Small but perfectly formed is hardly a description you could use to describe the Chopper Club these days. In fact it probably applies to individual members of the club even less; most NCC members of my aquaintance are not small. Perfectly formed maybe, at least in some cases...
 |
Charming young lady supresses wry smile at the prospect of straddling those air filters. |
 |
California 1964? Er, no, Yorrkshire 2001 actually... |
However the first annual Northern Exposure show organised by the NCC fit both descriptions pretty well. The difference between this show and your average small bike club rally lay in the feel of the whole weekend. For anyone who remembers the heady days of the first Bulldog Bashes, or the Rock and Blues (or for that matter, the Kent Custom Shows of the early eighties) it all felt a bit, well, like this. Like you were in at the start of something big, where the original idea was such a good one and the organisation struck just the right tone, and everything just gelled together and for one brief weekend everything in the world was OK. Even the sun shone.
 |
Whitby 77 club had some stunning bikes. Almost made me want to build a Shovelhead again. |
 |
A pair of reprobates. Loz and Foxy view the camera with some suspicion. It's OK guys, it's one of ours. |
Credit for all this must of course fall to the Chopper Club, no strangers to organising top quality events for the club, who now for the first time took the traditional NCC run format and threw it open to the general public. And when the "general public" includes people of the calibre of the Whitby 77 club, the FWE and some of the top custom bike builders in the north of England the recipe could hardly fail. Amongst this heady company even the presence of a handful of God-botherers in their silly pseudo outlaw patches could hardly mar the scene.
 |
Chris relishes the enticing prospect of another long night's partying ahead. |  |
Foxy's trike suffered some light accident damage. Fortunatley adequate repairs were made on site. |
The site is a wonderful open green field site seemingly unaffected by Foot & Mouth, accessed by some great country roads not far from York. The club had organised the usual facilities including beer tent, marquee, trade stalls and some proper toilets and booked some great bands for the weekend. I beerily swayed away the tail end of Saturday night to the sounds of a punk revival band playing everything from "Nellie The Elephant" to "Pretty In Pink", which really brought a smile to my face. Anyone else remember the Psychedelic Furs? Even the burgers were pretty good.
 |
Show us yer tats, love. |  |
We do, we do. |
I for one will be adding Northern Exposure to my (fairly short) list of "must do" weekends for next season, and will be proudly wearing my "01" tee shirt in much the same way as I stll wear that tatty leather patch on my old cut-off which reads "Kent '82". Northern Exposure is set to be a great success. If you missed it this year watch for it next July, and I'll see you there at "02".
Dr.Rod.