Setting up the Animal Bike Tour rig on a soft sandy beach is always a daunting and taxing prospect; temporary roads have to be erected to get the vans and trailers into place, and then flooring laid to make everything rideable. But at such fantastic events as this weekend’s Bournemouth Air Festival, the rewards ultimately out weigh the efforts.
Photography: Robin Kitchin
Having set the show up on the Wednesday, we arrived Thursday ready to give a share of the 300,000 attendees a slice of our alternative aerial action. Instead we were faced with torrential rain that after delivering two weeks of rain in 30 minutes blew the town’s drainage system and spewed thousands of litres of water through the streets. This came cascading down to the beachfront and into the sea, picking up road cones, wheelie bins and cars along the way, hitting national news and narrowly avoiding us!
Photography: Chris Skone Roberts
Which was fortunate, as alongside the standard rig, we had a new Mercedes Vito SportX (with 230 horses squeezed under the bonnet) on show with us!
Needless to say all flights were off and the first day of the festival canceled. This marked the first time in my four years of hosting the show that we have admitted defeat. It takes a lot to get the team down, the bike tour is our passion and we consider ourselves very lucky to be able to call it our job – so with a good forecast ahead we waited contentedly to pounce.
The following day started similarly damp, but the transition from morning to afternoon was almost surreal and as sunglasses were donned, ice cream sales rocketed, and big crowds started building around the show. So with a back drop of deep blue sky, speckled with aircraft, Martyn and Blake got their gnarly boots on and began showing what pedal powered air time looks like. Da Vinci would have been proud!
The weekend continued with similar weather, and instantly the first day seemed like a distant memory as the ABT drew in crowd after crowd, the skies filled with all types of aircraft, and we began to feel like the effort of a beach show had been well worth it.
Here’s to the next sandy seaside event at the Windfest – see you there!
Our deepest condolences go out to the friends and family of Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging of the Royal Air Force Aerobatics Team, The Red Arrows. We saw you fly three times this year and each display was as magnificent as the last.
