Biggest Free-to-Attend Motorcycle Festival in Britain - Hastings Mayday bike run 2019

Probably most notably known for the Battle of Hastings in 1066, Hastings became a hub for Bikers around England. Thousands of bikers visit the town every Monday after the May weekend bank holiday to have a nice ride out.

For 2020 the Mayday Run has been postponed until August 15th 2020 pending the lifting of Lockdown.

A year from the publishing date (06/05/2020), in 2019, this spectacular gathering of bikers from all across Europe attended this semi-improvised congregation of bikers.

"It almost became a rite of passage for bikers. You had to go and do your Mayday run if you were sort of a biker in the southeast."

The first thing you realise when you arrive is that the Bike Run is not a traditional motor festival. It's a gathering of different bikers who rode down to the coast to enjoy a nice ride and a plate of fish and chips. It’s an improvised congregation of bikers.

Oddly enough, this semi-organised gathering has an unexpectedly casual history. Traditionally, the route for the Mayday Bike run starts in a little town named Locksbottom, in Orpington, and then goes down for 50 miles; through Tonbridge to the Sussex coast in Hastings. It’s around an hour's drive.

When asking about the date it started, the answer would always be something along the lines of: ‘the official date for the Mayday run is 1979’. That’s a year after the Labour Government declared that the weekend after the 1st of May would be a bank holiday.

Bikers have been doing this route for years before 1979, but 1979 is the official date because it was the first time this was advertised to other bikers. A young Naval engineer and bike enthusiast, named Tim Gooderson, got together with some fellow bikers to do the run; though this time, in honour of the newly declared Bank holiday, they decided to advertise it to other bikers as the Mayday Run. A subtle play on words.

4th Mayday Run Advertising Flyer

“They (Tim and fellow bikers) designed a flyer to advertise they were going to do this.” – says Howard Martin, director of Bike1066, who is in charge of semi-organising the Mayday Run.

“And on the flyer, what they did is put ‘Mayday Run’, […] and underneath that they put the naval, recognising Tim’s naval history and background: dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot ( …---… ), which of course is the SOS signal; the mayday distress signal. It was that that sort of gave it an identity.”

Then, on the day, around 300-400 bikers joined Tim and his companions and they rode down to Hastings to spend the day.

Later, in 1981 a motorbike magazine published an article on the Mayday Run, which they named ‘the quietest run’; and in Howard’s words: “It just took off, thousands started turning up. It almost became a rite of passage for bikers. You had to go and do your Mayday run if you were sort of a biker in the southeast.“

From then, the event became so big, the Hastings Borough council decided they needed to bring someone to organise the event as much as possible, to help the police cope with the free-for-all of bikers and with those who wanted to see the Jack in the Green festival.

That person was Howard Martin, a former film producer who would fund movies in America to later sell these as VHS tapes in the UK. He came up with a proposal which would allow the community to benefit from the energy of the Mayday run while also staying true to how this tradition first started. But tells me he feels that wasn’t the only reason why they brought him in.

As we were walking around the exhibitions in the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, we stumbled across a Mods v Rockers exhibition. There he told me he felt like another reason why the Hastings Council brought him into this semi-organised the event was the subconscious fear of the ‘Mods v Rockers’ times.

The Mods and Rockers were two British subcultures in the early-mid 60s. The rivalry was extremely intense. It came to the point where the two groups would fight each other, leaving people terrified. Hastings itself saw a fight between the two subcultures.

The atmosphere now however, is very different. Something Howard was quick to underline after our mods and rockers conversation. Families go to look at the wide variety of motorbikes by the beach, and the bikers themselves enjoy the Jack in the Green procession.

And in terms of the Mods and Rockers, that's a thing of the past now.

Howard Martin, who is interviewed in the short documentary, provided the historic stills featured in the segment starting at 0:46 and finishing at 0:50.

For more information on the MayDay Bike Run visit Bike1066 on Facebook or their website: https://www.bike1066.com/

The Hastings Bike Run happens at the same time as the ancient tradition of the Jack in the Green. Learn more here: