After 4 hours sleep we were on the road in an LDV convoy to Stafford. In fact, Dave actually was in an LDV Convoy, I was in an LDV Pilot. It's a busy show and if you don't get there early you can queue in traffic for an hour or more.
Top left is the founding editor of Bike, Mark Williams and the übergruppenfuhrer of Morton's magazines, who run this show, Steve Rose. Top right: Dave and (insert caption here). Middle Right: Alex from Skeleton Chop Shop brought his girlfriend and bought a tank. Bottom left, Alex Fox and Kerri from the Wall of Death had a wander round on set-up day after their own epic set-up.
Stephen turned up in a Bonneville Performance T-shirt to complement the Bonneville Performance framer we had on the stand.
The highlight of any UK show for me is The Magazine Man. Bryan is a real one-off and it was good to see his lad Gavin after speaking to him on the phone so often. That stand is just full of motorcycle magazines (plus a few pinstripe and tattoo mags) from all over the world. I just wish Street Bikers wasn't £17.
Nice mix of bikes in attendance. Bottom left is Michael Dunlop's Manx winning Suzuki 750. Bike 196 is a tuned SCott Flying Squirrel. I just love it.
It was hard to escape the stand at Stafford, but me Dave and our new mate Gresham went to see the Wall of Death while Ben spun some discs. It was the wildest performance any of us had seen. It was one of the last shows of a long season and Ken and Kerri seem to be both taking crazy risks, wheels virtually kissing the top wire, knowing if they touched it they'd hit the deck, 18ft below, very hard. I spent a day with the Ken Fox Wall of Death for the feature in Sideburn 6. Young Jamie wasn't riding bikes then, now she's in the act. I think she's only 16 still. Both Ken and Kerri saw us up at the top of the rail and Dave, Gresh and I were all convinced Kerri was keeping eye contact with us as she rode around. And she never stopped smiling. 'It's like pole dancing on motorbikes,' said Dave 'It's all teeth and tits.' It was fantastic. Then Ken and Kerri did the race on two Honda 500s. At the end Ken does his spiel about not a company in the world being willing to insure them (true) and the coins start raining down into the middle while Ken, Kerri and Jamie keep smiling. Brilliant. Can't wait to see them again next year. GI
