Until you’re waiting to board a ferry with a load of mates on scooters, all ready to head off on another Euro adventure you don’t realise just how much you’ve missed it.
The excitement as you ride up that twisty ramp into the darkness and smoke of the ship’s underbelly. Strapping your scooter down amongst dozens of others, finding your cozy cabin for the night and taking your seats amongst around 90 other Lambretta riders in the bar, all ready for the first night of a beer-fuelled European tour. Then disembarking the following morning into a foreign land, still feeling a little jaded from the heavy night before.
Our eight-day Dutch and Belgian tour took in a few cities and towns including Eindhoven, La Roche en Ardennes, Libramont (for the rally), followed by Mechelen City and Breda on the way home. A fairly short (by most Euro rally standards) 634-mile round trip.
All about the journey
To be honest, the journey itself is usually the highlight of a Euro Lambretta Jamboree for myself and many others. The rally is just the excuse we need to make the trip. The ride there, seeing different places every day, overcoming the odd breakdown. Amongst our group we had rear hubs failing, fuel tanks splitting, exhausts self-destructing, stator and CDI failures, Pitchie’s GP panel being flattened by a load of lorries (and me) until it was about 2mm and flat as a pancake (see images in gallery).
It’s all about meeting up with other Lambretta riders at night in another foreign town and sharing tales of woe over a few beers. Then repeating it the following day.
Just a normal holiday
Life on the road on a scooter is fantastic. It may not always be easy but it’s always worth the drama. Can you imagine a ‘normal’ holidaymaker taking enough spares to rebuild the engine in his car and carrying a spare fuel tank just in case one develops a leak? Him and his wife lying on the road covered in oil for hours, hoping to get the thing going again. Or getting to your destination after a trouble-free day and thanking your lucky stars if your rear wheel hasn’t dropped off. That’s how it is for the riders of vintage scooters, that can’t be a normal holiday surely? It is good fun though.
Loud pipes save lives
My fun ended about 20 miles out of Libramont on the Friday heading to the rally. I was riding my M210 Quattrini-powered Eibar Series 2 along a dual carriageway when it suddenly got much louder. It was obvious to a deaf man that my exhaust had split. Then it got MEGA LOUD! I carried on with my journey, losing most of the power from my engine and dropping back through the dozen or so scooters I was with until eventually they were all out of sight. I’d told the missus over the intercom to carry on riding and hoped I’d limp it to the rally.
To say my scooter was LOUD was a massive understatement and after finally turning off for Libramont town I stopped to have a quick look underneath. I’d actually lost about a foot-long section of my curly exhaust. It’s four years old though so I can’t really complain.
Euro breakdown misery
One thing I realised during this trip was that Euro breakdown cover isn’t worth the paper it’s typed on if you’re riding a classic scooter. We heard first hand horror stories of people left stranded for days after a breakdown, others being told their scooter would be written off rather than repatriated. Another was told in no uncertain terms by the manager of one insurance-backed scheme that if he didn’t accept what was on offer (actually very little of any use was on offer) then he would be on his own and they wouldn’t even answer the phone to him again. This was for breakdowns in a country where you can easily drive a van or recovery vehicle to a port to get home in less than a day. Belgium is hardly the back end of beyond.
Myself and my travelling companions had taken the decision before we left that if we had an unfixable breakdown we’d all chip in to hire a van to get us back to the port (one way hire is available). It would have been the quickest and cheapest option. Luckily none of us needed it and my stricken scooter got home safely via France and the Euro Tunnel.
I found the Exhibition Centre where Euro Lambretta was being held and probably made the most dramatic entrance of the whole weekend. I’d have outstaged Ferdinando Innocenti.
Small club – big event
Euro Lambretta was organised by Lambretta Club Belgium, a very small club (20 active members) in comparison to many clubs around the world. They’d only got the post-covid ‘go-ahead’ to actually hold the rally in late January. This left them still with the uncertainty of whether it would or wouldn’t happen and whether the small club would be left facing financial ruin if things didn’t work out. They took the plunge and carried on with the organisation and pulled it off. They were helped over the weekend by some volunteers from LCGB and no doubt other national clubs but hats off to them for their bravery.
A few words from Lambretta Club Belgium’s President…
For Lambretta Club Belgium it was the 2nd time in the club’s history that we were allowed to organise a Euro-Lambretta. For a club as small as LCB this is not a matter of course, with only 80 members of which 20 are active in the club.
With the preparations for the 2020 edition, we started end of 2017 but due to the known reasons of the pandemic we had to cancel it. The club made a financial loss because the preparations were already far advanced. With the support of the other national clubs, we were back on track in 2022. Until the end of December 2021 we were still not sure if we could organise this event. Finally, in mid-January 2022, we got the green light to continue with the organisation.
