The Easter weekend rally to Whitby a couple of weekends ago was the first rally in the town for four years, and it happened to be the tenth National Scooter Rally that the town had hosted in just over twenty years. Strangely, exactly the same statement applies to last weekend’s scooter rally to the beautiful south Welsh coastal town of Tenby.

Of all the towns visited on the rally calendar, Tenby is surely the most colourful and picturesque – a walled-in town centre with breathtaking views over the sea at Carmarthen Bay. Each time I arrive at the resort I have a childish chuckle to myself inside my crash helmet at the town’s road sign – Welcome to Tenby, or written in Welsh as “Dinbych – Y – Pysgod”

It’s a relatively small town (one of the smallest to host a National rally I would say) but it is extremely welcoming. And as a venue for a rally, it has evolved quite a bit over the last two decades.

The main entertainment is based at the De Valence Pavilion. This is the venue for the live bands and main entertainment on both the Friday and Saturday nights and also Saturday daytime’s indoor custom show and parts fair. Two other smaller venues are also used. The rugby club bar and the Ex-servicemen’s club, which host the northern soul and reggae/soul nights. All three venues are very central and in close proximity of each other. Three venues are necessary to accommodate all of the rally-goers as the De Valence Pavilion doesn’t have a big enough capacity on its own.
This year saw a different camping option to previous rallies. It was at the Tenby rugby pitch and clubhouse, less than a mile from the town centre. Of all the Tenby rallies so far, this campsite was the most convenient for being able to walk from the campsite into the town. £15 got you a wristband allowing you to camp for three nights. Basic facilities were toilets, shower blocks, a bar and a food kiosk. It was manned all weekend by volunteers from the rugby club itself – all of them very friendly too. Although, early on, there was a little bit of confusion with some riders thinking that the rugby pitch offering this camping would be directly behind the rugby club bar in the town centre.

On my way riding to the actual rugby pitch campsite, I passed by the leisure centre that was used as the venue for the custom show at a previous Tenby rally many years ago. It’s strange how stumbling across a building you’ve only ever visited once before can bring back such vivid memories from years gone by.

It’s always good to see a few youngsters on rallies. Rhys Wybrant and his 16-year-old son Harley (pictured above) were on the campsite with Harley enjoying his first rally. He was there with three other lads on Gilera Runner SPs as well.
As Friday evening arrived, the town was filling up quickly and the pubs were very lively. It was good to see identical twins, Matty and Rich out for the evening. The De Valence Pavilion had Steve Foster and Moz, DJ-ing before the night’s headlining band The Riffs. I’m told the two other venues were both very popular too – often the slightly smaller venues have a better atmosphere than some of the big capacity venues at other rallies.
Below you’ll find Col’s gallery of rally photos
Saturday morning saw more of Friday’s warm weather, with scooters buzzing about all over the town, and a constant ringing in the air of riders flooding in for the weekend,

The custom show and parts fair was setting up early in the De Valence. By National Rally standards the custom show is fairly small in numbers, but it’s a bit limited for space to display them, once the traders have set up their stalls, a fairly eclectic mix of scooters were in the show with pretty much all styles catered for. The relatively modern GTS Vespa wouldn’t normally be the obvious choice for a custom scooter, but I must admit I’m starting to see more and more crop up at shows. But when you consider how many there are on rallies nowadays I’m surprised more owners don’t modify them, (at the first Tenby National back in 2001 the biggest four-stroke Vespa available to buy, was an ET4 125cc – how times change!).

During the afternoon, a 200-strong pack of scooters passed through the main but small cobbled streets of town heading out on the ride out. It weaves off about 10 miles North West inland to Cresswell Quay. Whatever your thoughts on scooter ride outs, they certainly cause a big impact, and dare I say, they may just inspire some future scooter riders who stood watching the noisy blue smoke pack cruise past.
Shaun’s Tenby gallery is below
Saturday evening’s entertainment was back at the three same venues used the night before. The main event bands being Future Sailors and The Navarones playing in the De Valence. Dj’ing across the different venues were Welsh scooterists, Jason Ude, Gareth Hiscocks, Chris Francis, Tony Bryant, Moz and Reevsey – all top lads that take scooters and music very seriously, (sorry to the DJs I missed/don’t know).

Another full-on night with a Fabulous (excuse the pun) atmosphere, every pub in town had scooterists crammed in. It was an absolute world away from the pandemic this time two years ago.

Late on Saturday night, the rain came, which made for a wet start for those heading off home on Sunday. The hardcore stayed on for the regulation end of rally pub crawl that starts at the Ex-Serviceman’s Club, and goes around all the pubs and finishes back at the Rugby club bar, with some positively 2nd hand looking scooterists.

All in all another extremely good National Scooter Rally in Wales.

Massive thanks go out to the Scooter Collective of South Wales for their hard (and often behind the scenes) work to make this rally happen, and also the rugby club members and volunteers that made the campsite a great new addition to the Tenby Scooter Rally.
The next stop on the National Rally calendar is Kelso in Scotland, that’s England, Wales and then Scotland covered in the first three events

Who was it that once sung “People try to put us d-d-d-down, just because we get around”
Answers on a postcard SLUKers

Words: Col
Photos: Shaun and Col

Tenby custom show results

The custom show trophies had the much-loved Welsh Red Dragon on top of them – a proud reminder of the country this rally is in.

BEST OF SHOW: PEAKY BLINDERS
BEST VESPA: SOUL TIME
BEST LAMBRETTA: TRIBUTE
BEST CUSTOM: FEMME FATALE
BEST MOD: SY76 LRR
BEST ENGINEERED: 0JE 62J
BEST AUTO: SPARTICUS
BEST CHOP/CUTDOWN: (Jason Ude) Vespa
BEST STREET RACER: RIZZLA
BEST CLASSIC: VESPA GS 1OZ MKT
BEST PAINT: AD NAUSEA
PUNTER’S CHOICE: TRIBUTE