Bristol Italian Auto Festival

So update time.

I will try and address everything with the following list.

THE EVENT IS FREE TO ENTER FOR EXHIBITING ENTRANTS AND THE VISITING PUBLIC. THE EVENT IS BASICALLY A MEET WITH A 9 MILE RIDE INTO BRISTOL WITH ANY OTHER ITALIAN BIKES, PARK UP ITALIAN STYLE IN CLOSED OFF STREETS WITH EVERY ITALIAN CAR MARQUE YOU CAN THINK OF AS WELL, AND THEN BE ENCOROUGED TO START UP AND MAKE AS MUCH NOISE AS POSSIBLE.

THE MEETING PLACE
The meeting place will be junction 19 of the M5 motorway in the car park of the motorway services at Easton In Gordanno. We will meet in the far corner near the raised grass bank. (This is out of the way of where the cars tend to park and as the bank is raised, will provide a good vantage point to photograph the masses of bikes. It will also keep us out of the way of the main building and any complaints from the services manager).

THE DEPARTURE TIME
We will meet at 09oohrs with a departure time of 0930hrs. (This will give us 30 minutes to travel the 9 miles or so into Bristol and enter the festival for 1000hrs as requested by the organisers.)

THE ROUTE
The route will be out of the main entrance of the services and turning left onto the A369 towards Bristol, We will then make an immediate right turn into High Street (Portbury Village), once in the village we will follow the road around to the left and onto Mill Lane. The route will now rise up through a series of bends and carry on through woods and forests. At the end of this road we will meet the B3128 and turn left following the signs for Failand and Bristol. We will follow this road and go straight across at the traffic light controlled cross roads and carry on following the B3128 as it twists and turns and drops down through more forests until it meets the A370. Once on the A370 we will then follow the signs for Bristol City Centre over the cumberland basin bridge and then follow the A4 towards the centre. We will enter the centre and keep right turning back on our selves before following the road left and into Baldwin Street. The entrance that we must take into the festival is on the left with a dropped kerb at the Edwards Public House. Duncan and Co will endevour to park you up promptly. (I have left out the Clifton Suspension Bridge due to the fact that we have the start stop issue when approaching the bridge and once we have crossed it, to allow people to catch up. It was a bit of fun last year and a bit of an experiment to see how it went, but I have decided to leave it out this year. The bridge is an old antique and 100-200 bikes crossing it in one go is a no no for the bridge people. The rest of the route is fairly straight forward with the only hazzard being 8 sets of traffic lights! There is nothing that can be done about that as this route passes the least sets of lights believe it or not into Bristol.

POLICE ESCORTS
Police escorts will possibly cost money and in the words of a Ducati owner and Police Inspector "probably ruin it". I did enquire about this last and it was pointed out to me that someone higher up the ladder would make all sorts of demands and restraints on the ride in. There could be possible cost implications to and this could not be met by anyone as we (The Organisers) are determined to keep this festival free for all, the fact that in this day and age streets will be closed, marshalls supplied, a ride in for the bikes, a Ducati trailer supplied for the day and no entrance fee for exhibiting cars and bikes and the visiting public being asked, is all AMAZING! Also we (The Oganisers) are not a club and so we do not have funds of any sort.

So i hope this has helped, please can i ask you all to endeavor to encourage as much interest and support for this as possible. i rode in last year on my duke, but will be there on the mille this year. it would be good to have a stronger contingent of OTHER italian bikes this year.....

I am also making contact with Aprilia uk to try and raise some support there as well.