Yes, that annual week end of aprilia related silliness was here again, and this time we were down in hertfordshire, at a sports club that did have a bar.
(Rest assured, most were there for the bar, not for the sports facilities!)
I had arranged to ride down with some folks I had not met before, but knew through the assorted aprilia forums. I had loaded the falco up with the full luggage amount - the bike was fairly well loaded but the wolfman beta tail bag was very effective - all the weight kept central and low so handling remained sublime. Also - I wanted to take a full load of luggage as a trial run before a small tour I am planning in late June.
Anyway, rode down to Diss, enjoying the glorious sunshine and the relatively quiet roads - and checking out the handling due to the load. Got down to Diss in good time and waited for folks to arrive. Right on time folks started to arrive - PhilH, my contact on his silver falco, a couple of milles and assorted other bikes - triumph, ducati etc. All shook hands, introduced ourselves and sorted the route out.
The run down was steady and I would just like to say how nice it was to have a group of guys, at least 7 of us i think, all riding well together - no bunching, staggered lane occupancy, and no speed demons pushing the pace - just a relaxing 70 odd mile blast. We got to the meet site and sorted out the parking - obviously the majority of the bikes parked among the rest of the aprilias, the others parked elsewhere - they did have one aprilia for company as the yellow falco is also not allowed to park near the more beautiful aprilias but i digress....
This years meet had the normal Club Aprilia stand, and a stand run by a law firm, a portable dyno and Max Moto had brought along a few bikes for us to look at. Also Griff, former ApriliaUK and now uber servicing/set up meister was spanner twirling like a majorette on speed. Talking to assorted folks, a few other companies had let the organisers down - perhaps the biggest loss was the absence of anyone form Aprilia UK, though if the rumours are true, do they actually have any employees left?
A wander around the bike park showed a few interesting bikes - a Nera, assorted Edwards reps and so on.
Falco wise we were well represented - indeed I think we had possibly every colour present bar the ultra rare green beasties.
Not all of the falcos were on the bike park - a part of the campsite had been designated Falco corner - its where Paddy's, D-Rider's and my falcos were to be found
I am sad to say that I was not able to photograph every falco that arrived - for instance Nooj's beast was under a total media blackout - it would appear that the bike was in hiding as dear old Uncle Nooj had been helping out probationer coppers again. He is nice liek that. The local station hears his bike start up and they rush to get the new baby filth woken up, into clean continence pads and uniform and then stationed ready to wave him down as he passes - One of them will get lucky and will be able to write their first proper ticket after examining his bike. (A free tip for anyone else out there - your tax disk can be displayed on the front of the bike, or the rear of the bike - but definitely not left on the freezer in the kitchen.....)
By the early part of the afternoon most folks had arrived, set up camp for those that were staying, eaten some highly nutritious burgers - and these were proper, manly burgers - just minced dead cow, bread and relish.... no green shit at all.
(I am a carnivore - and I realise that cows eat green shit all the time. I eat dead cow a lot so therefore have no need to eat green shit ever).
Several folks had taken part in the raffle - lost of decent prizes, ranging from disk locks, digital dogtags to some decent shirts and jackets.
Max Moto had brought along a rather interesting little aprilia called the RSV4.
