BMF RIDER SPRING 2022

Motorcycle

rider no. 96 spring 2022 £4.95

Mountain Man The Power Behind Austin Vince

| Rotary Revived | Mental Health Why biking is good for you

PLUS

| Ride Scotland | Mark Williams | Latest Campaign News www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

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CRAFTED IN CALIFORNIA , SOLD IN NOT TINGHAMSHIRE Unit 3 Fields Farm Road Long Eaton NG10 3FZ T: 0115 946 2608 www.pidcock.com/zero-motorcycles

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RIDER MOTORCYCL

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Motorcycle

rider

2022 £4.95 NO. 96 SPRING

MOUNTAIN MANwer Behind The Po Austin Vince

CONTENTS

ed | Rotary Reviv h | Mental Healtd goo Why biking is for you

PLUS

ms d | Mark Willia

| Ride Scotlan www.brit

ishmotor

cyclists.c

gn News

| Latest Campai

o.uk

Cover Picture: Austin Vince in one of his favourite places MOTORCYCLE RIDER IS PUBLISHED BY THE BRITISH MOTORCYCLISTS FEDERATION (ENTERPRISES) LIMITED Motorcycle Rider Editor | Peter Henshaw - editor@bmf.co.uk Designer | Louise Hillier - design@bmf.co.uk Advertising | Sheonagh Ravensdale sheonagh.ravensdale@bmf.co.uk All BMF correspondence to: Helen Hancock, Administrator BMF, PO Box 9036, Enderby, Leicester, LE19 9BE Tel: 01162 795112 Mob: 07918 903 500 Email: admin@bmf.co.uk COPYRIGHT: All material published in motorcycle rider is the copyright of the BMF. Use may be freely made of it without permission on condition that any material used is credited “reproduced by permission of motorcycle rider, the BMF magazine”.

The views of any contribution contained in motorcycle rider are not necessarily those of the editorial team or of the BMF. Chair | Jim Freeman Finance Director | Howard Anderson Member Services Director | Peter Laidlaw Political and Technical Services Director | Anna Zee Communications Director | Sheonagh Ravensdale National and One-Make Club Forum Chair | Stephen Davenport Administrator | Helen Hancock

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NEWS BMF & NMC News

NMC gets a head start on campaigning

FEATURES Highway Code History

It's changed for 2022, but what about 1935?

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Photo Competition

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Member Profile: Kona Macphee

New feature – send us your best snaps, win a year's BMF membership

See page 8

Sydney commute to biking ambassador for Scotland

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Small is Beautiful

16

Rotary Returns

20 27 28 30

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Forget Go Large – the future of biking could be small (and fun) Thought the rotary engine was dead? Think again

Man on a Mission

What makes Austin Vince tick?

RESOURCES 24 25

Thorneycroft

26

Bikesure

33

Club Profile: Busy Bee

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BMF Foundation

35

Zooms & the NRR

36

Down Your Way

Affordable Classic

A classic which doesn't cost the earth – what's yours?

Day Ride

Riding around Mt Etna – yes, you read that right

Bikes for Good

Mental Health Motorbike – what's it all about?

OPINION Unreliable Sauce

Are online spares killing small dealers?

FEMA Report

The latest from FEMA What to do after an accident Username Kate's top 5 European rides The cafe might be gone, but the club lives on What it is, what it does

BMF Zoom report and National Road Rally preview BMF contacts for your area

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From the Chair

LET'S STICK TOGETHER D

ear Fellow Rider reader, I hope you had a great festive season, surviving January (probably my least favourite month on the calendar) in good spirits.

Personally, I always feel that with February, I notice that extra 45 minutes daylight at the end of the day, the first sign of spring, along with the crocuses by the shed.

Talking of sheds, this is usually when I really start brushing the cobwebs off in the garage, doing those essential fettling jobs before the start of the riding season. Today, a gloriously sunny, if windy morning has put a spring in my step, as I checked the state of the battery on number one bike, reminding myself that a new set of tyres wouldn’t hurt either; the rear’s so squared off from that last bit of urban slog, before it got put away, that crossing white lines can feel more like tramlines on occasion.

February is also when many of us, including myself, start to plan out things like events and holidays, for the coming year, especially for the riding season. Which is a good moment to mention the FIM Touring events scheduled for this summer, www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk/ fim-touring-events

The first is Motocamp, which has a closing date before this issue goes out, but there will be more during the summer, and the latest news will be via the website and Facebook.

The BMF will also be attending the All Party Motorcycle Group (APMG) event, hosted by the National Motorcycle Council (NMC) at the House of Commons, sponsored by BMF corporate member Plantec to launch the NMC 2022 policy document for motorcycling. Which is an opportunity to reach the ears of MPs and government, with Minister Trudy Harrison attending. That doesn’t happen very often.

This issue is packed with the usual sections, columns and features, including an interview with Austin Vince, rotaries with Brian Crighton and a profile of the Busy Bee, without ignoring the inimitable Mark Williams.

Something for everyone, as you’d expect from the BMF, which prides itself on being inclusive. If you’re into bikes and motorcycling, we don’t care who you are, you’re ‘one of us’. I’d particularly like to emphasise this, in the tumultuous times we’re living in, with change being forced upon all of us, willy-nilly. More than ever, the famous expression (which I'm paraphrasing here), ‘You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you’* holds true. If you want to pretend that de-carbonisation is just this year’s hot issue, which if we protest loudly enough, will go away, I’m sorry, but it won’t. If we stick together, we can get the best results possible; if we fragment (as riders are prone to do), we won’t. Pretty straightforward, I’d venture, no?

Ride Safe, ride often, enjoy the spring. *Trotsky, on Brest-Litovsk, "You may not be interested in the war, but the war is interested in you."

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www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

Biker Friendly Accommodation, Cafes, Camping, Clothing, Events, Meeting Places, Parts, Pubs, Rallies, Shows, Touring

and much, much more...

The website is free and easy to use, packed full of up to date information, with lots of events, news and free to enter competitions, along with an extensive business directory aimed at motorcyclists, with a wide range of businesses included.

Bringing The Biking Community Together

9!

0 0 2 e c n i S

info@thebikerguide.co.uk

www.thebikerguide.co.uk

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News NMC: Head Start to the Campaigning Year Craig Carey-Clinch – Executive Director, National Motorcyclists Council (NMC)

P

ublic policy and campaign lobbying year tends to come in waves (writes Craig Carey-Clinch) – periods of frantic activity interspersed with relative calm, and the same seems to be true for 2022. No sooner had we recovered from collective obligatory New Year hangovers, than a new threat of road bans appeared from the Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

The Government has issued a consultation on the back of a ‘Landscapes Review’ into National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Although the Landscapes Review does not mention motor vehicle use, the Government response to the Review does have a section on the impact of recreational motoring on green roads.

This includes questions on whether the Government should legislate to restrict recreational motor vehicles on unsealed and unclassified roads, and one suggestion is to widen this to include all types of minor road. The potential impact of this consultation signals a clear and present danger to motoring and motorcycling on green lanes and other tarmac rural routes.

The NMC and LARA (Land Access and Recreational Association) had already been liaising informally since the NMC was founded.

But the emergence of this new threat has brought the two groups closer together to deal with the consultation and matters arising from it. LARA has an excellent track record of technical work – add in the NMC’s public policy campaign experience and we look to creating an effective lobby should DEFRA’s initial consultation result in any actual proposals for road bans. A new campaign 4

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asking riders to respond to the consultation has been launched, strongly supported by Charley Boorman of ‘Long Way Round’ fame.

On 1st March, the NMC marked its first year with a major reception in Parliament. This was hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Motorcycling, with its chairman Sir Bill Wiggin making a keynote speech. Transport Minister Trudy Harrison was also present. The NMC presented its proposals for how transport policy should evolve to recognise and support motorcycle use, covering a wide range of areas, not just commuter and practical use of powered two-wheelers in urban areas, but the all-important lifestyle, sport and heritage aspects of motorcycling as well. A range of representatives from different stakeholder groups, plus departmental officials and other guests were there.

This was the first time a motorcycling reception had been held in Parliament since 2016. Much has changed since then of course, but the NMC is detecting the glimmers of a change in heart about how the Government regards motorcycling.

