In 2014, FOS Tours held their first ‘local’ field rally, near Cleethorpes, at Moortown near Market Rasen in Lincolnshire. Then it was just a case of a one day rally for their friends. Three years on and a loosely based association of scooterists who have no real structure to speak of, seem to have pulled off what is rapidly turning into a half-decent scooter rally. The event has definitely grown.
It has much to do with not being phased. Before this their main modus operandi was, and continues to be their annual foreign trips. FOS stands for ‘Full of Shit’, a name coined by a local scooterist, who, having heard of their plans in 2012 to ride to Cologne in Germany, simply said, “You people are full of shit”. They made the trip with 36 scooterists and the rest, as they say, is history. They quickly adopted the name. Since then they have taken upwards of 55 scooterists a year abroad. No small feat; so running a scooter rally isn’t going to stretch them too much.
For 2016, following the feedback received from previous rallies, they opened the thing up for two days at its new venue, The Skipworth Arms. Was it well received? It sounds like it. The band line-up was good. The Guttersluts and Ska-Burst performed on Friday night, and for Saturday they had what would prove to be an outstanding line-up of entertainment.
Scooterists came from as far away as London, Peterborough and Boston to the South. Lincolnshire, The East Midlands, North Yorkshire, Hull and Scarborough to the North; they even had scooterists making the trek from Cheshire in the North West. More than 350 turned up. No longer just a ‘local’ rally for friends then?
It was well-organised with separate scooter parking, a cordoned off entertainments arena, scooter only camping, marquee’s in case it rained, separate car parking, an outside bar, plenty of toilets, shower block, a pub and even a proper campsite for massive tents, motorhomes etc. with electricity for those who shun field rally camping at its very best. Funnily enough, their biggest issue seemed to be with car parking. Yes, at a scooter rally, folk pulling down ‘taped-off band parking arenas’ to park cars and VW day vans. A price we all now pay for making sure we can afford to keep running these kinds of events for the scooterists who ride to them.
Food was available on tap, either from the pub, or an outside caterer, though the caterers could have stayed open longer on the Saturday night. The event was sponsored by SIP Scooter-shop too. It appeared that considerable thought had been put into making sure everyone was catered for, not just the scootering hard-arses. The goody bags were almost worth the trip on their own.
A nice touch was the pub staff getting up at 6.00am to serve full English breakfasts after working in the bar till the sun came up! I kid you not; some scooterists were leaving the ‘lock-in’ Saturday morning as others were setting up ‘the gate’ for Saturday arrivals. The GYSC (Grimsby Scooter Club) seemed to have taken this bit of the event over.
Friday night was raucous. The Guttersluts, not known for their customer services skills, soon had everyone on site turning punk, using bad language and all the things you would associate with otherwise sensible folk after a night on the ale! You can hate punk all you want but boy do these guys put on a show. Saturday saw a packed schedule including the 01482 Tones, Scarborough-based Aftermath (a welcome relief for the de-facto scooter sounds and very well received), Modera, who did their usual excellent job and finally Basket Case – who really set the arena alight! Their set had everyone up dancing, or shouting; even the momentary loss of sound and power didn’t phase Basket Case – they sang without mic’s; even resorting to telling jokes at one point. The crowd loved it. Basket Case too by all accounts.
Saturday’s entertainment was punctuated by a game that asked the participants to strap two like-minded souls together, and run round a course as they drank beer. The prize for the winner? Well, beer of course! Add to that plenty of trophies for ‘ridden’ scooters and it was hard to fault.
Was it the perfect weekend? Not exactly. More food, available later in the evening would have been nice and at certain points the toilet situation struggled with the number needing them, but otherwise FOS Tours provided some of the best entertainment at a field rally seen so far in 2016, along with value for money with tickets priced at £15. Their ethos is to always end up with nothing, having had a really good laugh. All they were bothered about was making sure everyone got pissed and enjoyed the rally. I guess it worked. To date, no-one has moaned, so job done. Next year will struggle to top 2016 and we wait to see what they have in store.
