A profound question maybe but it’s one that fascinates me and many others.  The biking demographic has changed dramatically over the years. At one time the majority of people on motorbikes were working class people who could not afford a car but needed transport for work and the family in an ever more mobile world. However, as time has gone by and we have become more prosperous car ownership has increased and the motorcycle has taken a backseat as the preferred method of transport for the average man in the street. As a result motorcycling has predominantly become a leisure activity.  

These days the average biker is an over 40 over achiever with a few quid to spare on big boys toys i.e. a motorbike. 

My own experience pretty much follows this pattern. The first bikes in my stable back before I got married was there as cheap transport for getting to work from my home a few miles outside of town. As life progressed I got married, kids came along, money wasn’t not quite such a problem and the bike went by the way. 25 years later I’m back on a bike! Why ?

For me it was a case almost of necessity. I’d reached a point in my career that was extremely stressful. The company I worked for was being bought by a huge Japanese corporation, I was having to make members of my team redundant and my personal workload was increasing by a ridiculous amount. Purely by chance I ended up at Silverstone promoting an event with my brother who asked me when I last rode a bike. To cut a long story short I was handed the keys for a Honda VFR800 and spent a very enjoyable couple of hours riding around the perimeter track. That reawakened my love of two wheels and reminded me of the intensity of the experience. From there I ended up buying another bike and have been riding ever since. It wouldn’t be over stating the case to say riding saved me from a breakdown and has brought my wife and I even closer. I love being out there and being part of the world I ride through rather than a spectator watching the world pass by my windscreen. I love the fact that my wife always wants to come with me and share the experience. The peace and enjoyment riding brings me is invaluable, it’s just so involving. Add to that the sense of community you just don’t get in any other group of people I’ve ever met and it’s difficult to imagine a good reason not to ride.

For me it is true to say that 4 wheels move the body but 2 wheels move the soul.

So, my question to you is why do you ride ?

Please leave your comments, I’m really interested to know what appeals to you. Is your bike your daily transport out of choice or necessity. Do you ride for fun, on your own or with a group. Tell us how you got involved in the first place and what your biking aspirations are…

Here we are again, another new year dawns.  2015 was interesting but not as great a biking year as we had hoped. That’s not to say it wasn’t good, but as so often happens for most of us, it just didn’t go quite to plan. So here we are, the first day of a new year. What have you got planned for the coming months ?

As bikers of ‘a certain age’ a lot of the usual biker activities don’t really hit the spot anymore. Instead of the greasy spoon for a cup of mediocre coffee, a more comfortable place that serves a good cup of coffee is preferable.  Instead of racetrack like routes a more scenic, sweeping road is more fun.  You know what I mean, don’t deny it, you do the same thing. 

What to do then.  I have a few ideas…

Last year we ventured into the world of touring and had enormous fun.  The trips we made were all short, generally long weekends, and all within the UK.  What we learnt was that there are some wonderful roads and beautiful places to visit without having to leave the country or spend days and weeks away from home.  Some of the places we visited were made really special by the people we met and the outstanding hospitality we received.  2016 will most definitely hold more of the same and we will venture further afield.  Wales, The Lake District and maybe even Scotland are all on the cards with wonderful routes and recommendations readily available from bike magazines such as Ride.  If you haven’t already I highly recommend you give it a go, it’s great fun.

Motorcycle racing is incredibly exciting and we are spoils for choice in the UK.  The season starts in March with meetings up and down the country every weekend.  British Super Bikes (BSB) is one of the best racing series in the world and it’s all ours.  I have been before and can highly recommend a visit.  The racing is fast, furious and exciting, oh yes the company is pretty good as well.  After last years fantastic series the 2016 series promises to be even better.  Give it a go, there’s something for everybody.

