Such a disappointment.
I called Si last night and had a good chat about what had happened. Here is the jist of the conversation....
The ride was all set to go ahead but due to problems with liability insurance cover it had to be pulled at the last minute. The national series rounds are now separate from Retrobike Ltd and run by Retrobike Club: a club sanctioned and covered by the BCF. One of the conditions of the BCF insurance cover is that each event has to have at least one AEC and one Deputy present. This AEC and Deputy must be the organisers and have carried out the required risk assessments etc..
As NE&Yorks has no AEC at the moment, they could not put on the ride under the Retrobike banner. Si and Vern were offered the option of running the event without RetroBike National Status as a special event along the lines of HONC and Mountain Mayhem, but this event would not be covered by any insurance (the other special events like MM have their own insurance). Mark Sinnett was very supportive of this idea and offered to help out on promotion if this was the direction that the BDW team took.
In years past, when numbers were lower, this would have been a satisfactory arrangement, but as we have seen this year, the big Retrobike events have been pulling in upwards of 40-45 riders. The expectation for this years BDW was for 50 plus riders. Si and Vern decided that without proper liability insurance that the event could turn out to be a nightmare and reluctantly decided to pull the plug at the last minute. If a rider had got hurt or a member of the public got hit out on the trails then as an organized event Si and Vern would be liable.
As you know Si is no longer part of the Retrobike comunity but has been helping Vern out on the rides until someone came forward to take over as AEC. As no replacement has been found and the burden of continuing NE rides has fallen mainly on Vern's shoulders, they decided to scrub the BDW and this weekend's Thrunton ride until the situation is resolved.
Si has asked me to pass on his apolgies to everyone who was looking forward to this event and also to thank Mark and John for their efforts behind the scenes in trying to sort out the legalities and for their general support of the event over the years.
Vegas