As I write this, early on Monday morning at Pontin’s, the sun is shining and Wingers are starting to move around, getting themselves and their Wings ready for the homeward journey before breakfast. It’s a lovely, quiet and peaceful morning and a nice way to finish off a great weekend.

The final Ride Out of the Weekend, calling on our Event Sponsors Knutsford Honda

Our last Ride Out of the Weekend will be setting off after breakfast and offers a coffee stop at Knutsford Honda, our Event Sponsor’s Dealership Site on the A50 near Lymm, where Sean and his Team will already have unloaded their van full of accessories and set them up in their new home – an upstairs Showroom extension built specially for them.  (They are continuing their 20% special discount for a few more weeks so don’t miss it!)

This year’s Light Parade was well attended in spite of UK’s economic gloom (over 150 bikes left Pontin’s to ride the Illuminations) there was a great atmosphere.  The Parade itself was run differently this year, partly because of unwillingness by the Police to escort it as in previous years and partly because instead of helping us to get on our way as promised, the Officers who were present decided to stop some of our bikes and tell them to turn off their display lights and/or remove the flags they were flying, which disrupted things somewhat.

But the positives of the new approach to running the Parade more than compensated for this unwelcome intrusion.  Setting off from Pontin’s in the last of the daylight worked extremely well – much better than mustering near North Pier, as in previous years.

Northbound along the Prom in twilight

The Parade made steady progress too once we got going.  Had the Police not disrupted things so badly early on, most bikes could easily have stayed together all the way.  We ended up riding past lots more people, especially lots more children, having lots more photos taken of us, lots more cheering and generally getting a much better buzz from the ride ourselves than ever before.

So we have learned that we can do the Parade very well without the Police – and we can even cope with disruptive hassle from them if necessary, although hopefully that won’t happen again.  It’s difficult to imagine that Blackpool’s Senior Police Officers will feel very pleased about their Officers ignoring instructions and mounting their own ad hoc disruptive operation.  (Postscript: It was “a failure of communications” and the Officers on duty were not briefed to help us as they should have been.  Someone has now been “fully briefed” to make sure it doesn’t happen next year.)

We had excellent cooperation from Blackpool Council this year and special thanks are due to them for making Waterloo Road Headland available; it was in many ways better than St Chads – closer to the crowds at South Pier and the tarmac was flatter and better for the Riding Arena.

Winners of the Best Lit Three Wheeler and Solo Awards

The Friday evening Best Lit Bike Competition was held in windy but dry conditions until judging was complete, when light rain drove everyone indoors to the Bar – the timing couldn’t have been better.

The weather on Saturday started with the tail of the overnight wind and rain and for the first couple of hours of the Display it looked like it wasn’t going to work at all.  But Blackpool weather changes quickly and we ended up with four hours of dry and eventually sunny weather.  The crowds appeared and suddenly it was a big success.  The Headland filled up with GoldWings too, it looked very good indeed.

The Stunt Riding Duet in our Riding Arena were amazing, the best I’ve seen.  What they were able to do on wet tarmac, laced with a bit of sand which was even slippier as the Ring started to dry out, was simply awesome.  The Wheelie Machine, which is a tethered bike on a special rig which allows a rider to experience wheelies safely, was quite impressive too.

Knutsford Honda's display drew lots of attention – even before the sun came out!

Knutsford Honda had done us proud as Event Sponsors with a large Honda Exhibition unit and a lorry full of demonstration bikes, including several GL1800s.  Their stand was every bit as Grand as HondaUK’s last year.

These Guys are very serious about becoming a big player on the UK GoldWing scene.  There can be little doubt that they will be successful in becoming a major source of official Honda GoldWing Specialist Sales, Services and Accessories.  This is a very welcome addition to the UK GoldWing Scene.  If there ever was a carve up of the UK GoldWing market those days are over and the established UK GoldWing specialists are now facing real competition – in delivering quality of service as well as in prices.

Eric Warburton, their Proprietor, spent the whole weekend with us and rode the Parade with what must have been one of the biggest grins he’s had on his face for some time.  Eric is a real GoldWing enthusiast from way back and comes across as a really nice guy.   Having a guy like Eric behind a new GoldWing Honda Dealership is really good news and we were delighted to have him as our Event Sponsor – and he wants to do it again next year!