Another thing on the bucket list is to go to a rally.  This is something we’ve always wanted to do but never quite made it so this year it is a must.  As a MAG member I feel duty bound to attend one of the fund raising events run for the benefit of MAG so we are looking at The Farmyard or Stormin the Castle rallies. I’m really very excited about the prospect of this trip, it’s a venture into the unknown but with a bunch of likeminded friends it’s practically guaranteed to be a fun and successful weekend.

Another relatively regular charity run for us is the Ride To The Wall (RTTW).  Bikers are the most giving and generous group of people you could wish to meet and when that spirit is combined with a charity that supports the armed forces it’s an unbeatable combination.  RTTW supports the National Memorial Arboretum and is the most moving event you will ever attend.  Around 10,000 bikes turn up with going on for 20,000 people.  Many are serving or former servicemen along with civilians like ourselves come to pay tribute to our fallen servicemen of all branches and conflicts.  There’s nothing quite as moving as seeing thousands of hairy bikers with tears in their eyes stood in silence remembering fallen comrades.  If you ever had any doubts that your support is appreciated by serving servicemen try reading the comments left on the RTTW website or Facebook page.

These are a few things we intend to get involved in this coming year. What will you be doing ?  Leave a comment and share your ideas.  We might even meet somewhere on the road.  Whatever you decide to do, we wish you a very happy and eventful biking 2016.  Ride safe.

I’ve had huge fun with my cruiser.  I’ve travelled over a good bit of the UK in relative comfort and have thoroughly enjoyed the relaxed pace of cruiser life.  However, things change and I can neither afford or have space for a bike stable.  So, when there was a need to do a little commuting I had to look for a more suitable steed.  Don’t get me wrong, the cruiser would have done it, but rainy days would have proved challenging not to mention the cold weather.

I have read so much about BMW RTs over the years I thought it might be worth a look.  Like most of us two wheel devotees I had a few preconceptions to overcome when it came to a BMW, and then there was the cost.  They’re not cheap.  Would I really like one ?  I have read so many glowing reports about them but was properly sceptical.  How could any bike be so good, surely there’s a fair bit of poetic licence being employed here.  And then there were the doubters of which more than one is a personal acquaintance.  Could the engine really be so characterless ?  There was only one way to find out. Ride it.

The experience was something else.  I was concerned about the seat height and the weight, even if it was lighter than my cruiser.  Surely the centre of gravity would be higher and make it difficult to handle.  No actually it doesn’t.  Obviously its a big change and takes some getting used too but it’s nothing scary.  And the engine is a revelation.  I have had a couple of six cylinder BMW cars in the past and absolutely loved the engine characteristics.  There’s no great powerband just a steady flow of torque which gets more urgent as the revs rise.  You simply accelerate at an ever more urgent pace.  The R1200 K26 engine is much the same and I loved it.  So that was it.  I was smitten.  The cost was still an issue and I also had concerns that on a longer term basis it may not be all I thought it would be.  The answer came in the form of an ex-police model.  There are a lot of them around at the moment and the price is £2-2,500 less than a decent civvy spec used bike.  It seemed like a good way to dip my toe into the world of BMW Motorrad.

A few weeks down the road and I’m really falling in love with the bike.  Time to look at converting the bike to civvy spec.  This should have been relatively easy, there are companies out there advertising a kit of parts to do exactly that.  The trouble is that the parts are in very short supply, it seems I’m not the only one to have this idea.  Anyway, parts were sourced, the conversion completed and now I have a twin seat, well maintained very pretty R1200RT.  My permanent pillion is much happier with her really very plush pillion perch and all is well with the world.

I never fully bought into the whole continent crossing tourer thing and especially not the hype that surrounds the RT.  No bike could ever be that good.  I was wrong.  The RT is indeed everything it’s been made out to be.  It’s supremely comfortable, it’s fast and an absolute joy to ride and last, but not least, my pillion is very happy.

If you’ve never tried it and are in the market for this type of bike don’t let your preconceptions put you off.  At least try one, I think you’ll enjoy it.  If not at least you’ll know for sure.  For me and mine the BMW R1200RT would appear to be about as good as it can get.

