A week from today on Wednesday 14 August, a group of intrepid scooterists set off from Brighton on the south coast to ride approximately 2250 miles around the the coast of mainland Great Britain on ageing Italian scooters, to raise money for the Alzheimers Society.
Our friend David ‘Henry’ Smith lost his Mum three years ago and she suffered from dementia, which is a very cruel condition. She was well looked after by her family but had no idea who they were for quite some time before she passed away. Henry wanted to do something to raise money for the Alzheimers Society and combined with a 40+ year relationship with scooters and the fact that their memories of all those 80s rallies may fade with time, he and partner Alison came up with the idea of visiting every 1980s National Scooter Rally site in 10 days by Lambretta. The plan is to be ending up on the Isle of Wight for the August Bank Holiday National Scooter Rally on Friday 23 August, partying the night away at the scooter rally site based at Sandown Airport, before heading home via the Brighton Mod Rally which also takes place over the August Bank Holiday weekend.
Ride and meet the team
Henry, along with friend and IDK Scooter Endurance Race Team-mate Mungo have been joined in this adventure by Dave and Beef of the Lowriders SC Weymouth and will be setting off from Brighton on Wednesday 14th August at 9am.
As you can see, there are various events being laid on for us at some of the stops, particularly Skegness, Fort William, Newquay and Weymouth. They will be putting a more detailed route out on the website very soon but would love people to come and meet them at their stopping points or ride with them for a while.
Track the Riders
If you can’t do that but want to get involved, you can follow their progress via their Facebook page or their website (https://beforeweforget.uk/) and Henry will have a tracker on his scooter so you can literally follow him! That scooter will be his red Lambretta SX 150 that he has ridden since 1992, although the engine has been upgraded since! The others are on a Series 1, Series 2 and a Winter Model. Henry will be riding all the way, the others will share riding and back-up van driving.
Of course the other thing to do is support the ride with a charitable donation. Over £7,000 has been raised already and they hope to get that total up to £10k by the time they have finished. Click here to donate today.
Also on the Grass Skirts… Facebook page you will find a number of items up for auction, some of which are rather rare and collectable, and you have a few days left to browse and make you bid, so click here for more.
So check out their route, see if you can meet them along the way and cheers them along, watch their website (which has more information about the ride, the people involved as well as news etc) and Facebook page, and if you are at the Isle of Wight Rally in a couple of weeks then please join us in welcoming them to the rally there too!