Discussions with officials on potential policy have been wide ranging and engagement with the range of groups that the NMC represents has improved considerably. The joint proposals from NMC organisations on testing and training, road safety and linkages between motorcycling and wider transport and mobility have been well received and discussions have commenced with the Department of Transport (DfT) and its agencies about the next steps. We have written to ministers about how DfT can recognise and focus on motorcycle policies and are awaiting a response.

In the meantime, a range of issues remain open and will be of major significance to us all as transport policy and the nature of transport itself evolves. We are still awaiting the now delayed consultation on the phase-out of new petrol-engined motorcycles.

Several meetings have been held with DfT officials on this and we have made clear the NMC’s view that decarbonisation www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

NEWS should be multi-technology based, evolutionary and to globally agreed net zero targets, not absolute zero targets to a UK-only forced timetable. There are signs that this approach is gaining rt Policy e of Transpo and the Futur momentum, with manufacturers also Motorcycling calling for a multi-faceted evolutionary approach. Even the MCIA did not refer to specific phase-out dates in its recently launched MCIA/Zemo action plan. This activity from across the motorcycle world could be one reason why the consultation has been delayed.

Proposals for anti-tampering, which saw a huge response from riders, have entered a kind of post consultation ‘phoney 2022 Edition war’ status – the period where government mulls over responses and considers next steps. We are seeking further meetings with officials on this, to see how their thinking has evolved now the consultation has closed.

On road safety policy, further work is being done by the DfT to evolve its approach. The NMC has been a part of these discussions and seems set to become part of the governance advisory structure of a new safety strategy.

This will help motorcycling to further put the case for a ‘welcoming roads’ approach to road safety messaging and investment, placing motorcycling on a more equal footing with other modes of transport where investment has been prioritised. In relation to the strategic roads network, we are delighted that the NMC has been asked to participate in clists National Motorcy

NMC Policy Paper Launched

On 23rd February the NMC launched a major new contribution to the discussion about motorcycling’s developing role in society and transport. The new policy paper ‘Motorcycling and the Future of Transport Policy’ sets out in a concise format the policies that will work to the nation’s benefit if adopted by the Government. Policy areas addressed include mobility, the environment, safety and accessibility. The vital contribution that motorcycling makes to the UK’s culture, leisure, economy, heritage and sport is also recognised. www.uknmc.org

Council

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market by style of machine. In 2021 some of changed but the categories is possible to gain a broad Covid-19 Pand market has evolve overview of how emic d in terms of the Motorcycles buyer intentions areas; commuting, of all types have in three main mixed use and seen a particu interest during pure leisure and Though it should lar surge in public the sporting styles be stressed that . a socially isolate Coronavirus crisis. This is becau there will be a of different types se they offer d and Covid-safe lot of crossover of usage within form of transp a surge in registr these broad segme figures for 2021 ort. MCIA noted ations of new are set agains nts. Market commuter types t a baseline averag pandemic as transp between 2010 during the e of the marke ort and 2014 in the users looked for t The table table below. a Covid-safe alterna From this, it can below, extrapolated tive. be seen that the from published MCIA how the marke growth over the market has enjoye t evolved during data, shows baseline, with d robust in 2020. the height of pande very significant mixed use styles mic lockdowns growth in the , mainly ‘Naked ’ multi purpose bikes and ‘Mode rn PTW

UK Motorcycle

Commuter Styles

Mixed use styles

Sport / Competition styles Total Market

MCIA / NMC

Market moveme

nts in 2020

Market

Baseline 2010-14 32,222

40,969

2021

33,196

66,888

22,148

14,287

95,339

114,371

% Change

3.02

63.26

-36

20

Q1 Q2 versus versus 2019 2019 Motorcycles -12.80% -42% (all engine size) Scooter -9.90% -18% (all engine size) 50cc 26.60% 21.80% Electric PTW 77.50% -0.20% (extracted from above)

Q3 versus 2019

Q4 versus 2019

23%

25%

38.20%

33.04%

28.50%

75.80%

49.86% 61.28%

MCIA

Classics’. More sporting and compe tition styled machi of which can be adapted for nes, many off road compe have seen a decline tition for examp of 36%. le,

The sharp growth in pure comm motorcycles is uter styles and notable. There electric was an increa deliveries by se in food and motorcycles during other the lockdown, such as the Bike with initiatives Shed Community Response emerg ing.

National Motorcy clists

www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

Council

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policy development initiatives with National Highways (formerly Highways England).

So, all in all a busy start to the year.

Behind the scenes, the NMC continues to build links across motorcycling and has recently seen the UK’s trade body, the National Motorcycle Dealers Association, join us, while other membership applications are pending.

All of this adds to the collective impact of UK motorcycling organisations, both individually and when working together under the NMC banner. 2022 has great promise indeed.

Craig Carey-Clinch

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News

Lobby News Round Up

from Anna Zee, BMF’s Political and Technical Services Director Report a Pothole – and bad driving Back in the day, the BMF had a website page called 'ReportA-Road' (writes Anna Zee). Initially Dave Muckle, bless his little cotton socks, went to a lot of trouble to identify contact addresses for many roads authorities, which the BMF published in MOTORCYCLE RIDER so that riders who wanted to report a problem knew where to go. (It certainly got noticed – one or two authorities who originally got left out actually got in touch to ask why they weren't in the list).

These days there are government webpages which offer something similar. gov.uk/browse/housing-local-services/ recycling-rubbish has a number of links for reporting potholes, obstructions, problems with traffic lights, street name signs etc.

You enter a postcode – if you know the street name, use the Post Office postcode finder – and are taken to an appropriate page on the local roads authority's website. This is for England and Wales, but there are links for similar reporting facilities for Scotland and Northern Ireland and for National Highways/Highways England to report problems on the motorways and other major roads – see box out for details. So that's how to report problems with road surfaces etc.

What isn't covered by the above is problems with road signage, e.g. on motorways. But there is now a page for that too. If a sign is missing, obscured, damaged or confusing you can report

it here and it will be forwarded to the appropriate authority. https://sortmysign.transportfocus.org.uk/ And finally, if you use a dashcam and you want to report some lunatic driving to the police you can upload the footage on this website.nextbase.com/en-gb/national-dash-cam-safety-portal/ (Remember the footage may give away something about how you ride too).

Anna Zee, BMF Political and Technical Services Director

My First Bike – Remember Yours?

L

et's face it, we all remember our first bike.

Those first scary, wobbly and exhilarating moments on an FS1/E, or a Bantam, or maybe (if you were rich) an RD250 Yamaha.

We want to hear your 'My First Bike' stories in Motorcycle Rider, and from the next issue we'll be printing one every time. It needs to be around 500 words, covering what your first bike was, what it was like to ride, and how it changed your life (because it did, didn't it?) If you can provide a picture from back in the day, that would be fantastic.

And, just to give a flavour, here's a snippet from the BMF's Communications Director, Sheonagh Ravensdale.

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My First Bike – Sheonagh Ravensdale

“It was 1972 and I’d just started work in London.

Hated the tube ride in on the Northern Line and my brother got fed up with me whinging. Came home to find a Honda C90 with L plates. Brother slaps a helmet on my head (we were too scared of our mother not to, though it didn’t become law for another year). 'This is what you do….get on with it'…. So I did. I loved that bike. Best part of my job was the commute, dodging in and out of the traffic and being an unofficial courier for my boss. Being a secretary was pants in comparison – 50 years later I’m still riding.”

Send your entry to: editor@bmf.co.uk Right: Sheonagh with her later Suzuki T500

www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

Highway Code History

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Peter Henshaw on Highway Codes past

he latest revisions to the Highway Code have caused quite a stir, but there's nothing new about this little booklet which we all read diligently before taking our bike test, and may or may not have looked at since. Anyway, here's a nostalgic look at Highway Codes past.

They emerged from a reaction to growing carnage on Britain's roads, and for once the hyperbole was true. Speed limits had been abolished in 1930, and the result, along with rapidly increasing numbers of cars, motorcycles, buses and trucks on the roads, was rocketing casualties, with 7000 people killed in 1931. A series of Acts of Parliament introduced a whole range of things, including a 30mph limit in urban areas, pedestrian crossings and driving licences. And it worked – casualties began to fall almost straight away.

The Highway Code was part of all this, and the first one appeared in 1935. The Ministry of Transport was actually beaten to it by the National Safety First Association (the forerunner of RoSPA) which printed something similar more than 10 years earlier. Priced at 1d, the first official Highway Code included a lot of the usual rules that generations of learners would become familiar with, though the hand signals included special ones for carriage drivers equipped with a whip.

