2007 Ally Pally Motorcycle Show

Once upon a time, there was a Road Racing & Superbike Show held at the Alexandra Palace in London. This was different from the ‘main’ motorcycle show held at the NEC (and Earl’s Court before that, for those of us with long memories) in that it was mainly for racers to source parts and tools in the off-season. Or at least that’s what my impression of it was.

I started attending a couple of years ago as an antidote to the winter blues and sourced leather race suits and sticky tyres, etc. at around the same sort of time as the show was evolving into a London motorcycle show, if you see what I mean.

For some reason unknown to me, MCN has decided for this year to move it to the new ExCel centre on the Isle of Dogs and SuperBike’s publishers decided it might be good to arrange an alternative event the week before at the Ally Pally – maybe as a spoiler? Who knows?

Even before I looked at the hideously expensive parking fees at the MSN show venue (free at the Ally Pally), I’d decided to ‘do’ the Ally Pally show as usual.

So I arrived with a mate and his son at 10.15am today (Saturday, 27th), having unfortunately missed out on the buy-one-get-one-free ticket offer to SuperBike subscribers, paid my £12 and in I went, walking past the SuperBike subscription desk where they were offering the free fleeces they’d omitted from the NEC show (which was a bit of a pisser, frankly).

Once inside, there was more room to move around than usual because there were fewer stands present, presumably because the Ally Pally show was only running for three days and the MCN show would have been getting much more exposure.

Also evident was the amount of ‘totty’ wearing skimpy SuperBike bikinis. Funny how not so many years ago, the suggestion that scantily-clad women would be at these bike shows would have been shot down in flames as sexist and un-PC when instead, as I said to Michael, these girls would probably be making some good money just by being there and smiling for photographs.

We decided to go and watch the stunt show at 12.30pm which unfortunately wasn’t what I would call a stunt show with roadbikes but was instead a pair of guys on GasGas trials bikes doing some pretty amazing things. So all in all, not too bad then!

The best stand placement of the day would have to be putting “the Mad Count” (featuring DVDs of people stunting on the roads in London) right next to the London BikeSafe (i.e. police) stand.

So overall it was OK, but not quite as good as last year. Will I go again next year? Of course! Michael’s going to the MCN show next week for a comparison, but unless it’s pretty special, SuperBike could know that “if we build it, they will come.”

I hadn’t taken my camera as none of the big manufacturers were there but I was forced to take some snaps with my phone. Click on the thumbnails for larger sizes.

Ally Pally Show 1 Ally Pally Show 2
Ally Pally Show 3 Ally Pally Show 4 Ally Pally Show 5