Motorcycle Live 2012 NEC Birmingham

Is anyone going to Motorcycle Live this year?

I'm heading up there on Sat 01st Dec with a few friends, will be on bikes hopefully weather permitting.

We will be leaving Swindon about 9.30 on Sat morning if anyone wants to join us?


Edit: day changed from Wed to Sat due to wok commitments, everyone still welcome to join us leaving from Swindon.

I will be going but not sure on the day yet me & mate have got to sort the date out

I/we will be going but it will be the saturday rather than during the week.

who else is going to this ? Looks like I will be going on sat 1st dec...anyone else going over that weekend ?

will be there on the wednesday, but in my mates car as he's dropping his forks off at k tec on the way

Would like to go just fitting it in is the problem. Will have to try and convince the brother-in-law to go so we can go during the week.

I went last year and to be honest I was a bit disappointed with it. The usual friendly giveaway manufacturers were a bit stingy and all of the 'Get on' features to give kids a chance of a first ride were booked up by families of the vendors. We went on the Saturday last year and There were supposed to be so many places for the morning and afternoon sessions on a first come first served basis.

We arrived just after it opened to find at all spaces had been taken for the morning. My wife queued for the afternoon session, at the front of the queue for two hours only to see employee after employee, walk up in front of her, quick wink and a nudge, and name taken. When the said attraction opened in the afternoon we, along with two other people got places, the rest, who had queued for a good hour or more also were told the session was full.

I made a complaint about it and didn't even get get the courtesy of an acknowledgement.

There were some decent offers to be had and I'd suggest leaving the cards at home as I could have easily spent a bomb there!!

Went up to the show today. Had good day and spent some money (couple of relatives have now bought me nice christmas presentd ).
Show seemed a bit smaller than last year but all the big manufacturers are there and there are a few bargins to be had on kit.
Got away without paying for parking aswell

Had did you escape the parking fees? I am going on Friday

Delay till Saturday and I will be there too :-)

ok, ok, good enough reason to go any other day than saturday !! thank you LOL

I didn't buy a ticket for the car park when we arrived. We stayed till the end and the went for a drink so the traffic had died down a bit, by the time we went back to the car the attendants had gone so just drove out.

If you do have to buy a ticket you can get £2 back in the show.

Stu wrote:I didn't buy a ticket for the car park when we arrived. We stayed till the end and the went for a drink so the traffic had died down a bit, by the time we went back to the car the attendants had gone so just drove out.

If you do have to buy a ticket you can get £2 back in the show.

Cheers for the tip off

so, what were the opinions overall of the show ? I thought it was really good. Walked my socks off going round and got loads of pictures of me on some of the bikes I can only drool about having (the new triumph trophy, BMW 1600 GT LE & HP4). The new Kawasaki done up in police colours looked good too I thought. Got myself some winter gloves, a waterproof rain suit and a rear paddock stand so did pretty well. Could have spent SOOOOO much more money on other bits too LOL

I enjoyed myself although it wasn't anything all that specail in my opinion:

I had not been for a few years so I thought I would rock along this time. A mate joined me as we wandered up in car. I was hoping to buy some bit and bobs...it was bloody freezing more to the point, so a nice warm car seemed the only choice!

Once in the show I soon bumped into a few mates; one of my old muckers from Lotus who I have not seem for years came across us on the Triumph stand, and a couple of my regular Sunday morning riding buddies were also about cooing over the new watercooled BMW GS thing. Get over it lads the Scott Squirrel was watercooled in the 1920's!! An old friend was on the Raceways stand, and another friend his wife and 3 month son also joined me as I wondered about taking it all in.

As for the show itself, it was ok, nothing amazing but ok. £19 to get in and £10 to park was a bit salty though and they don't give out the programmes for nothing anymore! £6 quid for a bacon and sos baguette and a bottle of coke too. Not a cheap day out. I did treat myself to a new lid and gloves from Raceways Yamaha, meanwhile my mates treated themselves to a Honda Fleece and some armoured Jeans amongst other things
As for the bikes not much truly ground breaking was on show, but I did like the Triumph 800 Tiger and Guzzi V7 racer. The Honda stand was very badly laid out with too many bikes in too small an area and this led to some congestion. The Yamaha stand had the interesting triple concept on show, but from here I will let the pics take over...

