A few local classic European motorcycle
enthusiasts founded the club in 1979. In
these early years, the priority goes to the support at a local Motocross Team
and in 1985, the club started with the organisation of the “Belgian Old-Timer
Motocross Championship”, with a yearly calendar composed by five competition
days, at each time on several Belgian circuits.
The increasingly heavy administrative load, as
well as the important increase of the costs, made the direction of the club
decide to give this three years old organization in hands that are more
suitable to ensure the perenniality of this much appreciated activity. We proudly gave it over with more than 30
pilots of classic Pre-60 engines on the grid, to start the new season 1988.
In 1981, the club started with the yearly
organisation in July of the “International Veteran Rally” that became also a
major event into the Belgian vintage motorcycle world. At several occasions, some British owners of
Classic motorcycles won the very envied “Best in Show prize” award.
It became nevertheless, year in year out,
increasingly difficult to find people unanimously qualified to compose a
Jury-team, which pushed the direction to put an end to this organization, after
ten years of existence.
However, the number of Britain’s entrants was
still growing by the years and even the need of touristy-minded information,
asked by those who take these occasions to enjoy a longer stay over here to
make a nice motorcycle tour into our country.
This trend brought us to the idea to build up some touristy-minded
organizations, especially dedicated to U.K. people only !
In 1991, the club started with activities under
the generic name of the “Classic European Motorcycle Tour” to give a suitable
response to these upcoming needs. Two
new organizations were created : one, based on an entirely guided group
touristy-activity during the Ascension Weekend, and another, based on an
activity without any road accompaniment, during the great holidays of summer
(mid-July at mid-August).
As we had realized that, the majority of
British hardly knew about the Franco-Belgian Ardennes country, we chose this
area of predilection for the period of the Ascension Weekend : The Ardennes
Tour was born !