Ride safe.

I’ve had a bit of an epiphany over this last week.   I’ve spent the whole week cruising.  Not the cruising you’d expect either, what with this being a motorcycling blog, but sat on a ship.  I enjoyed it !

I know, it came as a shock to me too.

I have long held out against the idea of spending time on a ship.  It’s not that I don’t like ships or anything like that, I just had better things to do.  I couldn’t be bothered with formal evening wear,  I didn’t want to be organised by somebody I didn’t know and who didn’t know me and I certainly didn’t want to be forced into the company of 2,000 other people I had nothing in common with. I also didn’t want to do the tourist thing, you know, going and looking at places or people from behind a glass safety screen. I like to be emmersed in a place, be part of it, not be a spectator.  I’m sure that will sound familiar to many of us.  After all,  we’re motorcyclists.   We enjoy a good natter over coffee or a beer but then we leave, get back on our bikes and go where we please…..on our own and in our own time.

A lot of that still holds true.  However, I did find a good few people who’s company I quite enjoyed.  Much as bikers do, we sat and exchanged experiences.  They’re different experiences but the conversations still followed a familiar pattern. I’ve interacted with crew members from all around the world and they were great and I’ve seen things,  mainly Norwegian Fjords, that you couldn’t possibly experience any other way.  For this alone it was worth going.

I still think it’s too touristy and that you see things as a spectator rather than being there up to your elbows in muck and bullets.  I still don’t like the formal evening meals and I still don’t like being organised by somebody else to that degree. However,  its not a bad thing to do, I thoroughly enjoyed the places I saw and I did meet some interesting characters with fascinating tales to be told.

Best of all, it has given me a yearning to return……on the bike.  Norway seems, from my limited experience, to be a beautiful place and I can’t wait to explore it further.

Would I do it again?  Probably.   Not too often but yes, I’d go again. Maybe cruising has a place after all.

What a beautiful country we live in.  I’ve just got back from a couple of days away on the bike with The Old Dragon and have again been stunned by the wonderful countryside and friendly people you can find in the UK. 

We were celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary so it was important the trip was special.  I had the privilege of visiting Symonds Yat in the Wye Valley a couple of years ago, it is a stunningly beautiful and tranquil place.  Add to that the marvelous Saracens Head pub and it seemed like a good place to start.  Fortunately the Saracens Head has 12 B&B rooms, one of which was duly booked.  We set off with the firm intention of avoiding motorways so far as humanly possible and, with the exception of about a mile across the old Severn crossing,  we did.  The other thing we were determined to do was to take our time. If we wanted to stop, for any reason, we were going too. It was really quite liberating. 

The trip from North West Hampshire to Symonds Yat started with a blast along the A342 ◇ A338 up to Swindon. This is one of my favourite routes, especially if the traffic is light and the sun is shining…which it was.  The A419/7 isn’t great but it was only 20 miles to get to Cheltenham so I guess we can live with that. From here we take the A40 through gorgeous forested hills towards Ross-on-Wye. It’s an absolute joy cruising with no need to stick to a timetable.  If only every trip could be like this. 

It is often the case that revisiting a place you enjoyed before can be a disappointment but not Symonds Yat. The pub was excellent,  the staff friendly and welcoming and the accommodation clean and comfortable. It proved to be an excellent place to spend the evening. If you’re ever heading for a trip around Wales this is an great place to start from.  The landlord is an ex biker and is even considering a Triumph Rocket as a way back in.  A walk down the valley is a great experience with awesome scenery and a great sense if peace.   We enjoyed the stop-over hugely to say the least, I would recommend it to anybody.  Great place, great company.

Day 2
Another place we have always wanted to visit is Cheddar Gorge.  The best route from Symonds Yat is down to Chepstow,  across the old Severn Bridge and down the coast to the village of Cheddar.  Stopping at the services on the England side of the bridge for a coffee we were approached by a chap clad in hi-viz. A conversation began about the bike and he waxed lyrical about it for a good 10 minutes. He wasn’t a biker but was certainly very keen.  It was a great interlude that I thoroughly enjoyed and just goes to show how bikes can bring us together, it’s never once happened to me in the car.

The B4228 is a lovely swoopy road with flowing bends that go on for miles. The scenery is stunning and an absolute joy to ride through. Cheddar Gorge is beautiful,  a real treasure,  but be careful. The road is narrow and car drivers take far too little care around the bends.  We were nearly taken out 3 times in the matter of a few miles, and all mid week when the visitor volume was relatively light.  Having said that it is somewhere you have to visit at least once.

From here it was an easy run home across Salisbury plain.

We had a great run, met some lovely people saw some beautiful sights and celebrated our silver wedding anniversary in a way that suited us down to the ground. Simple pleasures in the company of my soul mate and genuine  honest folk.  What more could you ask for, it was perfect, just perfect.

I’m beginning to hate this time of year.  It’s true, I am a fair weather biker these days.  That doesn’t mean the sun has to be shining and the temperature high enough for sunbathing, just so long as I can avoid getting soaked to the skin and arrive home without frostbite then I’m happy.

But this year in the UK there has been so much rain it’s become almost suicidal to go out on a bike.  Yesterday I looked up the road closures map due to flooding or drainage issues published by Hampshire County Council. I can’t go in any direction without running into a flood within a few miles.  Driving around in the car it’s evident that the problem goes beyond rivers breaking their banks and excess surface water with many roads suffering severe structural damage as a result.  A few days ago, whilst driving the car, I narrowly avoided killing a cyclist.  Not because either he or I did anything stupid, on the contrary we were both showing exemplary road manners which was what saved his life. The road surface had sustained such damage, a pothole, hidden because it was full of water, grabbed his front wheel and threw him off just as I was overtaking.  If he had not been riding where he should have been and had I not been passing with plenty of room for error the result could have been catastrophic.

Road conditions here at the moment are appalling.  It really is very dangerous to venture out on two wheels of any description so if you can avoid it please do.  The unfortunate consequence though is that I’m suffering from a severe bout of Parked Motorcycle Syndrome (PMS).  I’m a miserable sod with no hope of reprieve for quite some while to come.  

I hate this winter, roll on spring…and hopefully some well repaired roads.

I’ve just found out that one of the greatest characters I’ve ever met in motorcycling has passed away.  Steve Gregory was training to become an instructor at Rider Training in Brackley when I first met him.  I have never met somebody with such a great sense of humour and fun.  A talented instructor who could make anything fun…even when we rode through freezing fog in temperatures around freezing and our visors instantly became opaque, it was still funny.   A man with a big heart, a fantastic sense of humour who will surely be sadly missed by anybody who ever knew him.  My abiding memory will be of him turning up on a bright orange Kawasaki ER6 with the front of his helmet up and a huge smile across his face.

My condolences to his family and colleagues.  Our lives have been made better by his being and I for one will remember him fondly and miss him dearly.

What a brilliant weekend we’ve just had.  The Old Dragon and I headed off to the Ace Café for their Cruiser Day.  The plan was to meet up with my brother and friends from the Brackley Festival of Motorcycling (www.bfom.co.uk) on their Victory cruisers and also friends from the Suzuki 800 forum (www.suzuki800.com) all on various Suzuki Intruder cruisers.

The weather on the way out was sublime.  The temperature was in the mid 20 degrees C and, because that it was relatively early on a Sunday morning, the roads empty.  The sun shone and God was in his heaven as they say.  We all eventually met up at Ace Café and how impressed was I that a member of the Suzuki 800 forum, Dave, whom I had never met before walked up to me and started chatting before I could even remove my helmet.  Dave actually runs the forum and we have had many a chat online over the last year but even so I love the way this happens in the biking community, we’ve never met before but there we were chatting away as if we had known each other all our lives.  It is unique in my experience and something to be treasured. It was so nice to catch up with others that I have exchanged messages with and benefitted from their knowledge over the time I’ve been on the forum.  Not to mention, of course, catching up with little Bro, Andy and Linda, which is always a pleasure.

