Telford Classic Off-Road Show 2011.

[John-Boy]

I called in at the GRA stand on Saturday to ogle the bikes and put a few faces to the names and their forum 'tags' (now mostly forgotten, its an age thing)

Many of the stars of yesteryear were in attendance, those I recognised included Dave Bickers, Sammy Miller, Gordon Jackson, Andy Roberton, Vic Allan and road-racers Peter Williams and Phil Read. Jeff Smith was due to be there but I did not see him.

There were some lovely bikes on display and quite a few for sale, fortunately I only had £5 in my wallet and had left the trailer at home.

There was one stand with new (re-engineered) JAP V-twin engines for Brough-Superiors, £12800 +VAT for the bare engine!

There was a Greeves stand with the new trials bike and several classic Greeves on display.

Adrian Moss (Rickman Metisse) had an immaculate G50 Matchless Metisse on show, I didn't take too much notice of the price tag but I think it was £25000!

It was a pretty good show and I met several old friends. Congratulations to the GRA team for putting on an interesting and professional display.

[Andy Z]

Telford Classic Off-Road show

It was a lot bigger than I expected, had to rush round to see it all, but well worth the 400 mile round trip. As John says, Jeff Smith was nowhere to be seem which was a pity, but his bikes were great. All in all, a really good event, with an excellent Greeves presence!

Cheers,
Andrew

[stormer254]

It was very good I agree but I still prefer the Three Counties Show Ground, for a start there would a much larger autojumble and lots more parking!

[Rob]

Chaps,

We did our best with the GRA stand and things worked out OK in the end. Unfortunately this year, our two 'star performers' who look after the construction and running of the stand (Dave Bradley and Tim Griffin) were both sidelined with health matters. However, they both made the necessary arrangements with the organisers and Mike Norris journeyed up to Tim's to collect all of the stand equipment with his trailer. So, even though Tim was unable to attend and Dave only for one day, we all have them to thank for it ....and of course, Mike with his trailer! Thanks all!

The parking was 'interesting' and use of a trailer makes it even more so with trailer parking taking up quite a few of the spaces in the hotel car park next door.

Malvern was OK but at least there is heat at Telford! Also, the last time we were there, we were situated in a cattle shed that was quite a way from the other two 'halls'. Having said that, the autojumble layout was much better at Malvern, Telford is a bit of squeeze and also takes away a car park.

We had a lot of interest from visitors and were able to answer a large crop of enquiries of the 'what have I bought?' nature. Luckily for us, they were all off-road!

Jeff Smith seemed to be around quite a bit during the day, both doing book signing and on the 'stage'.

Three of us attended the Jeff Smith dinner in the hotel on the Saturday night. The talk from Jeff was very amusing with plenty of banter. However, I have to say that the food was not even remotely up to the standard of the £3.69 carvery we had at the Travelodge the night before!

A very good show, well worth attending.