Here are a few photos of our recent trip to Gran Canaria from our home on Lanzarote aboard our Norton Commando where we arranged to meet up with Club de Motocicletas Clasicas y Antiguas (Classic and Antique Motorcycle Club) of Gran Canaria. Although our Spanish language skills leave a lot to be desired we all had the language of Motorcycles in common and where made extremely welcome during our stay. I would particularly like to thank Cristobal for arranging for us to tag on to the clubs Annual ride around Gran Canaria on truly stunning roads that wind their way up and down the mountainous countryside. We covered some 240km during the day with a longish break for a stupendous lunch at a very remote beach side cafe. The variety of motorcycles was exceedingly diverse probably the most unusual and the oldest on the day was a Nimbus 750cc in-line 4 cylinder motorcycle manufactured in 1948 in Denmark owned by Yan, a Dane, who kindly acted as our interpreter on the day when necessary. Of the approx 30 motorcycles present were quite a few were of British origin, including BSA A7 (plunger suspension) Norton Commando plus my own Commando, Triumph Speed Twin, and one or two more Triumphs. When talking to the riders they generally held British Motorcycles to be very desirable and quite a few owned multiple examples of.
Cristobal Ramirez, the President of the Club took us to his house and showed his extensive collection of Motorcycles some complete and immaculate and many under restoration and many waiting for attention, there was far too many to count, and then he took us to an industrial unit where he probably had twice as many!, including a Norton Dominator, quite a few old singles (not sure of the models) including one that looked to be a very brave restoration, a beautiful Ariel Square Four, which he started for us, first kick. Two Matchless Twins, which he also started. His son who owns the other Commando in the photos, has recently restored a 250 Ducati, one of many bikes he owns. The whole collections numbered 100's, sorry no photos of the collection, we had no idea we were going to see the collection so didn't have the camera. I have passed passed Cristobal email address on to Martin the Spanish NOC officer, so we may get more details of his Nortons at some future date.
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