Words and photos: Colin Cartwheel
In 2014, FOS Tours held their first ‘local’ field rally, near Cleethorpes, at Moortown near Market Rasen in Lincolnshire. Then it was just a case of a one day rally for their friends. Three years on and a loosely based association of scooterists who have no real structure to speak of, seem to have pulled off what is rapidly turning into a half-decent scooter rally. The event has definitely grown.
It has much to do with not being phased. Before this their main modus operandi was, and continues to be their annual foreign trips. FOS stands for ‘Full of Shit’, a name coined by a local scooterist, who, having heard of their plans in 2012 to ride to Cologne in Germany, simply said, “You people are full of shit”. They made the trip with 36 scooterists and the rest, as they say, is history. They quickly adopted the name. Since then they have taken upwards of 55 scooterists a year abroad. No small feat; so running a scooter rally isn’t going to stretch them too much.
For 2016, following the feedback received from previous rallies, they opened the thing up for two days at its new venue, The Skipworth Arms. Was it well received? It sounds like it. The band line-up was good. The Guttersluts and Ska-Burst performed on Friday night, and for Saturday they had what would prove to be an outstanding line-up of entertainment.
Scooterists came from as far away as London, Peterborough and Boston to the South. Lincolnshire, The East Midlands, North Yorkshire, Hull and Scarborough to the North; they even had scooterists making the trek from Cheshire in the North West. More than 350 turned up. No longer just a ‘local’ rally for friends then?
It was well-organised with separate scooter parking, a cordoned off entertainments arena, scooter only camping, marquee’s in case it rained, separate car parking, an outside bar, plenty of toilets, shower block, a pub and even a proper campsite for massive tents, motorhomes etc. with electricity for those who shun field rally camping at its very best. Funnily enough, their biggest issue seemed to be with car parking. Yes, at a scooter rally, folk pulling down ‘taped-off band parking arenas’ to park cars and VW day vans. A price we all now pay for making sure we can afford to keep running these kinds of events for the scooterists who ride to them.
Food was available on tap, either from the pub, or an outside caterer, though the caterers could have stayed open longer on the Saturday night. The event was sponsored by SIP Scooter-shop too. It appeared that considerable thought had been put into making sure everyone was catered for, not just the scootering hard-arses. The goody bags were almost worth the trip on their own.
A nice touch was the pub staff getting up at 6.00am to serve full English breakfasts after working in the bar till the sun came up! I kid you not; some scooterists were leaving the ‘lock-in’ Saturday morning as others were setting up ‘the gate’ for Saturday arrivals. The GYSC (Grimsby Scooter Club) seemed to have taken this bit of the event over.
Friday night was raucous. The Guttersluts, not known for their customer services skills, soon had everyone on site turning punk, using bad language and all the things you would associate with otherwise sensible folk after a night on the ale! You can hate punk all you want but boy do these guys put on a show. Saturday saw a packed schedule including the 01482 Tones, Scarborough-based Aftermath (a welcome relief for the de-facto scooter sounds and very well received), Modera, who did their usual excellent job and finally Basket Case – who really set the arena alight! Their set had everyone up dancing, or shouting; even the momentary loss of sound and power didn’t phase Basket Case – they sang without mic’s; even resorting to telling jokes at one point. The crowd loved it. Basket Case too by all accounts.
Saturday’s entertainment was punctuated by a game that asked the participants to strap two like-minded souls together, and run round a course as they drank beer. The prize for the winner? Well, beer of course! Add to that plenty of trophies for ‘ridden’ scooters and it was hard to fault.
Was it the perfect weekend? Not exactly. More food, available later in the evening would have been nice and at certain points the toilet situation struggled with the number needing them, but otherwise FOS Tours provided some of the best entertainment at a field rally seen so far in 2016, along with value for money with tickets priced at £15. Their ethos is to always end up with nothing, having had a really good laugh. All they were bothered about was making sure everyone got pissed and enjoyed the rally. I guess it worked. To date, no-one has moaned, so job done. Next year will struggle to top 2016 and we wait to see what they have in store.
Words and photos: Colin Cartwheel