A major update came in 1946, reminding road users what road signs looked like (direction signs had been taken down during World War II to bamboozle any invading Nazis) and included

www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

stopping distances for the first time. Surprisingly, despite far better ABS brakes on cars and bikes now, the latest Code quotes the same distances. On the other hand, mobile phones may have taken out any ABS benefit, so maybe it's best they still err on the safe side... Also new in '46 was a rule on pillion passengers (the law had actually come in with the 1930 Road Traffic Act) – no more than one per bike, and seated properly please, on a proper seat.

The Code was updated again in 1954, now with a snazzy colour cover showing stylised traffic lights. Still no mention of motorways of course, which didn't get a look in until a 1959 update after the Preston bypass (our first M-way) was opened. And still no overall speed limit – the 70-limit didn't appear until 1965, thanks in part to motorway pile-ups in fog. Until then, 100mph along the Hog's Back on your Bonneville was legal...

And so to 2022, with the latest Highway Code's new hierarchy of road users, putting the most vulnerable at the top, and maybe that's no bad thing. As for bikers, there are still only six rules which apply specifically to us, covering helmets, eye protection, the number of passengers (yes, it's still there), visibility and filtering.

And here's a final question – when did you last read the Highway Code?

Illustrations from The Original Highway Code, Michael O'Mara Books Limited, 2008.

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Win a year's free BMF membership*

The BMF Photo Comp W

e're looking for the sharpest, most inspiring, funniest or quirkiest photos by BMF members, to make up a regular feature in Motorcycle Rider. Starting with the next issue, we'll print a selection of the best. The winner could even make our cover shot, so get your entry in now!

Every issue's competition will have a theme and we're kicking off with: 'Bike & Road'. The road could be twisty tarmac, or heading arrow-straight for the horizon...or maybe not even tarmac. Anyway, you (no pun intended) get the picture.

So, good luck. Please email your entry (or entries) with your contact details and a caption (up to 50 words please) for the picture to: editor@bmf.co.uk by 20th May 2022.

*Keep it for yourself or nominate a friend who isn't yet a BMF member All bribes are welcome, but won't make any difference to the outcome 8

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www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

Unreliable Sauce / Mark Williams

GOING SPARE

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ecent activity in the Shed of Doom, aka my workshop, found me reflecting on a particular but significant change since I started riding these blighters over five decades ago.

After a late-life return to off-roading in the early noughties, I hung up my motocross boots 13 years ago as I became too ancient and weedy to keep up with younger whippersnappers who seemed to treat every trail ride as a faux enduro, and the Forces of Darkness were steadily eliminating the number of green lanes that I could legally navigate hereabouts. But as any true believer knows, once bitten, the bug never leaves you and thus it was that I turned my attention to the world of custom bikery, a phenomenon that began as something of a cult but is now firmly established in motorcycling’s mainstream.

The reasons for this are myriad but one of its consequences is that a small if growing trade has developed in supplying stuff for those, like yours truly, who ‘re-purpose’ – horrid word, but needs must – perfectly good stock machines into something they were never intended to be. It also mirrors the even longer- established one in providing bits, pieces and especially clothing for the offroad brigade. And of course both of these specialisms are part of the aforementioned commercial transformation, namely that if we want something to replace worn or broken bits on our bikes, or in my case add something to its character, we don’t ring up let alone pop down to our nearest dealer, we go online. Indeed I was leafing through the soberingly thick file of receipts for stuff I bought to complete my last two builds and noted that 95% of it was acquired online.

I can imagine that some of you, like me, are old enough to remember when there were dealers in every town and dozens in every city offering the pleasant enough ritual of queuing at spares counters of a Saturday morning, joshing with the chaps in the brown warehouseman’s coats who’d return from the mysterious back room stores with the often inevitable, ‘We haven’t got exactly that cable but this one should do’.

And then there’s the cost: £709 for an OEM Triumph Bonneville starter motor anyone? And yet I paid ‘only’ £110 for a warranted, recon one for my Honda CB400N custom. Mind you, Finland’s motorcyclists' association supports and reports on a system that has 62% of parts from some 72% of that country’s bike dismantlers recycled to punters and traders alike, which ought to be the way to go here, if only to save the planet.

As it happens, I’ve recently visited a couple of those stoic small, solus dealers who’ve clung onto their franchises in smallish towns and of course they don’t carry any spare parts at all, not even for their stocked marques, but equally obviously they said they could usually get them delivered in 24-48 hours. But then if one really wanted to secure a missing part, one would simply www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

go online and get it delivered direct to one’s door by UPS or Royal Mail and save a trip to the dealer.

And thus it is that the number of dealers has and continues to shrink and I’d wager that over the next ten years, there’ll be almost no small, mom’n’pop bike shops left with machines sold only in large, often multi-franchise showrooms dotted inconveniently around the country with spares, accessories and indeed clothing available only online or to an extent at shows.

Moisty-eyed nostalgia is a trap I won’t for once fall into as I think the inevitability of this restructuring, also reflected in many other retail areas these days, is pretty much a given for as long as the internet – regrettably – dominates our lives. And that’s another inevitability confirmed whenever I take a train, bus or sit in a cafe where almost everyone under 40 is glued to their smartphone to the exclusion of anything else. We shouldn’t be surprised that this is one reason why there are so few newcomers joining our little game.

But in the meantime we must be grateful that there is – just – still a motorcycle trade in whatever form it has taken and that reminds me, if anyone out there can supply a ten-bob fuse box cover for a 1985 Honda Ascot, then FedEx and the Royal Mail know where I live.

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Member Profile

Lifetime Learning

Kona Macphee is the woman behind Crieff Cloverleaf, and she's a self-confessed skills junkie Interview by: Sheonagh Ravensdale y How did you start riding?

Completely accidentally! I was a student in Sydney and was working as a waitress three nights a week. I was living in a rough part of the city, walking home from the station late at night. My boss said this wasn't a good thing to do and why didn't I buy a motorbike? I didn't have any money but got hold of a little 100cc Honda. Riding became an obsession and I soon progressed to a 250 Super Dream – I'd never even thought of riding a bike before, but now I was hooked.

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y What do you have now?

I've not actually owned that many bikes, but I've got three now: an old R1100 GS, a Honda CRF 250L and a Yamaha Tracer 700. Our little garage is full and any more would probably mean divorce!

Favourite is usually the one I'm riding at the moment, and the CRF is perfect off-road. I have ridden off-road on a BMW GS but I feel more comfortable on a smaller, more nimble bike which I can pick up. The Tracer 700 is lovely on the road – not particularly fancy or good looking, but it's such great fun to ride, really flicky. It's very willing, but not so powerful that there's loads of power you can never use – I like to feel that I am using the bike's capabilities – it's my happy place.

y You do your own maintenance don't you?

After leaving school I thrashed around for about three years.

Started a music composition degree and dropped that, then read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which gave me the idea of becoming a bike mechanic – I did actually become an apprentice vehicle mechanic in Australia. I had about 25 years without riding when I moved to the UK and had a family, but then the same idea resurfaced and I enrolled on a motorcycle maintenance course at West Lothian College near Edinburgh. It was a great course, a year of weekly sessions which went through everything, ending with a City & Guilds. So yes, I do maintain all my bikes. Ewan McAdam, who still runs the course, was a brilliant teacher with the patience of a saint.

My day job is writing software which is very difficult to get 100% right, but mechanical jobs, like replacing the wheel on a bike, are much simpler – if you've got it right, it's right. When mechanical jobs throw up difficulties it's just about being patient and solving problems. I look after my husband Patrick's bikes as well.

Above: CRF250 L has opened up the world of off-road Below: Tracer 700 (here in mid-overhaul by its owner) is, “lovely on the road.”

y Tell us about the 'right to repair'

Mechanics are now becoming deskilled because the job is increasingly about throwing faulty components away and fitting a new one rather than repairing. I'm concerned that the industry is heading towards people having to have their bikes serviced at dealers – the right to repair is really important.

The PCP (Personal Contract Plan) model is all part of it, because most of them actually prohibit doing your own maintenance, and the pressure is to trade in for a new bike every three years.