All in all it was a brilliant day.  However, a word of caution is in order here I think.  On our way home with the temperatures reaching uncomfortable levels we saw more than a few sights than send a cold shiver down my spine.  There were numerous young lads out on the roads on powerful sports bikes dressed in shorts and T-shirts.  On it’s own this is bad enough and bordering on suicidal but combine that with the way these fools were riding and it left me cold.  To make things worse and drive the point home when I arrived home there was an article on the local newspaper website stating that 6 motorcyclists in their 20′s had been involved in fatal accidents over the weekend in Hampshire alone.

Can I use this blog to make a heart felt plea to everybody who rides a motorcycle please.

Motorcycling in something that gives me and thousands of others a great deal of pleasure and a sense of community that is unique and very special.  It is also a relatively dangerous pastime.  We don’t have airbags and crumple zones.  Our safety aids lie between our ears.  If we don’t anticipate and out-think the other idiots on our roads then we stand a better than evens chance of getting hurt.  Please, please, please think about what you are doing and don’t take unnecessary risks.  It is better to be hot and sweaty than dead.  Life is short enough as it is, go easy, take care and enjoy riding a bike for many years to come.

Once again, it’s been a while since I wrote a post here.  It has, unfortunately, been an interesting time in my life.  That would be an interesting times as in the old Chinese curse ‘May you live in interesting times’.  There have been some major career changes which, although they weren’t unexpected and haven’t been easy and have led to a major re-evaluation of priorities.  Whilst this has been going on there have been some major expenses, as always happens when your not in the best position to deal with them.  And, just to top it all off, it seems that the time off has allowed me to relax and recover from what has been a remarkably stressful existence over the last decade or so.  The result of which has been all the classic symptoms of stress with continuous sniffles and general feeling of not being quite right.  My particular favourite symptom being a few attacks of gout, an absolute joy as anybody who has ever suffered will surely tell you.

So, I hear you ask, what has this to do with a motorcycling blog.  Well, it’s like this.  Through all this my bike has been there as a constant, reliable pillar to lean on.  When I’ve had to take time out to think and evaluate my options I’ve gone for a ride; when I’ve needed to escape and relax, I’ve gone for a ride and when I’ve needed to bolster my spirits and cheer myself up, I’ve gone for a ride.  My passion for motorcycling has been there as something that has helped me through every step of the changes that had to be made.  It has provided peace, an escape and motivation when it was most needed and there’s always somebody to have a chat with and pass the time of day.

This isn’t something I’ve encountered in any other activity.  Our passion is a truly unique one.  No matter what we ride we share a sense of community, we have friends wherever we go who will always offer help if it’s needed.  What we have is special and I am grateful.  To each and every one of you who shares the passion and rides a bike of whatever description, Thank you.

What a disappointing month May is turning out to be. Things started so well, the weather looked up, we got a couple of nice rides in and, bizarrely, getting made redundant raised the prospect of a few great days out exploring.

Now the weather has gone downhill, I have fears for my fence panels with the winds we have seen developing today. To make it worse this is the week I had hoped to spend out and about before getting stuck in to finding some paying employment. Even if the weather hadn’t deteriorated the number of jobs I have lining up at home I still most likely wouldn’t have got out as much as I would have liked. I’m starting to understand what people who have just retired mean when they say they’ve never been so busy. How did I ever fit work in anyway !

Just to round it off I see MotoGP is going to be on pay TV from next year. Out of interest, could somebody remind me why it is we pay for a TV licence still.

Enough ranting though. I’m sure this is going to be a great summer and better things are just around the corner.