For those of you who haven't been to the Isle of Wight a little explanation my be needed. In recent years, the Isle of Wight has emerged as THE biggest scooter event in England. With Britain being the origin of all scootering activities, the home of mods and scooterboys, it is safe to assume that this bank holiday weekend in August is the largest gathering of scooter fanatics in the world. The Isle of Wight lies before the Itchen River at Southampton and makes up the Solent, a part of the English Channel. Most people get there by the M3, a motorway that branches off of the over-used London orbital. When riding down this road, you pass the beautiful historical town of Winchester, which even was the capitol of England for some years (way back when). Here you can see what a slight mist makes the morning sunshine look like. Once you've taken the ferry to set over to Cowes on the isle, a 15 minute trip along a pretty hilly country road leads to Ryde, the town that hosts and looks forward to (!) this scooter event every year. The sight is unbelievable. If you've only seen events with at the most a couple of hundred scooters, this will make you wet your pants. As you approach the decent that takes you down the main road to the beach walk, the sound of Taffspeed exhausts and the smell of two-stroke oil enthyce your senses. And then the sheer amount of scooters simply blows your mind. There are literally thousands of bikes. You will see everything from the rattiest black matt P to a prestine and neatly restored SX200. Overall, the Vespa to Lambretta ratio evens out to 50:50.