Buying a new bike every three years is also environmentally disastrous because, as we all know, a huge part of any vehicle's CO2 emissions is bound up with its manufacture – it's just insane. We live in a throwaway culture, but fixing things can be very satisfying – I was never prouder than when I mended my washing machine and my paper shredder.

y Ride solo or in a group?

That really depends on the group. I do love riding solo and I've done lots of trips where I've been on my own, just enjoying the riding. I quite often do a long trip solo, like taking back roads down www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

to Wales on the CRF to do some trail riding. But if the group is in harmony and rides together well, then it's great fun. I regularly go out with a group from the Scottish Motorcycle Club which is always good – the sense of everyone in a group doing a skilled thing together is quite something. Small groups work best I think.

y Sat nav or map?

I can read a map, though I'm capable of getting it 180 degrees out, so the sat nav is really empowering. Best of all, you can head Motorcycle R I D E R

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Above: Great scenery and quiet roads in Scotland Left: With Tiffany Coates Above Right: With husband Patrick

down a little road just to see where it goes and the sat nav will always take you back again. Far from being something which tells you where to go it also enables you to explore randomly. I love the hilliest and most windy routes mode, because it takes you places you would never have seen otherwise. I have a Tom Tom Rider 550 but I'm about to swap to a Garmin which will do offroad navigation as well, which is useful for me.

y Favourite place to ride?

Living in Scotland, there's so much on my doorstep. We have English bikers come up here who can't believe how empty the roads are. You get long, long stretches of quiet road at the national speed limit with no towns and villages, so you can just get into a nice flowing ride. And riding up a twisty hill road is just the best thing – Scotland has plenty of those.

y Best motorcycle moment?

It's a whole category. Motorcycling is the purest form of joy I've experienced. I don't get that every time I ride, but quite a bit, most often when I've ridden to the crest of a hill and a massive landscape opens up the other side. I love the skill and the physicality of riding, but really it's about moments like that – sheer joy.

y And the worst?

Probably the most miserable I've been on a bike was back in the '80s riding from Sydney to Melbourne to visit my family, 900km 12

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away. On the second day it started raining about 100km out of Melbourne. I got soaked and by the time I reached the suburbs I was frozen. I arrived to find no one was at home and that they had changed the locks (not because of me...) so I couldn't get in! Shivering on the driveway, probably borderline hypothermia.

That's why I'm now the queen of layers, so I'm always toasty – don't like being cold.

y You're involved in the Scottish Adventure Travel Film Festival?

An ATFF was held by National Trust for Scotland one year and Scotland is a good place for it so I thought it would be good to bring it back. It was quite a learning process to put on an event like that but I'm a bit of a skills junkie. It's 8th-10th July at Strathallan School.

y Tell us about Crieff Cloverleaf

It's a series of four beautiful and exciting all-day rides based in Crieff, heading north, south, east and west.

Crieff is the base, so there's no need to repack every day. The idea came out of lockdown – the town depends quite a bit on tourist income, so it had suffered. Also, I've always found packing a bike is a pain, so why not plan a series of rides based on the same place? I worked out the routes and included lots of smaller singletrack roads which would be a pain by car but are great on a bike.

The response from bikers has been fantastic, and many who came last year said they would come back and do it again in 2022 – I knew they would love it because I know what these roads are like. I'm not a marketing genius, but it's such good motorcycling country that you can't really go wrong.

There are lots of negative stereotypes about motorcyclists, and I want to help dispel them in our local community. It's great that so many friendly, responsible and interesting riders have been visiting, and doing a great job of being informal ambassadors for motorcycling! www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

Left: Crieff Cloverleaf aims to attract more bikers to midScotland Right: Kona has been keen to develop advanced riding Below: And she flies a plane...

y Women are still a minority in motorcycling – what's been your experience?

That's an interesting question. When I finally got a degree it was in robotics, digital technology and computer science and there certainly aren't many women doing that. So I've always worked in male-dominated fields and never felt as if that has held me back. Interestingly, I also used to write poetry and I found more assumptions about gender in that area than the others. Nothing gives me more pleasure now than giving motorcycle maintenance advice to men, and hats off to the ones willing to take it! I love confounding expectations, especially in the days when I had long hair. I'd take my helmet off and, 'Oh my God, it's a girl!'

y What's motorcycling's biggest challenge?

I think one is demographics. Motorcyclists are an ageing group and we need to attract more young people into it. The other is alternative fuels. I would love to offer tours for electric motorbikes in Scotland, but until battery technology comes on, it more suits urban use. In Scotland you really do need your own transport to see things, because the distances are longer and there isn't enough public transport, so there's a tension there between that and promoting sustainable tourism. I think motorcycles have a part to play in that because they don't cause as much road damage or congestion as cars or camper vans.

superstitions and anxieties are, so he's able to dispel the myths one by one. I had a real thing about U-turns, and after a session with Tom I was doing them with a couple of fingers. A motorcycle is actually a very stable thing, and if you don't get in its way, all will be well.

Biker Down is also well worth doing. I was out with a group of women riders and we went over Dukes Pass, which involves a set of really sharp hairpins. One of the riders was a novice and came off, but three of the women had been on Biker Down, so they immediately knew what to do. I’ve also just done a four-day course on leading riders off-road, which included first aid – presented

by John Paul Dixon of MPower Training, for qualifications run by the Overland Guide Association. I’m keen to offer guided tours as well as the Cloverleaf routes. Any sort of training which increases your skills is a valuable thing.

y What about advanced riding?

I've done a lot of off-road training which is really useful for your on-road skills, very confidence building. After that, tarmac seems like a very easy and forgiving surface to ride on! I did a women's track training day with California Superbike School, which was a good way to feel the envelope of the bike more, which obviously you can't do on the public road. On a track with a good surface and nothing coming the other way, you can really start to feel what the bike can do.

The best road training I would recommend is Tom Killeen at i2i Motorcycle Academy – his machine control courses are something every rider should do, the most transformative piece of training I've ever done – Tom has worked out what our www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

Useful Links

Free Cloverleaf routes and links to bike-friendly B&Bs – www.cloverleaf.scot Adventure Travel Film Festival Scotland – www.atff.scot i2i Motorcycle Academy – i2imca.com/

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Small is Beautiful M

Are small bikes more fun? DAVID KERSHAW certainly thinks so

y front wheel is airborne, I’m running after my bike and struggling to release the stuck throttle. Having managed to re-mount and correct a wobble or two, I glance round to check that this embarrassing moment has gone unnoticed, but alas, the car drivers are open mouthed. Oh well, onwards trusty Honda C90, to the Highlands!

But first I pulled into the next layby and sorted the throttle cable – that's one of the advantages of smaller machines – simplicity, not to mention economy and even eccentricity. You can keep your fancy fly-by-wire, fuel injection and luggage capacity to shame a budget airline allowance. No, to me the best times have been on 125cc machines, and smaller.

And these small bikes have led to big experiences. Had I not embarked on my first cash-strapped tour of Scotland, I would never have discovered the BMF, nor seen the Orkneys or the Isle of Arran, eaten so many Mars Bars or forged friendships that have lasted nearly three decades.

Fast forward a few years…I’ve had the kids, the bigger bikes and more hair over that time, but I’ve always had a 125 tucked away, just in case the world implodes – to me it just makes sense!

I now own five bikes, the biggest of which is a 279cc twist and go, reserved for long distance two-up touring/camping, but the rest are all 125s. The Honda PCX 125 is honestly the best bike I have ever ridden. It takes two adults camping, on everything from unpaved tracks to motorways, cruising at 60mph all day in comfort and returns 108.8mpg.

The bike I will never part with is my trusty Honda CG125, found in bits in the back of a garage and one of a limited production run made back in Japan. But why? I’ve just said I believe the PCX is the whole package…it is clinical perfection. The CG is economical, reliable and (if needed) fixable with a couple of spanners and a Swiss Army knife. She has soul and offers me a sense of adventure and achievement at the end of the day. Together we took a camping trip to Wales on roads that included 200+ motorway miles without missing a beat.

I guess what I am trying to say is that size really doesn’t matter!

What really matters is getting out there. Whether it's solo, twoup, days out or long distance camping, these small machines can do it all. So throw on a rucksack, expand your horizons but above all keep riding!

Above: You can tour on anything...

