Motorcycle Explorer February 2015 Issue 4 | Page 65

There are differing opinions about how entertaining this event was, but probably the most unbiased version is a video by the Derby lads that can still be found on the internet. The tuned engine was plenty powerful enough to spin its wheel on the wooden floor and soon filled the entire bar with acrid white smoke. In the video you can hear the bar owner amongst the crowd encouraging me to carry on until the tyre bursts. The thing with 10-inch scooter tyres is that they only have a small contact patch, so by the time I’ve popped my well-worn Bridgestone, to rousing cheers, the tyre had eaten down through the floorboards by several centimetres. While most rally-goers seemed to find the burnout entertaining, there were definitely those who didn’t. Kev Walsh – then head of the Lambretta Club of Great Britain – was incensed at the time, and highly critical of the burnout in the club magazine Jetset. I’m pleased to say that the tyre – which we presented to the bar owner the following morning – is still up on the wall, complete with its plaque which reads: ‘EuroLambretta 2005 – The deepest hole in the floor’. The ankle injury inducing furrow has since been made safe by filling it with epoxy resin. Upon our return the campsite was still owned by the same guy, and he recalled that night. In the intervening period his wife had left him, business had been pretty slack and the owner of the barrel-cabins had taken them back. We only had to look around the tables at the age of his patrons – mostly aged over 50 – to see why. The black leather jacket type Biker, like the Scooterboy, is a lifestyle from a moment in time. With more old bikers swapping handlebars for walking sticks than new ones replacing them, his is a scene riding slowly towards extinction. With no barrels to sleep in we declined his offer to rent rooms in a nearby apartment for 35 Euros a head and instead headed for Leutschach town. For only a little more money we got a 4- star hotel with a restaurant. They even allowed us to push the scooters through the lobby so they could be kept near to our rooms. Try that in London. Martin ‘Sticky’ Round Additional photos by Kimberly Orton and Sam Round