massive interest from the performance scooter enthusiasts – a display of racing scooters from the BSSO and BSEC organisations were there with very approachable rider owners trying to tempt newcomers to scooter sport. Johnny Gilbert and his fellow masochists from JG Scooters (Grantham) were there to punish scooters on their Dyno. These lot don’t just talk the talk, they walk it as well. Umpteen people were given very good, free-of-charge advice over the weekend from this bunch of speed freaks. Fifty bhp scooters are now quite common, it would seem.

Eager for an autograph, world-famous Col was happy to oblige Mr Pinasco

Mr Pinasco

At about 11 am, scootering royalty arrived on site in the form of Signore Andrea Pinasco, straight from Genoa in North West Italy. This family surname needs no explanation whatsoever. ScooterNova Magazine’s Andy Gillard was given the honour of interviewing Andrea again, this time in front of approximately 50 scooterists.

Andrea discussed much of the interview he conducted with Andy for Issue 51 of ScooterNova, ranging from his earliest days of establishing the Pinasco brand with the first-ever off-the-shelf bolt-on tuning kits, to how he fills his days as a retired gentleman now. His stories were both humorous and fascinating.

It ended with Andrea taking questions from the crowd in front of him, ranging from twin carburettor conversions to the family pasta-making machines in the mid-1960s. All the questions were ably translated by Andrea’s daughter Rosa – an extremely nice lady who spoke better English than many of my friends! It’s alleged that she also happens to manufacture the finest ice cream/gelato in Italy.

Andrea took the time to scrutinise the scooters in the custom show and pose for many selfies with scooterist fans. The PX Vespa toolbox door Andrea autographed for me now sits in pride of place on a shelf in my mancave next to his book.

Silly games

Across the campsite, the silly games arena was in full swing with the beer and banana race and the chucky egg competitions, both ending in their usual messy outcome.

Custom extravaganza

More than 90 scooters lined up to form the largest custom show at any rally so far this year – crazy paint schemes mixed with chrome and gold plating on every conceivable part that makes up a scooter. For those who didn’t attend the rally, the scooters can be seen in all their glory in Booga’s photo gallery.

Pink Floyd

The star of the show for me, and many others, was the Pink Floyd chopper created by Lambretta Chopper Club guru Paul Muirhead. Attention to detail on a mind-blowing level.

Old school customs with modern revamps stood alongside the latest creations. At least four scooters were making their show debut at this show. Choppers, restos, street racers and muraled masterpieces. One such machine was an LD Lambretta dripping in gold plating.

Devil in the detail

Mersea had virtually every permutation of modified scooter on show. Still, amongst a show full of heavily over-the-top customs, it was very easy to overlook two fantastically detailed and subtle scooters. The green and purple Martini Italjet Dragster, and the immaculate Blue Lambretta GP ‘Devils Detail’ – both scooters had me returning over and over to admire them. The less is more theory without doubt, in a world of bling.

Many happy memories surround my old Vespa 50 Special…

Remember your first?

At the side of the custom show tent marquee, there was a pair of white Vespa 50s, a PK and a 50 Special. The sheer number of people that walked past them and blurted out “I started out on one of them”, most then went on to quote the number plate details of the 50cc scooter they owned* somewhere between 20 and 45 years ago – time is indeed a scary thing.

*Iggy, YCH 817Y.

Below, Shaun tells us a little bit about Saturday afternoon’s fundraising for a very special little girl…

Musical youth

Time flies on a scooter rally weekend, and all too soon it’s Saturday evening, the noise levels are cranked up, and at this point, we find out just who crashed and burned the night before.

All four zones of the site are blasting out music spanning across seven different decades. Who would have thought that from the youth culture that once was scootering?

Live bands were AKA The Syndicate, Sharp Class and the Bar Stool Preachers. Across the weekend, I can’t think of a musical genre that wasn’t catered for. The six live acts alone were more than excellent value for the cost of a weekend’s wristband entry fee.

Another late night followed, with many people loitering and laughing just outside the main hall area near the food vendors when the music finally finished.

Runs like clockwork

Mersea Island scooter rally is very well organised, mainly because the Colchester DVLC have had a ton of practice over the years to make it run this smoothly. Club members are then left with the unenviable job of the mass site clean up on Sunday morning – most of them making the time to thank and wave riders off, as we set off home, and leave them to their work.

As a club, Colchester DVLC asks us to ride to their rally, have a good time, see old friends, make new ones, build fun memories, and then take a big smile home.

I managed that on all counts easily. If you did too, that’s possibly all the thanks they need.

Ride safe Slukers

Words Col and Shaun

Photos, Booga, Col (addiitonal Saturday afternoon words Shaun)