Left: David Kershaw has been a small bike fan for years Right: Amazing how much luggage you can strap onto a scooter

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In

Praise of

Slowth ROGER BIBBINGS on the art of riding older, slower, smaller bikes

I

n the '70s I had a Norton Mercury, my friend Chris had a Commando and one year we decided to ride to the Manx Grand Prix, setting off up the M1 at high speed, mostly well over 80mph. We had to stop at every other services for a roll-up and kept on overtaking an old boy on a Velocette, who was trundling along at about 50mph. We eventually reached the Pierhead at Liverpool but no sooner had we parked, than we heard the pom pom pom of the trusty Velo, its rider appearing round the corner totally relaxed. It was classic tortoise and hare.

In all the years and miles since, I've had my fill of speed, though I still enjoy a brisk ride. But age tends to change one's perspective.

Lighter, more manoeuvrable machines offer more enjoyment, and riding my MZ 150 has spelled an end to competition with 50mph cars and looking for enough space to overtake. If you can only do 50mph anyway, then getting ahead of the traffic in front becomes not just impossible but totally irrelevant.

I've got a new word for a new challenge – 'Slowth.' That is, making maximum progress on a slow bike, which is probably more fun than making a fast bike go slow. Whatever speed and momentum can be achieved has to be maintained at all costs.

The hill, which on a 50bhp+ bike can be climbed as if it weren't there, becomes a riding challenge – having only 10bhp on tap demands total concentration.

There are other pluses too. Smaller, lighter machines are easier to manage on narrow lanes, and of course they're much cheaper to run than a big one – they're better on fuel, the tyres and brakes

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last longer. In fact, parked next to a £15,000 sports bike used for just a few weekends a year, a smaller and older bike (maybe used more often) is actually a powerful counter-cultural statement.

Slower motorcycling is more about the motorcycling than the machine. The journey, taking in the environment, looms large.

Riding hard and fast, you have to focus on the tarmac ahead, but at the natural speed of a smaller bike, you can savour the sights and the sounds of the countryside, the smell of autumn, of farmyard manure and wood smoke. And after travelling for 200 miles or so on minor roads, there is the feeling of achievement, of having reached a far-off destination.

Of course, the 50mph bike is not the ideal mile-muncher, and journeys will take longer, but the truth (which Covid has brought home) is that you don't need to cover vast distances to have a good time, and there are plenty of slow motorcycling adventures to be had exploring local roads on your doorstep.

In an age when faster, quicker, bigger and more are the most ubiquitous marketing watchwords, 'slowth' is really about something far deeper than motorcycling. It goes to the heart of how we choose to use that most precious and irreplaceable of all resources, time itself. To truly savour what motorcycling can really offer, we need to take our time to get the best out of it. And without going into too much detail, that principle applies to all the really important things in life.

Roger's article first appeared in Vintage & Classic Motorcycle, the magazine of the VMCC. Motorcycle R I D E R

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Rotary Returns

Remember the Norton rotary? Looks like it's making a comeback (but not as a Norton) Report: Peter Henshaw

I

f you were a motorcyclist in the 1980s and early '90s, you couldn't have failed to notice the twists and turns of the Norton rotary story. More convoluted than an alpine switchback, it was. Back in the early 1970s, when the BSA motorcycle empire was close to collapse, it was experimenting with an air-cooled rotary engine. The rotary (also known as the Wankel, after its inventor Dr Felix Wankel) would see limited use by Mazda and NSU in cars, and DKW and Van Veen in motorcycles.

Eschewing up-down pistons for a trochoidal piston which just

spun, this radical motor promised unrivalled smoothness and fewer moving parts than a conventional engine. Unfortunately, sealing that trochoidal combustion chamber proved tricky and the rotary also suffered from poor emissions.

Undaunted, BSA's successors – first NVT, then a barely surviving Norton – persevered with the concept into the 1980s, when Norton began building the rotary-engined Interpol 2 for the police, following that up with a civilian bike and an updated liquid-cooled version of the twin-rotor motor. Although the bikes had their fans, it was all on too small a scale to survive and Norton motorcycles collapsed in a welter of corporate shenanigans. The Norton name, now

Crighton CR700W will be for trackdays only 16

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Above: Essential information – the CR700 is a single-minded machine Below: Norton Classic was an air-cooled rotary was sold to the public (Photo: Mike Jackson)

owned by TVS of India, seems to have finally secured a stable future, though current plans don't include the rotary.

That might have spelled the end for the whole rotary motorcycle story, were it not for one Brian Crighton. Crighton, who worked for Norton, was the man behind the rotary bike's extraordinary run of racing success from the late 1980s and early '90s, attracting high profile sponsorship from Imperial Tobacco. Multiple short circuit race wins culminated in Steve Hislop winning the Senior TT in 1992 – it was the first time Norton had won a TT since 1961, and it was a glorious moment.

Power Breakthrough

Thirty years after that TT win, it looks as though the Crightondeveloped rotary is being revived, with a motorcycle (not road legal, for track days only) launching this year, followed by a road bike in 2024. Strangest of all, this revival seems to be centred on a factory in the heart of Dorset, whose main business is making paramotors and jet boards. I found Brian Crighton in his Dorset workshop, surrounded by rotary engine parts, and asked how this revival had come about.

“In the '80s I was a Honda dealer in Brownhills but went to work for Norton in Shenstone,” he told me. “I could see that the rotary had potential for a lot more power so I was always pushing them to go into racing. In the end I developed a racing bike myself, based on a crashed police bike which was spare at the factory. I worked evenings and had help from some of the lads there, paying for parts myself. The standard air-cooled rotary gave 85bhp but I was sure it could make 120, with a bit of development, which it did the first time we ran it.”

The secret to liberating this dramatic increase was sorting out the rotary's breathing. Rotary engines tend to produce a lot of heat and as developed by Norton, this air-cooled version was 'charge cooled', with the intake air sucked through the middle of www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

the crank before heading into the airbox and carbs, thus helping to cool the engine's internals on the way through. This enabled the air-cooled engine to run well on the road, but it strangled the breathing.

Brian Crighton's answer was the ejector exhaust system, which used a venturi in the exhaust to radically speed up the flow of gases, creating a powerful vacuum to suck the intake through more quickly. “That opens up the engine to give a lot more power.

It's quite a simple idea, but it works, sucking the heat out as well as increasing power.” The result wasn't peaky either according to its inventor – “you could tootle along at 1000rpm if you wanted.”

But Norton didn't have the funds to go racing on its own account, so Brian ended up leaving to develop the race bike on his own. Being a small team run on a shoestring, they desperately needed sponsorship, and their big chance came at a Brands Hatch meeting when reps from Imperial Tobacco, owner of the JPS brand, were there. JPS of course, had form, having sponsored Norton's earlier race team in the 1970s.

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Ron Haslam on a racing rotary – the bikes had a string of race wins in the late 1980s/early '90s (Photo: Timothy B./Pintrest)

“Steve Spray had never ridden the bike before,” remembers Brian, “but got on with it straight away. When he came back from practice we said what do you want us to change? 'Nothing,' he said, 'just put petrol in it!' Then he went off and won both main races, the crowd went mad and the JPS reps agreed to sponsor us – they gave us £1 million over three years.

“We had Steve, Trevor Nation and Simon Buckmaster riding for us. We were starting from scratch really, developing as we went, but the results started to come through. The JPS bikes had so much top speed, they'd be passing the Yamahas and Suzukis on the straights. We went to Sugo in Japan for a WSB round against all the works teams with Trevor Nation riding – there's a long start/finish straight at Sugo and Trevor was passing the works bikes on his back wheel, almost vertical! We were penalised for that.

“The only races we didn't win were in the wet. The rotary engine is producing power for about 200 degrees, rather than in pulses like a piston engine, so it did suffer from wheelspin. I later

developed an electronic traction control system, which no one else had in 1995.

“We were up to about 135bhp, thanks to porting and eventually higher compression, which was about the same as the opposition, but the bikes were a lot lighter, about 135 kilos, so you could brake later and steer quicker. By 1989 we had the lap record on every circuit in the country and won the Championship." Norton was able to capitalise, building the F1 sports bike, based on the racers, but the rotary's winning streak was about to come to an end. “After winning the '94 Championship we were banned,” says Brian. “I think Honda were a bit fed up with us beating the RC45...

Also by then Norton had just about gone bust so we didn't have a road bike frame to base the bike on.”