In only 6 months the club has done something we can be proud of. Knowing that not everything we needed was in stock. We had to search for shower trucks, catering and other materials. For example, the T-shirts were only delivered on Thursday afternoon despite having ordered them well in advance. Stress moments but in the end everybody was able to enjoy this Euro-Lambretta after 3 years. We are aware that not everything was perfect but as already said … in difficult circumstances, with a small team and not everything available on the market, we did our best.
So we will be remembered that we were the first with glamping tents on the site, pay with bank card and use QR codes.
Unfortunately, a few days before the start of Euro-Lambretta, we received the news from the English exhibitors that they would not come because of Brexit problems. Scooter parts, tattoo-shop, clothing and other stuff would not be present.
This was too short a notice to encourage other suppliers to come to Euro-Lambretta.
We are still living in the Brexit and Covid19 period so understandable that everyone has to make the choice to come or not … As an organisation we invited everyone, it was up to them to come.
Despite that we can and may speak of a successful edition … The most important thing was that the big Lambretta family could meet again after some difficult years under a bright sun!
Despite the threat of heavy rain and thunderstorms over the weekend, the campers were lucky enough to get non-stop sunshine which allowed them to get an unheard-of Belgian suntan.
Brexit has really messed things up for UK dealers attending foreign events and for EU based dealers attending UK events. A dealer has to list every single part being taken abroad and export them with customs, then they face the same rigmarole on the way home. It can easily take a day or more just to list the contents of a van load of parts. Then you have to hope all is in order at border control.
There’s no reason why more dealers from the EU couldn’t attend Euro Lambretta though…
Other than that there was a trade stand for the new Lambretta brand (they were sponsoring the rally and providing a new scooter as a raffle prize), a stall selling some bric-a-brac, an LCB stand and one stall that had the ONLY spark plug on site. Riders couldn’t even get oil or basic spares. Scooter Center were attending another large event in Germany so weren’t there but they shipped emergency parts into the campsite for some riders on Saturday. Sadly they were out of stock on my exhaust and there was nothing left for anybody to weld, even if there had been a welder there. Some riders did take advantage of the well-equipped blacksmiths on site though.
There was an outside bar and a couple of fast food stalls, none of which were supplying soft drinks or even water for non-drinkers, or people who just fancied something other than beer, luckily the supermarket was only a short ride away. To buy drinks at the rally you had to purchase a souvenir plastic cup then buy a drinks card for either €25 or €50. Drinks were €2.50 for just less than a half.
Anyway, moan over and on with the rest of the event…
Back in 2019 were lucky enough to have booked the only hotel within walking distance of the site, lucky because Libramont is virtually devoid of accommodation as it’s not really a tourist area. We’ll find a similar situation in Peterborough next year for the LCGB Euro. That’s the trouble with most showgrounds, they’re in the middle of nowhere so you’re kind of stuck. Libramont did have a pub close to the site and a few other bars within a 10-minute walk so at least people could get out for a change of scenery. For your £90 ticket you got admission to the site and all entertainment, plus the gala dinner on Saturday night and breakfast/evening meals over the weekend.
After wandering around and seeing a few people we headed off to the hotel (you’ll have heard me going) for a few beers before walking into town for a few more. As you’d expect, the UK scooterists outnumbered the rest of Europe at this event. We had around 700 of us there so every bar you walked into was like going into a pub at any rally in the UK. Most of the other nations seemed to stay mostly on the site, probably asking why there weren’t many Brits there.
Tanked up and ready to sample the rally atmosphere we headed to the Exhibition Centre only to find the gates locked at the entrance where we were trying to get in (our fault for not knowing the way in). Luckily a window of the adjoining ticket office was open and the Brits dived through it like Hutch getting into Starsky’s striped Torino! Everybody who entered through the window was encouraged to do a commando roll and keep their heads down so the guards didn’t spot them.
We had to carry the walking/wobbling wounded from Leeds Central SC home (I remember my first pint Jon) and also help manipulate a very wonky lady from Chesterfield as she stumbled home at a peculiar angle… The sun was up and the birds were singing before we made it back to the hotel.
Ride out
Saturday saw the ride out leaving en-masse (Shaun’s video is above). Surprisingly, quite a few people packed up and went home as well (maybe trying to avoid the rain which had been forecast for Sunday). This left the campsite feeling quite empty.
There were a couple of scooters on plinths for the custom show but most of the other scooters were off site, which was a shame. Other than a Dyno, there wasn’t much happening to keep people at the rally. Some daft games, a gymkhana, a load of traders or something the crowd could get into (build a Lambretta engine blindfold or something) would have helped entertain us. But remember, it was only a small club organising and running things with no Covid-guarantee things would even go ahead. As a National Rally organiser myself I know how the uncertainty feels when you’re trying to plan an event that may not even happen.
