Rumour has it, that about this time of year Santa moves his Grotto from
Lapland to a place called Birmingham! So having been designated as "The
Official Flasher", duty bound I dragged myself away from work and went on
a "Mini" adventure to see the big boy's toy shop first hand.
Couldn't find the big man himself, but did notice his helpers were very pretty, were scantily clad, I guess due to there being a lack of any snow, and would not let me sit on their laps.
First stop was the wall of death. What a buzz that was! Apart from choking on the petrol fumes it was fantastic to watch. Unfortunately my old camera was too slow to get any moving action shots.
Found the Yamaha stand. Two new models of the 950 on show but not pulling much interest. Sure they looked OK, but lacked cubic inches and look too similar to the Dragstar. The pumped up V-Max was grabbing the attention and the Midnight Stars were being ignored. Come on Yamaha what are you playing at? Whoever is running the UK marketing division should have gone to Spec-Savers. Import the Raider and watch your sales increase, because at the moment your limp wristed offerings to the UK cruiser market suck!
Milwaukee and Minnesota were well represented. The credit crunch had obviously hit the Harley boys. Their stand looked quite ordinary for them. Not being a Harley fan nothing struck me as being new except for the new "Muscle" V-Rod. The Victory stand got my vote and looking at the number of people crowded around the bikes, I was not alone. The black and white "Ness" example was just awesome. "Dear Santa I have been a very good boy this year and.....................!"
Nick Lappage had his bike on show proving that not all good customs are based around an S&S lump. There was some good, some bad and some down right ugly customs on show. Triumph had the new Thunderbird, nice as it was at first glance it is not too dissimilar to the America. Like Yamaha's 950 they had a fully kitted out touring model and a standard one on show. They were both nice but Triumph were a bit conservative in the design for it to stand out in the crowd.
Couldn't find the big man himself, but did notice his helpers were very pretty, were scantily clad, I guess due to there being a lack of any snow, and would not let me sit on their laps.
First stop was the wall of death. What a buzz that was! Apart from choking on the petrol fumes it was fantastic to watch. Unfortunately my old camera was too slow to get any moving action shots.
Found the Yamaha stand. Two new models of the 950 on show but not pulling much interest. Sure they looked OK, but lacked cubic inches and look too similar to the Dragstar. The pumped up V-Max was grabbing the attention and the Midnight Stars were being ignored. Come on Yamaha what are you playing at? Whoever is running the UK marketing division should have gone to Spec-Savers. Import the Raider and watch your sales increase, because at the moment your limp wristed offerings to the UK cruiser market suck!
Milwaukee and Minnesota were well represented. The credit crunch had obviously hit the Harley boys. Their stand looked quite ordinary for them. Not being a Harley fan nothing struck me as being new except for the new "Muscle" V-Rod. The Victory stand got my vote and looking at the number of people crowded around the bikes, I was not alone. The black and white "Ness" example was just awesome. "Dear Santa I have been a very good boy this year and.....................!"
Nick Lappage had his bike on show proving that not all good customs are based around an S&S lump. There was some good, some bad and some down right ugly customs on show. Triumph had the new Thunderbird, nice as it was at first glance it is not too dissimilar to the America. Like Yamaha's 950 they had a fully kitted out touring model and a standard one on show. They were both nice but Triumph were a bit conservative in the design for it to stand out in the crowd.
Plenty of trade stands if you want to look like a
"Power Ranger" and you ride a crotch rocket. Nothing on offer to tempt me to add extra bling to my
Draggie so job done with photographs to follow.
Chris