Brian then went to work for the National Motorcycle Museum, where he restored the rotary racers for Roy Richards and built a replica of what would have been the 1995 race bike, with traction control and variable intake geometry – the latter altered the length of the inlet tract by up to 120mm to produce good

Left: Early days at BSA, bench testing the prototype rotary engine Right: Rotary engines (this isn't a Norton) use a trochoidal piston (Photo: Londo Mollari)

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torque throughout the rev range. A spell as Technical Director for the Stuart Garner-led Norton followed that, but seeing how the business was run, Brian soon decided to leave...

New Rotary

That might have been end of the whole rotary motorcycle story, except that Brian was approached by one Gilo Cardozo. Gilo built paramotors – a powered hang glider with the motor and propeller strapped to the pilot's back – and in 2007 was planning an attempt on the paramotor altitude record by flying over Everest with professional adventurer Bear Grylls. What they needed was a lightweight, compact engine of high power, and Brian helped develop a supercharged rotary which fitted the bill. On the day, the supercharger on Gilo's paramotor failed at 28,000ft, but Bear Grylls carried on climbing, and bagged the record.

That led to a call from the MOD, which was also on the look out for a compact motor to power drones and unmanned helicopters.

As a result, Cardozo's company Parajet now makes a whole range of interesting devices including very trick (and expensive) rotary engines for drones, more conventional paramotors and the Jet Board, which is best described as a short-wheelbase surfboard with a two-stroke engine hidden inside its carbon-fibre skin.

There's also the SkyQuad, a sort of flying dune buggy which is fully road legal. The factory is an interesting place...

But for motorcyclists, the really interesting story lies in Brian Crighton's workshop, and the fact that that the factory is gearing up to produce its first bike. This is the CR700W, based around a Spondon alloy frame and powered by the latest version of that rotary engine.

All components will be top notch, with Dymag carbon-fibre wheels, Brembo brakes and Ohlins or Bitubo forks and rear shock.

As for the engine, it's the culmination of Crighton's painstaking development over the years, incorporating the ejector exhaust and variable intake tract, plus fuel injection. The motor now displaces 690cc with a pressurised gas-cooling system driven by an external pump which circulates the gas through an intercooler in the tailpiece. They're claiming 220bhp with 105lb ft torque peaking at 9500rpm, though according to Brian it's not a peaky delivery. “The torque curve is flat and the power curve is straight, so it's a very nice bike to ride.”

If the CR700W has a secret weapon, then it's likely to be weight. According to Gilo Cardozo, the production bike will weigh just 129kg, or to put that in context, it'll have Moto GP power with the weight of a scooter. What it won't be is road legal, and a batch of 25 CR700Ws is being planned to sell for track day use only. If all goes to plan, these will be assembled by Brian (price, around £85,00 plus VAT) before a less expensive road version follows in the spring of 2024. Thanks to die casting and other measures, that should come in at about £45,000, though again it'll be a limited edition. “We're planning to make 250,” says Gilo, “but if there's a demand for 500 then we'll make them. Each bike will be tested on Single Vehicle Approval, for which rotary engines are exempt from the emissions test.” I've checked, and he's right.

So, the Norton rotary story isn't over yet and might even be entering a new era in the last years of new petrol-engined bikes.

If this is a swansong for petrol-powered motorcycles, then they're going out on a good note.

Ejector exhaust was the secret to liberating more power

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PROFILE

Man on a

Mission Austin Vince has strong views on what makes a motorcycle adventure. But what makes him tick?

Interviewed by: Peter Henshaw

Exploring the great outdoors (preferably in natty overalls) is all part of Austin’s modus operandi

Y

ou can't ignore Austin Vince. He's usually seen at overland events, the hyperactive chap sporting striped overalls (orange, white, red or blue), and talking animatedly about any subject under the sun. Ex-British Army (officer training at Sandhurst), he rejected a military life in favour of teaching maths, working as a TV presenter and of course becoming one of Britain's best-known motorcycle overland travellers.

First to cross Siberia by bike, film maker, co-organiser of the Adventure Travel Film Festival and off-road orienteering events in the Pyrenees, the list goes on. To cap it all, he's married to Lois Pryce, who of course has written about her own motorcycle travels through Iran, Africa and the Americas.

When we spoke on Zoom, Austin was taking a break from watching candidate travel films for 2022's Adventure Travel Film Festival. He and Lois live on a boat on the Thames, and that's where he was when I interviewed him.

z How did you get into bikes?

My brother had a bike and I thought it was cool, so my first was an MZ TS125...I blame my brother, who should have guided me better! It took me three attempts to pass my bike test because all the old boys had said it was really just riding round the block.

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So I didn't take any lessons and didn't know anything about road positioning – thought it was just about not crashing!

z You joined the Army?

Yes, did a short course at Sandhurst and was sponsored by the Army through University. I was sold it as a windfall for any young man, but it turned out to be a bad deal because you had to spend your holidays in uniform. I remember the day of Live Aid in 1986 – I was up on Salisbury Plain, digging a trench all day, and thought of my friends who were at Wembley Stadium watching the bands...

So I started to fall out of love with the Army.

This became more serious in 1987 when I saw the film Gandhi – it was also the 20th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination, so there was lots of stuff about the civil rights struggle, which I'd known nothing about until then. Now I'd grown up with war films, being taught that the British are the good guys.

I'd also been taught that racism was in South Africa, but I began to understand that segregation was a white European construction, and that the USA, our glorious ally in two world wars, was actually a deeply racist society. I began thinking a lot about the morality of www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

Main picture: Austin and Lois hard at work recceing a Pyrenean route Small pictures: Mondo Enduro was a learning curve, and follow-up Terra Circa reaped the benefit. Both underlined the importance of team work.

violence, and this whole division into good vs bad guys.

This obviously doesn't work with the Army, but I had to go back to Sandhurst, because I owed them money. There were some good people in the Army, though some racist misogynists as well. So I went to see my commanding officer, explained that I was a pacifist and wanted to leave. 'The first thing you need to do,' he said, 'is have a psychiatric examination.' I think that says a lot about the Army.

Austin managed to escape the military and became a teacher, which apart from various breaks he still is four days a week.

z What was your first big trip?

That was Mondo Enduro, and my longest trip before that was three weeks around Eastern Europe just after the Berlin Wall came down. I had a Triumph 650 then, which blew up before we left, so I went on the back of my brother's Yamaha FJ1200. It was mind blowing, because we had no idea that Eastern Europe was going to be so materially backward.

That made us start thinking about riding a country we knew www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

nothing about, the Soviet Union – could we ride all the way across to Vladivostok and get a boat to Japan? Nobody had ever done it so we didn't even know if it was possible.

We did it, finishing up at Magadan, but we were forced to put the bikes on a train to get through the Zilov Gap. We shipped to Los Angeles, rode down to Santiago, flew the bikes to Johannesburg and rode home through Africa.

After Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia we rode to Eritrea where we got the boat to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and arranged a boat up to Suez. When we arrived in Jeddah we discovered that it was a closed port and we weren't allowed out. Our boat was the next day, but we noticed that no one was actually guarding the entrance to this closed port, so I got on my bike and rode out to the British Embassy. Having discovered that was possible, we decided to Motorcycle R I D E R

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Orienteering by motorcycle events have proved hugely popular

z What about the bike?

start riding up to Jordan, then Suez and see what happened. There were lots of police checkpoints as we rode north, but one by one they allowed us through. One of the bikes had broken down so we were towing it, and we ended up towing it 720 miles to Oman. We got to Jordan, then through Syria, Turkey and home – it was May when we got back to London.

We started out as seven, but three dropped out in Siberia and my brother left in Canada. Then we picked up an old school friend of mine in Johannesburg and the four of us rode all the way home.

That was really the best part of the trip, because it was the best line up of people – travelling is all about the people, not the kit.

Mondo Enduro really opened my eyes and turned me into an extreme internationalist, thanks to my experience of the Soviet Union. Here was a country that we had spent 50 years squaring up to, having been told it was the enemy who wanted to destroy us. But when we rode through it and met the people, we found it wasn't at all like that.

I don't hold any Russian civilian responsible for the actions of the Russian military. Just as I hope, Russian civilians don't hold ME responsible for the actions of the British military.

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My brother was the bike expert and he recommended the Suzuki DR350. He had ridden one from London to Nairobi in about 1992, when everyone said he should be on a bigger bike, and found that it was great, with fantastic suspension. We were all novices and couldn't afford big bikes anyway, so we all bought DR350s.