Our group opted to stay around the hotel bar for the afternoon where the drinks were cold and we had plenty of shade from the sun.
Gala dinner
Evening time came and we headed off to the 7 pm gala dinner. The hall was laid out with rows and rows of 18-seater tables, all covered with coloured table cloths to resemble the Belgian tricolour. The guests piled in and mostly sat with their respective countries. The free wine flowed and a jovial atmosphere filled the room as paper aeroplanes were thrown in abundance. The English showed support for the Queen’s Jubilee with Union Jack hats and flags being passed around. The Scots arrived with one lad in a shopping trolley and the Spaniards carried a lady around on a table. All very surreal.
Self-service success
Union Jack bowler hats off to Lambretta Club of Belgium! They pulled off a self-service three-course dinner for 1200 people with lovely meatballs and vegetables for the main course, all served quickly and piping hot. It was tasty too, as were the selection of puddings. The self-service approach worked much better than an army of waiters bringing out lukewarm food for hours.
Je ne comprends pas
We’ll skip over the after-dinner speeches and prize-giving because it turned into a bit of a farce and nobody could hear or understand a word of what was being said by the (apparently) semi-celebrity compere from the makeshift stage. Part of his job was to announce the free raffle prize winner. The prize was a new Lambretta V-Special 125. Out of 1200 people, it looked like less than 150 had entered, which kind of shows ‘Lambretta’ are aiming at the wrong target audience at an event like this, although you can’t blame the organisers for taking the support offered by the brand. Lambretta would have more success with the target-wearing fraternity who populate our National Rallies, many of whom welcome modern retro scooters with open wallets.
The on-stage shenanigans kind of killed the good atmosphere of the gala dinner and after 45-minutes or so we made a bid for fresh air and stayed outside for the rest of the night, drunk our drinks card dry, watched the fireworks and called it a day before midnight.
Biblical rain
So that was it, the rally itself was over but it still left us a few days to ride back up north to Rotterdam for the ferry home. My disabled Lambretta was sent back to England in a friend’s van and after condensing our luggage into one bag I rode Linsey’s RT225 home with her on the back. As it happened she was glad to be pillion because just minutes after my waterproof top decided to throw itself onto the motorway we were hit by a biblical rainstorm of epic proportions. I’ve seen some bad weather in my time on two wheels but this was très bad. The rain was falling hard enough to change the touch screen settings on a friend’s TomTom Rider, a few miles later another waterproof bike sat nav completely died, never to recover. It also filled the carb on our scooter with water and left me spluttering at about 20 miles an hour at times on the hard shoulder/bus/taxi lane, just trying to keep the Lambretta going and hoping it would eventually clear itself. It was way too wet to contemplate stopping, even under a bridge. Eventually we got to our hotel where we had a dry underground car park where I could clean the carb out and check the scooter over ready for the next day.
We heard later that not long after we’d been on the motorway it flooded and was closed, and an A-road running in the same direction had cars stood in water up to their windows when some friends rode through the floods on their Lambrettas. Yes it was a tad wet!
Riders waiting for the party boat to Hull on the way home, although for most, the party home was not quite as mental!
All in all it was a great little Euro jaunt, good company, decent riding, lovely towns and cities, nice hotels (thanks Sarah for organising our trip) and an enjoyable time at the event itself. Well done to Lambretta Club Belgium for all your hard work in difficult post-pandemic circumstances.
Words and photos: Iggy
Additional images and ride out video, Shaun
2TW Sussex 600 video: Tim Draper
**SLUK will also be premiering the Two-Stroke Films Euro Lambretta video as soon as it’s finished**
Riders and fallers
Over the weekend we heard of a few accidents, most of the fallers escaped with bumps and bruises. However, there was one serious accident involving Paul from the Oldham Globetrotters SC. He’s still in hospital in Belgium but is hoping to be repatriated to a UK hospital this week to continue his recovery. We wish him all the best.
Insurance warning!!
Since Paul’s accident, a friend (Doug Turner) has been dealing with the insurance and police. He’s asked us to mention that before the trip Paul had checked with his bank’s travel insurance because he was only covered for up to 125cc. Because he notified them that he was riding a 200 they covered him up to 250cc. This has made life so much easier for those left picking up the pieces. Doug also said the police report and witness statement needed for the insurance company to accept liability included questions on riding kit, including helmet, EU standard gloves, jacket and ankle boots. Plus a copy of both sides of Paul’s driving licence and his bike insurance.
Because everything was legal and in order, the medical treatment and repatriation are being taken care of. Let it be a warning though to any of you travelling abroad without the correct documentation, insurance and a full licence to ride the scooter you’re on.
