Heavy Metal Thunder

The three gentlemen in the photo will be well known to viewers of such programmes as “The Motorbike Show”, “Shed & Buried” and “Junk & Disorderly”. For those not familiar with these shows, they are (from L to R) Henry Cole, Guy “Skid” Willison and Allen Millyard, and they were the star guests at the Classic Motorcycle Show at Stafford.
Plenty of amusing chit chat, both on the stage and also outside in the arena where various very noisy (in a good way!) racing motorcycles were started up for our entertainment.
The motorcycle pictured was built by Allen Millyard and is basically (in his words) a half ton, ten foot long motorcycle fitted with a Dodge Viper 8 Litre, V10 engine. All totally road legal and he regularly rides it to events - though not today as it was too far and too cold. He did, however, start it up in the hall and it certainly sounded thunderous! Earlier this year, with Henry Cole clinging on for dear life behind him, Allen set a new pillion motorbike world land speed record at 183.5mph. I’m not sure which of them is the bravest/maddest!
We had a great time at the show. It was cold but we were treated to sunshine all day so no issues walking around the outside stalls and displays. In the main hall there were hundreds of beautifully restored machines on display - as well as a few that were optimistically (very optimistically in some cases) described as “projects”.
I think I have made up my mind to sell my efficient, modern motorbike and buy something older to restore and tinker with. But what that will be, I have no idea. I had hoped that visiting the show would give me inspiration, but I saw so many bikes that I’d like to own/had owned in the past/just fancied because they were “different”, that I am no nearer deciding what to start looking for than I was this morning! Well, maybe a bit nearer - I definitely seem to have developed a penchant for bikes smaller than 250cc. Somewhat of a contrast to Mr Millyard’s 8,000cc creation!