Scottish IFA Day

Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau ('Industrial Association for Vehicle Construction'), usually abbreviated as IFA, was a conglomerate and a union of companies for vehicle construction in the former East Germany (German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik - DDR). Wikipedia entry.

Every year, owners and enthusiasts of IFA vehicles in Scotland organise a short run to a meeting at a museum.This year the meeting was at the bus museum at Lathalmond, near Dunfermline. Having owned a number of IFA era MZs , I went along on my post-IFA era Skorpion.
The run part of the day had started at the South end of the Forth Road Bridge, which gives good views of the Forth Bridge, one of Scotland's greatest engineering icons. I headed directly to the museum, meeting up with my brother Stuart (Yamaha FJ1200) and my cousin Ramzi (Gilera 800 scooter) on the way.
I had been a bitterly cold and windy trip over, so we were glad to get inside to warm up. The museum is spread over a large area and there is a bus which circulates the museum allowing you to get off and on at each shed.

 The bus that took us round. The driver opened the bonnet to let people have a look at the engine:

Most of the buses are privately owned and are stored and worked on at the museum. They have about 170 vehicles at the museum, with some completely stripped for renovation.

Not only buses, they also had a fire engine and a 'Trojan' bubble car.

 

There were only four IFA vehicles present - 2 Trabants, and 2 IFA era MZs, plus Terry and I on our Skorpions, plus a number of other bikes.

Kawa's TS250/1 nearest the camera.

My Skorpion lurking behind Ramzi's Gilera and Stuart's Yamaha

The museum also had glass cases with collections of all sorts of other things - ticket machines, old radios, telephones, and I spotted this wonderful 'period piece':

A great day out, if a bit cold, and a good chance to meet up with some people I hadn't seen for a while. My Skorpion ran well and this was the first run I had taken since fitting the new fork springs.
At the moment the preload adjusters are set to minimum, and the bike felt a lot smoother over bumps than before, and diving under braking was reduced. When I go on holiday and am carrying luggage, I'll increase the preload a bit to see if that compensates for the extra weight. Even without the adjusters, the progressive fork springs are a big improvement over standard and well worth the money.