BSRA #8 – Llandudno National Scooter Rally 2023 | RALLERY

Although I’ve enjoyed Southport as a town it’s not been perfect as a rally destination since the Floral Halls closed for renovation (it will be back though).

It was a nice change to be pointing the scooter towards Wales instead for the final National of the 2023 season. Llandudno is a beautiful town, compact enough to keep everybody within a 15-minute walk, with lots of pubs and a perfect venue at Venue Cymru.

Dropping like flies

One sad sign of the times was that our usual riding group is getting more and more depleted as time goes on. So, on a very foggy Friday morning just three Mansfield Monsters set off from my house on scooters, with another six choosing to make weak excuses and travel by car. Then we met up with another three scooters from Blazing Glory for the 140-mile ride. Riding down the coastal A55, we saw plenty of other scooters though, so that was a positive sign.

Bring me sunshine

Other than Ady blowing his TS1 up on the A55, the ride itself was uneventful (we’ll gloss over the fact that my scooter didn’t even get off my own drive and I had to quickly swap the luggage onto the missus’ RT225 and steal that). The earlier fog had given way to sunshine and showers by the time we got into town. Seeing the front patio of our B&B packed with scooters was encouraging. In fact, the town was already looking quite busy.

Thirsty

An evening around the pubs ensued, catching up with lots of mates – some of whom we’d not seen for a while. Wobbling up to the VFM do we were told the bar was a bit of a shambles and those rumours were true with a massive queue when we got in there. Although to be fair within half an hour or so it had gone down quite a lot. The do was rammed though, both the main and soul room were very busy.

The organisers had told the venue what to expect but as usual, they don’t believe a scooter rally can possibly be any busier than the annual Asda Christmas party or Young Farmers welly wanging event. Luckily they made changes before Saturday night. It was really good to see a main room dancefloor being kept busy until 2 a.m. and feel the vibe of a great atmosphere in the venue.

Trade & Custom Show

The same venue was used for the LCGB Trade and Custom Show on Saturday and again it was very busy. It worked much better than the previous year at Southport with a do in a hotel, parts fair in a leisure centre and a small custom show in the indoor market. Being in one place makes things much better. You can see some of the tasty scooters in the gallery above and a full list of winners and class sponsors below. .

Mikeck

Aside from plenty of tasty scooters, it was good to bump into one of the legends of the past, one-half of the Mikeck duo. Mike Pattison. Mike was showing a recently restored Group Six and hill climb championship winner from 1978. Owned by Dave Harrison and resurrected by Mike, The Carlisle Racing Club scooter will soon be joined by a sprinter from many years back.

BSRA meeting

Although I’d have liked to have gone straight out into town to meet my mates, I spent a couple of hours at the BSRA meeting where the 2024 National Rally calendar was finalised. With a brand new rally in Northern Ireland, a return to Margate after 17 years, a return to Newark after 10 and a second visit to Weymouth, the calendar looked fresher than it has done in years.

Back to the ’80s

Meeting over and back to town to find some friends. Seemingly Wales has had to disable its mobile phone networks to fund the new 20mph speed limit signs, so trying to get hold of anybody was nigh on impossible. It was like being back in the 1980s, we just needed the pubs to close at 3 p.m. and a few blokes in grass skirts and policemen’s helmets. Luckily, like homing pigeons we managed to find our gang and spent many happy hours chatting shit, drinking beer and trying to settle important bar room debates without the use of Google as the official adjudicator. For the record, I still think Lucrezia Millarini is the fittest ITV newsreader and Michelle Keegan first found fame in Girls Aloud.

Special night

As night fell, the ghouls came out for Halloween and we headed up to the do to see The Specials Ltd getting a very busy dancefloor skanking to a fantastic set. The bars were running as they should, so no complaints there. Again the Venue Cymru was heaving, soulies were doing their acrobatics in one room and everybody else was listening to the DJs in the main room, whilst others chatted away in the foyer, or wandered between the three.

Soulies enjoying a late-night game of chess…

I’d kind of peaked too early (overdone it on Friday) and was glad when 2 a.m. arrived and we could go off to bed, especially as the clocks were going back and we’d be having an extra hour the following morning before the sunny ride home.

Good to be back

Personally, I thought Llandudno was fantastic, lots of people there, plenty of scooters around, good entertainment from VFM in a perfect venue and decent enough weather for the ride there and back. The Trade & Custom Show is getting back to how it was in the golden days of Brid, well done LCGB for persevering!

We’ll be there again next year, although it’ll be a week earlier than usual due to some religious event taking place in the town at the end of October.

Words: Iggy

Photos: Booga and Iggy