The early May bank holiday is traditionally the date for the bikers’ road run to Hastings and this year was no exception. It’s estimated that there were around 20,000 bikes in town, down 10,000 on last year, probably because rain was threatened. The Pelham car park was reserved for the bikers and was closed quite early once 5,000 bikes had been crammed in. The former coach and lorry park hosted hundreds, probably thousands more motorcycles. Two-wheeled vehicles were parked the length of the seafront from Rock-a-nore to the former White Rock baths, even on Winkle Island framing Leigh Dyer’s iconic Winkle. As an art-form the serried ranks of bikes exceeded anything that the Jerwood is likely ever to host. Ion says “My favourites are always the trikes, three-wheelers often with motorcar engines and frequently with the poweful Rover V8. If you can afford it you can buy some trikes off the peg as they say but the real works of art are the hand-made hybrids combining beautiful engineering and design or just demonstrating sheer brute-force. Poor old Happy Harold, Hastings’ own classic vehicle is still waiting for an MOT so we weren’t able to bring him along to join in the festivities and I couldn’t get the high-level pictures that I like. Without the responsibility for looking after the trolleybus I was able to have a much better and longer look round and I couldn’t resist the picture of the lone pedal cyclist flanked by all those motorbikes.