The NABD You've Been Nabbed Rally goes out with a bang

There was a celebratory mood during the National Association for Disabled Bikers last ever You’ve Been Nabbed Rally, at the Royal Cheshire Showground, last weekend as the annual fundraiser looks to evolve to accommodate aging members.

The final greenfield event, also its 30th anniversary, saw an estimated 3000 people converge on the showground just outside Knutsford for two days of live music, comedians and bike shows.

The star of the festival, however, could be found in the campground, as hundreds of bikes, and custom built, one-off trikes, many of which adapted with help from the NABD, stood proud.

Although the last event in this iteration neither the charity nor the annual fundraiser is ceasing to exist. Instead, the fundraiser will be adapted, much like many of the bikes, to best service its membership.

Chairman of the charity for the past 30 years, Rick Hulse, is the embodiment of the NABD: gregarious, friendly and with a passion for its work unbridled after decades at the helm.

Rick explained the decision to alter the event’s format, he said: “Mainly because bikers are an aging population and with age and infirmity a lot more people are finding that they have stopped doing rallies because they can’t camp. 

“I’m in that position myself with arthritis. Camping, even on a good day, means a couple of weeks of pain afterwards. 

“We canvassed during the pandemic when the rally wasn’t happening and I thought I’d take the opportunity to get in touch with people, regulars that had disappeared and marshals who were with us for years and then didn’t come anymore. And the most common reason was, I can’t camp any more or I can no longer hold my bike up with all the camping gear on it.”

He added: “We’re going to make a new event, hopefully holiday camp based, to open up ready-made accommodation to those who can’t camp and hopefully bring people back in and we won’t lose any more to the rigours of age affecting the camping.”

The charity remains the world leader as a disabled biker support organisation helping thousands of riders in several ways.

“Over the last 32 years we have directly helped over 12,000 disabled riders with adaptations to machines either through the grant system or helping them get licenses back or whatever,” said Rick. 

“Indirectly, we’ve helped far more, we wouldn’t be able to count how many because we’ve had influence on legislation in Europe and in the UK and we’ve helped other groups set up in other countries.” 

Their work, however, will never be complete and the new event, when organised and agreed upon will be as equally important in the functioning of the charity as the rally has been for three decades.

“Even if it was possible to stop all RTA’s from happening, quite a lot of our members have illness related disabilities or birth related disability,” said Rick.

“It sounds a bit flippant, but we’ve said for many years, the only disability we can’t adapt a machine to suit is blindness. But if you could come up with a really fast guide dog, we’d have a bash at it.”

One of the highlights of the weekend rally was the bike show, open to all for a fee of £5, all going back to the charity which saw everything from a standard Suzuki LS650 Savage to one-of-a-kind trikes enter.

Organised by custom bike magazine Back Street Heroes the show has been a constant for almost three decades as editor Nik Samson explains: “It’s a good bike charity and we have been doing stuff for them for ages.

“This is the 30th rally and probably our 29th, not sure if we were there at the first one but we have sponsored their events loads of times. 

“We will just see what they do next and I am sure we will continue to support them because they are cool people.”

Displaying his built from the ground up custom was Roy Gilby who sort of fell into motorcycle building after his early retirement, he said: “I started Stondon Choppers in about 2011/2012 and I did it just for friends and friends of friends. 

“My background is cars, crash repair but I have always had bikes. When I retired early, I started doing restorations on classic bikes, done a few of those and enjoyed it. 

“A friend of a friend said a mate wanted a chopper building and I didn’t know where to start to build a chopper, but I said OK I will do it, and it won the first show it went to.” 

The bike Roy entered into the show was made in 2016 and then sold before he persuaded the owner to sell it back to him.

“This was a napkin job, I thought it up in my head, wrote it on a bit of paper that’s what I want the shape to be. So I designed it and found a bloke in Essex to build the frame. I built the tank, battery box the exhaust, I even made the headlights.

He added: “It’s powered by an XV1000, 1986 V-twin and it is the only standard thing on it is the engine.”

To find out more about the charity visit www.nabd.org.uk

Last call for NABD rally: Charity that started to assist a disabled colleague has now raised thousands

First published 10 March 2023 by Stuart Prestidge

It’s a charity that has helped thousands of riders with disabilities get back on the road, but now the National Association for Bikers with a Disability is calling time on one of its biggest annual events.

May 5-7 will see the NABD hold the 30th and final You’ve Been Nabbed Rally with bands, beers and more at the Cheshire Showground.

The group says numbers at the rally have been dropping, while it’s becoming harder to recruit volunteer marshals – that said, they are hoping it will go out with a bang when people learn it is the last but new events are in the pipeline.

Tickets on sale now! pic.twitter.com/IllxNFyvB0
— NABD (@TherealNABD) December 9, 2022
 

The NABD was founded in 1991 by six bikers from Manchester who rejected the idea that disabled people couldn’t ride. Initially the project was to find a way to adapt a motorcycle for a rider who had suffered the amputation of his lower left leg in an accident.

A fund-raiser was organised which prompted other disabled people to ask the group whether it was possible for them to also ride adapted motorcycles.

Within a year the NABD had just over 100 members and had helped three disabled riders ride independently again. By 2023 that membership stands at around 9000 and the number of riders helped is also in the thousands.

Philip Morris, the charity’s national stall manager, spoke to MCN at the recent Devitt MCN London Motorcycle Show and said: “What we do is, if you require an adaption for your bike, we will give you a grant towards helping get you back on road.

“So if a rider wants to convert a bike into a trike, which costs about £9000, we will give a grant of up to £3000 towards it. Or if someone requires a Kliktronic, which takes the gear shifter onto the bars, that will cost about £1500, and we would turn around and say to that rider, ‘go to a garage of your choice and that will be fitted’.”

The list of adaptations that can be made to a motorcycle in order to aid disabled riders are only limited by the imagination.

Aside from handlebar-mounted, push-button gear and rear brake controls, modifications also include remotely operated sidestands and even a wheelchair motorcycle/sidecar combination for wheelchair users who cannot transfer from wheelchair to a motorcycle.

So transformative are these modifications that Morris says he has “surprised surgeons” when a patient’s two-wheeled adventures seemed to have come to an end following injury. The charity also runs a loan scheme to enable disabled riders a route into rider training by using NABD motorcycles.

“If you are disabled and want to ride you can borrow a 125cc bike, adapted to your disability, free of charge, for up to three months while you do your CBT. All that we ask is you cover the cost of the fuel for delivering the bike,” he explained. For more on the event and the charity visit the NABD website.