They turned out to be perfect and if I was doing that trip again on the bikes available then, I'd still take one of those. I have a Honda CRF250 now, which is more reliable, but I wouldn't say it's a better bike. The only thing I would change is the luggage – we were carrying far too much, about 70kg each, and could have coped with one-third as much. We had trouble with frames cracking because we had simply overloaded. Lots of other mistakes as well, like not changing consumables, all novice mistakes. Apart from my brother, none of us had owned a bike long enough for things to wear out.

Back home, Austin went back to teaching, but looking for new horizons, he made a film out of the footage taken on Mondo Enduro which went out on Discovery TV. It was a new thing back then, well before Long Way Round, and did well. As a result he was offered a TV presenting job, which he did for about three years.

z And you got into trail riding?

By then, the late 1990s, I had started riding off-road here because I'd ridden around the world but had never ridden trails in the UK. It was amazing – I'd done a few days on motocross circuits, but this was far better, because you were actually going somewhere as well as having the fun of riding off-road. And being in a group, there was always some collaboration, helping each other. I found places in England and Wales that I didn't know existed. It destroyed street biking for me as a hobby – this was far more fun.

Then some of us decided to have another go at crossing Siberia. On Mondo Enduro we had to put the bikes on the train to cross the Zilov Gap, because there was no road, like the Darien Gap. Some of my ex-pupils, who rode bikes, said why don't we go back to the Zilov Gap and www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

complete the ride? Since then of course, a road has been built. That was how Terra Circa came about in 2000.

Terra Circa, a rerun of Mondo Enduro, went mostly as planned, riding to Vladivostok, shipping the bikes to Japan, then the USA, and riding across USA before shipping home. The resulting film was shown on Men & Motors. Incidental music by Austin and his band.

z How did the Pyrenees events start?

A group of us used to go out to Almeria in Spain, but then I read an article about trail riding in the Pyrenees – I'd never seen anything like it and had no idea that the mountains were full of trails, really an off-road playground. We went to Stanfords in Covent Garden, bought the OS-equivalent maps of the Pyrenees, managed to plot some routes, went down there in a van and set off on the bikes with just the maps and a compass – it was exciting, an empty place.

I was hooked, and when we got back I decided to organise an event where people could map read their way through the Pyrenees on their trail bikes – orienteering in other words. It was about that time that I met Lois, and we spent the first week of our honeymoon in the Pyrenees on our trail bikes (she had a Serow), setting up routes for this new event.

That was in 2005 and we've run one every year since, adding the Twin Shock Trailfinder for older trail bikes, and a guided trail ride, which covers about 100 miles a day over five days. Most of the people who come on our trips are experienced trail riders and of those who aren't, some turn out to be brilliant off-road, some have to leave on the first day. So now we spend a lot of time briefing the riders so that they know what they're getting into.

z The Adventure Travel Film Festival...

This was really Lois's idea. Over the years, people had sent us some really good travel films, made independently, but no one knew about them. Then Long Way Round happened, which obviously was very successful, so we thought there must be a way to share these fantastic films. It was Lois's idea to make it a weekend so people could camp and watch a whole series of them outdoors. We held the first one in 2009 at an activity centre in Devon, with a dozen films, and about 250 people turned up.

Once that had happened, and we had a website to promote www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

the next Adventure Travel Film Festival, we were inundated with people's travel films which they had made independently to good standards, but which hadn't been seen by the public. It felt as if we had unearthed a whole genre that hadn't existed before. The ATFF has been run every year since.

z Trivia question – why do you wear overalls?

That was from Terra Circa. When we were in Japan we saw a guy in beautifully-tailored white overalls, so I bought a couple of pairs, then as we crossed the States, I had some blue and red stripes embroidered onto them. For the first time in my life, people came up and asked, 'where did you get those?'

z Current bike?

The CRF250L, which I love because it's a brilliant trail bike which is also a joy to ride on tarmac. I've been smashing mine to pieces for five years, or trying to, and after 25,000 miles it refuses to break down or not start. Reliable is not the right word – it's indestructible.

z What's the difference between Adventure and Challenge?

When we started the Adventure Travel Film Festival, we began to receive lots of films which were described as adventures, but really they were just about a personal physical challenge – it might have been mountain climbing, or canoeing or motorcycling, but mostly it was about 'I got wet and tired, but I made it.'

For me that's not an adventure at all, because everyday life is like that for lots of people. The real challenge is surviving in a completely foreign culture – how you react when surrounded by foreign policemen, for example. A minority of films we are sent are about that, what I would call the cultural adventure. I think the typical western motorcyclist is actually quite unadventurous, which I find baffling. People who have walked across Europe from Syria, with a baby in a pram, then risked their lives in the Channel to get to Britain – that's the real adventure.

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FEMA AGM 2022 JIM FREEMAN reports

The Annual General Meeting of FEMA – the Federation of European Motorcyclists Associations – was held online, via Teams, on Saturday 12th February 2022.

T

he meeting was chaired by Anna Zee, President (also Director of Political and Technical Services of the BMF). The attendees, 25 from 16 national motorcycle organisations, both inside and outside of the EU, with proxies and apologies from a further 6 NMOs, approved the agenda: A financial report from the Treasurer (BMF Chair Jim Freeman) who reported that, despite an operating loss of 6,224 euros, against a projected loss of 14,243 forecast in the 2021 budget, the overall position was a solid foundation for 2022.

The Committee voted to accept the financial operations of the Board, approving the usual disclaimer for the past year, 2021.

Elections were held for the Management Board and all the registered candidates were approved: President: Anna Zee Treasurer: Jim Freeman (BMF) Board: Jesper Christensen (SMC) Eric Maldiney (FFMC) Steinmar Gunnarsson (BLS) Lene Michelson (MCTC) The 2022 budget proposal was presented by Jim Freeman, as previously discussed at the October 2021 Committee meeting.

The final proposal offered a ‘new normal’ costing and a ‘full lockdown’ option, both forecasting a loss for 2022, either of 2000 or 1000 euros respectively. The package was accepted by majority vote. The Treasurer pointed out that FEMA has had, of recent years, a track record of outperforming the budget, which meant that with the reserves carried over from 2021, there was a cushion that could be relied on in 2022. The annual NMO fees increase, generally proposed in line with inflation, would be waived, because of the members' widespread difficulties after the second year of the pandemic.

Secretariat Reports

From Dolf Willigers (General Secretary) and Wim Taal (Communications Officer).

Dolf Willigers reported that: In general, operating conditions were currently still in lockdown with meetings online, whether in Brussels or Geneva.

The ongoing de-carbonisation agenda had generated many meetings with different bodies, which revealed a surprising 24

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discrepancy of research and policy choices. Dolf is working on a webinar presentation about the energy transition, and the implications for motorcycling, details to be announced by FEMA. There followed a proposal, adopted by the meeting, to have a major policy discussion on de-carbonisation at the FEMA Spring meeting.

There had been a number of meetings about road safety, including revision of the 3rd Driving Licence Directive (DLD), topside motorcycle protection for crash barriers, and other infrastructure matters in both Europe and the USA. Ongoing ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) meetings, including vehicle data ownership and data security.

FIM-FEMA co-operation, new position papers had been published, available on the website: FIME_FEMA_2022_lowres. pdf (femamotorcycling.eu) Wim Taal reported that: Facebook followers of FEMA had increased by 6667 in the last year, to 47,132. The most online visitors to the FEMA website were from the UK, which also took second place on Facebook, for active followers.

The next FEMA Committee meeting will be hosted by MCTC on 11th June 2022, as a hybrid meeting. www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

AFTER THE CRASH Had an accident? Thorneycroft – the BMF's Legal Line Solicitors – advises on what to do next

N

Words: Mary Lomas Pics: Louise Hillier

one of us like to think about it, but accidents can happen, and when it's not your fault, you can pursue a claim against the other party. Your insurers will tell you that you must use a specific solicitor, but this is not correct – you can decide who represents you. We are specialist motorbike solicitors – motorcycle claims need and deserve specialist attention because the injuries sustained, liability issues, and losses incurred are quite specific.

At the accident scene, gather as much information you can if you are able to. Take some pictures of the defendant's vehicle and the position of the vehicles, and get the details of any witnesses.

