Amazing schedule at VMCC Festival of Jurby
Visitors to the North of the Isle of Man today can expect to see a myriad of iconic, rare and unusual bikes as well as some of the greatest names in motorcycling for the annual VMCC Festival of Jurby.
Three great names in Motorcycling confirmed to attend are Freddie Spencer who will be riding his Rothmans 500 Honda, Graeme Crosby will parade on his original XR69 and Frankie Chili will appear on Kevin Schwantz’s Lucky Strike Suzuki GP bike. Alex George, who won 3 TT races including the 79 Formula 1 TT, will ride a Norton Rotary
Modern TT riders who will be appearing include John McGuinness riding a Honda RC45, Steve Plater, Conor Cummins will ride on a Suzuki RG500 MK5 while Dave Molyneux and Dan Sayle will be parading the TZ750 Yamaha that Molyneux won his first sidecar race on.
The festival will also play host to some of the rarest racing motorcycles ever built including no fewer than nine East German Simson machines. The factory only ever built 15 works bikes before production ceased in 1961 and you can see nine of them in action. The bikes never competed outside the Iron Curtain so this will be their first ever visit to the Isle of Man. The bikes will be accompanied by 1960’s MZ Factory Grand Prix racer Stromhardt Kraft.
BMW Classic will also be visiting the Isle of Man and the Festival of Jurby with Helmut Dahne and this year is the 40th anniversary of the 1976 Production TT that saw Dahne and his partner Hans-Otto Butenuth post the fastest time in the nine lap production TT. Dahne will ride the 900cc BMW R 90S that he rode in that race. BMW will also be displaying five of the iconic machines from their history.\
Other notable machines appearing include the stunning Matchless Arter G50 affectionately known as ‘Wagon Wheels’, sporting the world’s first cast magnesium wheels. Peter Williams rode the bike to three second placed finishes in the Senior TT in 1970, 71 and 73 and his 102.74mph single cylinder lap record in the 73 Senior TT stood until 1997.
One of the undoubted highlights is expected to be the ’Flying Millyard V Twin’. Allen Milyard, who built the machine, describes the labour of love:
“I bought the two Pratt & Whitney cylinders & heads from James Hewing at the VMCC after they were left to them in a will. The Cylinders are from a Pratt & Whitney R1830 9 cylinder radial engine usually found on a Dakota DC3 and many other aircraft of the period”
He continued:
“I made wooden moulds and then had the crankcases cast in aluminium at Newpro Foundry in London who also cast the BAFTA awards. The gearbox is from a 1938 Morris 10, the clutch from a Honda Pan European. All cycle parts are hand made by me in my garage and were scaled up to match the size of the engine.”
The bike has received numerous awards including best in Class and Most OTT machine at Salon Privé Concourse d Elegance at Sion House London in 2013 and Best Engineering at the Stafford Classic Bike Show 2015.