Lots of people came to Blackpool specially to watch the Parade

So in many ways the Parade itself, and indeed the whole Event, went better than in previous years.  On Sunday, as they strolled around Blackpool, Wingers were being stopped in the street by both public and traders saying that because we went slowly and steadily and they had time to see us properly, this was the best Light Parade yet.

The grin factor from the crowds this year was really gratifying and lots of Wingers said they felt a real buzz from this year’s Parade, it was something special.

The timing of our departure from Pontin’s turned out perfectly.  We rode the whole of the Prom northbound in daylight and dusk, the Illuminations were switching on just as we were reaching the Metropole Hotel, last year’s starting point, and so we effectively got a flying start in lighter traffic and rode through bigger crowds and it is obviously the way to do it in future.

The Entertainment at Pontin’s didn’t work out perfectly this year but the Comedian on Friday was good.  Saturday’s band were far too loud but at least this led to an impromptu Winger’s Karaoke Championship as the alternative and one way and another a great time was had by most if not quite all.  Sunday was quieter but there was plenty of choice – some went into Blackpool to watch the International Fireworks Competition, some watched the Pontin’s Show, some had a quiet drink – or at least they did until it turned into another Winger’s Karaoke Session.  Maybe we need to build that into the programme properly next year, it was certainly popular.  Nigel Mackintosh, our geekish Webmaster, turns out to have quite an exhibitionist streak in him as well as a fine pair of tonsils.

Dave Bowman, winner of the Best Lit Three Wheeler Trophy, with Knutsford Honda's Sean Davis and Eric Warburton - plus of course the lovely Pontin's dancers

This year was the first time the Awards were judged entirely by professionals from the motorcycle industry, with refreshing impact. They had the skills to look for excellence of craftsmanship, originality and ingenuity and were not necessarily impressed by the fact that someone could afford to buy an expensive bike or trike and throw the full catalogue of shiny bits at it.  They looked at the Best Lit Bike contenders in daylight and in detail to check for how well the wiring was hidden.   The blunderbuss approach using LED fridge magnets didn’t impress them at all.

Bill Squires, who won both Best Lit Solo and Best GL1800 on Saturday, hasn’t stopped grinning (or crowing) ever since.  He even won the star raffle prize too!

Best Lit Three Wheeler went to Indian Chief  Dave Bowman, despite PapaJoe – his arch rival – turning up towing a spectacular ten foot high Illuminated Blackpool Tower.  So the arch rival has beaten him for once and PapaJoe had to settle for a free Federation Badge – as its first signed up Individual Associate.  He also muttered something about buying a new trike to start again – the rivalry continues!

Garry Wheat of Pennine Wings won best GL1500 and deservedly so; his bike is immaculate and it would be interesting to see how a direct contest between Garry’s bike and Bill’s GL1800 would go; they are both the best of their model that I have seen so far.

'Vlard' & Izzy Carter, long-time supporters of the Blackpool Light Parade

Best Classic went to Graham Whittaker of The Misfits, for his stunning hybrid GoldWing, built using core parts from a GL1100 with a unique frame and bodywork combining elements from almost all other GoldWing models – a true Classic of creative engineering artistry.  The Judges tried hard to find evidence that it wasn’t a factory designed and built bike but failed; this bike really is a masterpiece.

Graham’s Prize was a Classic Honda Watch but as a professional GoldWing mechanic who doesn’t wear a watch either (or maybe he just can’t tell the time?) Graham felt he shouldn’t accept his prize and so he has kindly donated it back to the Federation for use at a future Event.

This is only my second year as Lead Organiser so I am still on a learning curve but we are making progress.  Bob Summers and I were a synergistic double act this year so he deserves a lot of the credit.  But we have a great team of organisers and we had lots of willing helpers.  This year has been very enjoyable to put together and we have had no hesitation in committing ourselves to running next years BLP.

The next Blackpool Illuminations GoldWing Light Parade is being planned for Saturday September 4th 2010.  We will once again be organising a three-night weekend programme based on Pontin’s, so book your time off work and start planning to work on your bike’s lighting this coming winter – it’s going to be another great weekend!

And if you haven’t had enough of Light Parades for this year there is another one next weeekend in Scarborough, Yorkshire – the weather forecast is good and they are rumoured to do decent Fish & Chips over there.  The Organisers of the Blackpool Light Parade wish the Organisers in Scarborough well for their Event and hope they enjoy theirs as much as we did ours.