Ace Cafe Rockers Reunion

12th - 14th September 2008
 

Ace Cafe Reunion - London & Brighton

Friday 12th September - Sunday 14th September
This years event was celebrating 70 years of the cafe being built and 15 years of reunions. Spread over 3 days, the Ace Cafe Reunion started early on Friday in Germany, crossing through Holland, Belgium and France gathering numbers en-route to the ferry, arriving at the London cafe late afternoon. 

On Saturday there were many special guests, David Hailwood, Oliver Tobias, Lewis Leathers, Mick Duckworth, Mike Seate to name just a few.  4:00pm saw the unveiling of the S&S/Ace Cafe Racer, 'little miss dynamite', named in memory of Marta, who tragically died last year on her way down to Brighton. S&S had donated an engine to Mark Wilsmore and mentioned that they would be celebrating 50 years in business, Mark Wilsmore then got together with Nick Gale from Stonebridge Motor Co. and the Ace Cafe Racer was born. Earlier this year an intial email from Manky on this 'ere excellent site, put me in touch with Mike Seate, who I finally got to meet after months of emails. Mike is the editor of the American Cafe Racer magazine and author of the book 'Cafe Racer, the Motorcycle', both of which were being launched at the Ace Cafe. He wrote in my copy of his book - Go Faster!

Sunday morning dawned with glorious sunshine, Tich and I made our way down to Madeira Drive, Brighton, on the bikes, meeting up with Dave, Steve, Joe and Pauline. We arrived shortly before 10am, after parking up next to hundreds of others, a serious amount of walking and photo taking ensued.  By 1pm, we'd only managed to walk down one side of Madeira Drive! There were many trade stands where you could purchase, t-shirts, leather jackets, helmets, goggles, gloves, paintings! About 5pm the mass of bikes and people had started to thin out so we decided to make our way home, taking in a little detour through Compton and Puttenham, and finishing in Aldershot, with a plate of chips and a mug of tea! Excellent!

-Janie