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They did let other bikes in, but they had to park around the back where nobody could see them...

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The Virgin space plane, if you fancy REALLY getting away from it all!

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Trying the new Norton for size...I liked them, but they are really expensive and the stand was huge and sparsely populated with bikes

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Despite the look on my face I really liked the look and feel of the 800 Tiger

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Meaty Metisse prototype

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Coventry Transport Museum brought along some of their classics to display. The museum is excellent, well worth a visit

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Some exhibitors seemed to be missing the point somewhat!

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Painted up in tribute to a wartime P-51 Mustang fighter. A restored P-51 always flies in these colours today at airshows

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Yamaha M1

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Still struggling with Harleys

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Electric Zero S----the future?

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My mate could be talked into one of these

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Nice work on the W800 by the lads at Spirit of the Seventies

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Rather nice...

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Very neat RD250E

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Father and son checking out a new 636

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Hard to believe the Monster has been on the market for 20 years now

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Best looking Duke since the original 916?

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20k to look like an AA man

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This could apply to a few of us on here!

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Whitham, Parish show off their skills on the mike

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Close to being OTT, but I like it

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Interesting approach to front suspension

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Well engineered HD custom

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Triple concept Yamaha

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Nick Sanders hard-worked and battered R1

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Rather pointless BMW GS and sidecar combo...it was huge..you might as well have done with it and get a Defender 90!

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Trying the Chinese WK650GT for size. They have come along way really quickly, but the detail finish still has a long way to go. Better off with a secondhand Jap/Euro bike...but for how much longer?

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Working out the finance deal in my head and to be honest it could do with losing the number boards...otherwise spot on

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I love BMWs

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My old mate Gill on the Raceways stand managed to flog me a new lid and gloves whilst accusing me of being a cheapskate!

So overall a grand day out

I had a great day at the show.
I had a couple of hundred quid burning a hole in my pocket and Didnt buy a thing!!
I think I've been spoiled by bargains when the old George Whites was here in Swindon, also J and S is just down the road in Bristol.
I did notice though that the J&S rather large stall had some proper bargains espesially there 2 piece leathers, my mate bagged an Alpine Star 2 piece for 150 notes. Kevlar jeans were £45 on just about every stall.

As for the bikes, now maybe its my post military ever expanding waistline but are all the new sportsbikes getting smaller. The only bike I felt I could ride for any distance was the new BMW1000rr.
the Yamahas are titchy, apart from their 125s which are massive for 125s.
I must confess I had a good look around the Victory stand and not just because they had the best looking lycra clad girlys, maybe its an age thing or maybe its a comfort thing but i'm seriously considering a Victory Hammer as my next bike (i will keep the cat as well of course)

The entertainment was pretty good with the guys spinning bikes in the air and a splattering of motogp and bsb riders around various stalls signing stuff.
All in all we had a good day up there, but next time I will deffinitly be going mid week as it was far too busy to brouse properly on the opening Saturday.

Who needs to waste a day and spend loadsamoney when you can see it all from Radar's photos - thanks!

I had a really good day there. It seemed a bit smaller than last year. The stage shows i saw were not very good, (some people putting on a base layer and taking it off again) but plenty of other stuff to do and see.
Good photos Radar.

Great write up Radar, made me feel like I was there and didn't miss anything! (and saved my pennies).

I had great fun there. I am a uni student so i got tickets for £6 and free beer.... ;-D. We went on the "Mad Sunday" TT day (the final day) when all the big tt riders were there, got a few photos with guy martin, connor cummins, john mcguiness and co, also some nice autographs. The free motorcross show "Ramp'd Up" was also a nice bonus. All in all a grand day out.

Alex

Can only add a couple of pics to what radar has already uploaded :-)
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Cheers for the positive comments on the pics folks. Glad that by and large we all enjoyed the show