Celtic Warriors 8th Birthday Bash

16-18 March 2001

Only for the hardened or Rally hungry bikers!

Wet, cold & Browned off - By Tom Finlayson

It was more or less the same crowd as last year so we all knew what to expect or so we thought ...
The Celtic Warriors are a friendly bunch which makes this one of the best Winter Rallies in the country. It was cold (at least -10 Wind Chill Factor) wet and muddy outside but warm, dry and no mud thanks to the hessian carpet in the marquee.
Eleven of us from Southwest and about the same from West Midlands made up the VSOC contingent at the Warriors bash this year.

Here's the line-up for the weekends entertainment:

Friday: Afternoon: Wombles Rock Show. Evening: Bands - Crazy Jain, Roxoff and Cupid Stunt.
Saturday: Afternoon: Vera Cruz, Custom Bike Show, Rumpledrumskin, Burn Out Competition (which got cancelled due to the mud)
Saturday Evening: Redeye, LARGE, Raffle, Celtic pride, Gangsters of Ska

Roxoff who did some excellent covers including Aerosmith & Bon Jovi

Cupid Stunt (that's the guys on the left) - the girls were brought up on stage to warm up the proceedings. Daft Punk at its best - especially with their alternative versions of Abba songs!

Harley 5 wheeler - pretty unique

Hayabusa trike - Probably the fastest thing on three wheels

These bikes are designed and built by the Trike Shop check out their site http://www.trikeshop.co.uk

Saturday morning. With gale force winds and rain lashing down continuously the previous night, many tents were flooded out including mine.
As Magic said "I don't mind being cold, I don't mind being wet, But I don't like being cold and wet"
It was now sleeting and with snow forecast the majority decision was to go home before things got worse so we did.
I have never been beat by a rally yet - well not until now. Actually I was quite happy to stay but did not fancy digging my bike out of the field on my own.

Car and Van drivers did a fine job of churning up the entrance and as a result it took us 3 hours to get 7 bikes out through this quagmire.
As we left the passing comment from one of the Celtic Warriors on the gate was "There are bikers and there are Bikers" My response: "There's fool hardiness and there's stupidity, At least I now have Sunday to thaw out and dry off all my kit".