Don’t know if it’s been posted elsewhere but Motorcycle Live is on Eurosport 1 at 9pm tonight if anyones interested.
I’ll get the mrs to charge me £50 to park the car on the drive whilst I watch it, it will give me the ‘real show feeling’.
The vendors have to charge comedy money, cos they are charged ridiculous fees to be there too. Its all one big rip-off
And then the vendors weigh it up and decide it’s not worth it so there’s less vendors so the organisers have to charge more to the remaining vendors to make up the revenue so the prices go up further, it’s a vicious circle. (I think you can take your own refreshments to motorcycle live though, or you certainly used to be able to?)
I gave up going to the NEC a while back. It's a shadow of what it once used to be. Covid travel restrictions aside, you are better off saving up some extra pennies and getting a cheap flight and hotel over to Milan and visit EICMA (this years event only recently finished). It is awash with hundreds of stands and takes at least a full day to explore, ideally two to do it justice. It is vast by comparison with the Birmingham footprint and the money exhibitors and organisers put into the event is self-evident. Worth the extra and the food/wine is reasonably priced too. PS thanks for the tip Ian, I'll take a look at the channel tonight.
I went yesterday, and was a little underwhelmed if I am honest. MV Agusta didn't have a stand. Yamaha had no prescence other than a clothing stand. There were lots of "new" manufacturers, mostly chinese, often branded under an old english name such as Dot. BSA from India, where the young girl on the stand (who clearly wasn't employed for her product knowledge) was insistent that they were soon going to start manufacturing them in the UK. One highlight was the Langen, a 250cc two-stroke v-twin with 75bhp and weighing 114kg. Lots of dubious looking electric bikes too. I arrived at 1 pm and the car park bus was full of people leaving the show, which indicates you generally see all you want to see in a couple of hours.
i went sunday, no aprilia at all, yamaha had no bikes, ducati had no v4 panigale, was a bit sparse but still nice to get out and about.
Kind of reminds me all of MCN London bike show, Feb 2020, a load of talk about some far off flu in China, Boris shaking everybody’s hands, glimpsing a look at the front page of someone’s paper on the way in on the tube, “Virus in London” and they say ignorance is bliss………….
Watched that, dear me, must be getting on a bit as the classic bike show at Stafford looks much more interesting... I was fortunate enough to go to EICMA a couple of years ago, and as Topolino mentioned, that's brilliant!
Is the V2 Streetfighter there, or the Triumph Speed Triple 1200 RR (the new one with half fairing) ? I don't plan to attend, just curious.
The bike show has slowly gone down hill certainly for the last 20 or so years since I started going, the last few years have been really poor, and it's only saving grace was the lycra clad girls, but we all went PC and there's non of that these days too. I see it as a social, but seeing some bike manufacturers not attending and also speaking to my local KTM dealer who suggested it would be KTM's last show it doesn't sound good, so I opted not to bother this year. It's already been mentioned by EICMA is the one to go to, it's HUGE by comparison and you could easily spend 2 days there. If you like racing you'll be in heaven as you just seemingly stumble on GP bikes on a stand that may have supplied a gasket or two. Lots of component manufacturer stands there also.
Ducati didn’t exhibit at EICMA this year, opting to do video presentations/launches instead. I’m not sure if any other major manufacturers skipped this year too.