Your claim will consist of your injury, financial losses and future financial losses. In basic terms, who is responsible will be considered, your injury will be investigated, and your financial losses will be quantified.

Liability investigations will establish fault, drawing on statements, the police report, CCTV, camcorder footage etc. If the defendant admits liability, that's straightforward, though their insurer will investigate to see if there is any scope to wriggle out of responsibility.

Medical Report

As for your injury, a medical expert will be instructed to prepare a report, and you may need to see more than one different specialist. Your claim will be valued on the basis of the injuries and the prognosis given by the expert. It may also be several months before you are examined as most experts want to see how your recovery progresses before they can comment. Their report will evaluate your condition, what your likely future outcome will be and whether any treatment can be recommended.

Your financial losses relate to lost earnings, travelling expenses, damage to your bike and clothing, treatment costs, care and assistance. More serious cases will also involve future losses, which need to be taken into account. The following factors will be considered.

1. Earning Capacity – will you be able to work as you did before the accident? Will you need to reduce your hours, take on a less demanding job or retrain?

2. Care and Assistance – will you need help with domestic chores and personal care? Even if it's your husband or wife who will be looking after you a claim can still be made.

3. Aids and Equipment – Will you need orthotics, aids around the house such as grabbers, stair rails, stair lifts, jar openers, shopping trolleys etc? www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

4.

5.

6.

Vehicle Adaptions – will your bike need to be adapted to enable you to ride again? How many bikes are you likely to buy during your life time and will they all need adapting?

Treatment/Rehabilitation/Surgery – You might need a hip or knee replacement in 10-15 years, ongoing physiotherapy, CBT or other treatment. The cost of any ongoing procedure and costs all need taking into account.

Accommodation – In the most serious cases your accommodation needs to be explored.

Evidence is All

All losses need to be supported by evidence and in particular your medical evidence. It is important that you retain documentation that will help to support your claim. If the evidence doesn’t support a loss then the claim for that loss is unlikely to be successful.

That is a basic outline of what we need to think about in respect of building a claim. There are twists, turns and procedural issues, but the more documentation and evidence you can provide, the better your case will be.

And don't forget that Thorneycroft offers a wide range of legal services, all of which can be accessed through our dedicated BMF Legal Line number 01625 506697. Incidentally we can also provide a very useful talk to your club on what you need to think about following a collision. Just contact MaryLomas@ thorneycrofts.co.uk for more information. Remember, stay safe, look after yourself and enjoy your bike.

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Advertising Feature

USERNAMEKATE’S 5 FAVOURITE EUROPEAN MOTORCYCLE ROAD TRIPS From our very own Isle of Man TT circuit to the stunning Stelvio Pass in Italy, motorcycle blogger and Bikesure ambassador UsernameKate, AKA Kate Ralph, has revealed five of her favourite European road trips.

1 The mountain passes of Switzerland

I based myself in Andermatt, a quaint town in the Swiss mountains, before tackling the country’s famous passes, the Gotthard, the Grimsel, the Furka and the Susten Pass.

The Susten pass was my favourite. The sound of my single cylinder KTM Duke 690 reverberating through the mountains and fast, meandering roads was intoxicating. The Susten Pass is something all bikers need to experience.

2 The Isle of Man TT circuit

The atmosphere, the mountains, the excitement and the right to legally pass the police at 100mph, make the TT circuit a must on every biker’s bucket list. I love the racing and the camaraderie of being with crowds of like minded people, but just as much I love riding the infamous mountain road.

This is a road with no speed limit and it’s absolutely intoxicating riding flat out, as fast as you can handle. However, it’s wise to get up early and ride it when it’s less busy.

3 The breathtaking NC500 in Soctland

It’s easy to understand why thousands of bikers, hikers, campers and car clubs flock to Scotland for the NC500 each year. The views along this route tracking the 516 miles of the north coast, beginning and ending at Inverness Castle, are absolutely breathtaking.

My favourite stop-off en route was Ullapool, a small fishing town on the west side of the country. It has plenty of good eateries and you can switch down a gear by taking a sea cruise and taking in a little dolphin watching.

4 Nordschleife and the Nurburgring

Another bucket list riding experience for a lot of bikers is the Nurburgring. There’s something extremely exhilarating about a Mitsubishi Evo flying past, just the width of cigarette paper away from you.

There are a few things to remember when riding the Nurburgring: • Use your mirrors a lot. You will be sharing the circuit with some super fast bikes and cars and they will fly up behind you in the bat of an eyelid. Constant use of the mirrors will give you the time to move over and get out of their way.

• Use your right indicator and keep right as you get overtaken.

Make your lines predictable and stay out of the way.

5 The scenic Stelvio Pass in Italy

When you think of iconic motorcycle passes, the Stelvio Pass is foremost in your mind. Stelvio Pass rises to an elevation of 2,757m above sea level and boasts no less than 48 hairpins en route to the top. Once you get there, there’s even a nice cafe where you can relax and soak in the experience.

A tip when climbing the Stelvio Pass is, before you take on the switchbacks, look up to check that your path is clear, as the turns are so tight you may well end up on the wrong side of the road. The beauty of getting to the top is you get to come down the other side.

Motorbike insurance you can trust

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26

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www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

AFFORDABLE CLASSIC

Moto

Morini 3½ The ultimate affordable classic?

Morini owner Neil Trinder is your guide

W

hat you see is probably the best-kept secret in the classic bike world. I give you the Moto Morini 3 1/2 V-twin.

When this bike was introduced to the world by Moto Morini back in 1974, it was a bike of firsts.

First production machine to have a belt-driven cam, the first with electronic ignition and first with a six-speed gearbox. And available in two models – Strada as in the picture, or Sport with tweakier cams and factory fitted clip-ons.

Power comes from a 344cc 72-degree V-twin with twin Dellorto carburettors. The engine revs freely up to the red line and just a bit over at 8500rpm with the power band coming in at around 5000. This bike has to be ridden like you stole it to get the best out of the sweet little twin.

The frame is superbly sorted and will handle any kind of twisty bits you can throw at it with Marzzochi forks and shocks, though my shocks are Hagon – the originals had become unusable due to standing for a long time and new ones are hard to get. The earlier switchgear is, well ...

Italian, but the later stuff, modelled on Japanese switches, is far better. My 1978 Morini's original switchgear is still going strong after over 40 years of use.

Later models with disc brakes and cast alloy wheels don’t attract premium prices like the earlier bikes with spoked wheels on alloy rims and twin-leading shoe front drum. Either way, spares www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

are relatively easy to source from Mdina Italia or the Morini Owners Club Forum. Spares prices are usually reasonable and quality good, though some aftermarket parts are pretty much as with other marques, some good, some not so good, dependent on their country of origin.

As for bikes, prices for later Morinis are typically between £3250 and £3750 dependent on condition, though a rough example can be purchased for less than £3000. If you want the earlier Sport model with TLS brakes and spoked wheels, then expect to pay north of £5500 – it's a lot more, but still considerably less than a Ducati or early Guzzi single. Fuel economy is good, and I have had 65-70mpg out of mine when ridden sedately, no less than 45mpg when ridden hard.

In conclusion, this is a throaty, flickable, lightweight little bike with no vices and when on song, boy does she sound sweet, though the Morini really has to be ridden like a two-stroke to get the best out of it. Whenever I ride it, it brings out my inner 16-year-old even though I am 70 with a big stupid grin on my face. You can keep your Ducatis, but then I would say that wouldn’t I?

Top: Morini makes a great affordable classic Above: Revvy little V-twin is a gem Below: Later (cheaper) version with alloy wheels and disc brakes

What’s your Affordable Classic?

Do you own a bike more than 25 years old and generally available used for less than £3000? Tell us about it in 500 words (with a few high resolution pictures) and send to: editor@bmf.co.uk

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DAY RIDE

Monstering Mount Etna

ELEANOR CAWTE on a day ride you probably haven't done – Mt Etna

S

Mt Etna is an eerie yet beautiful place to ride - Eleanor and her Monster loved it

What’s your favourite day ride? Tell us about it in 500 words with a few pictures (high resolution please). You could see it later in Motorcycle Rider and receive a BMF gift!

Send to: editor@bmf.co.uk

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tarting my ascent on twisting roads, the hot pine and rosemary smell of Mount Etna’s wooded lower slopes wafted into my lid. I was glad to leave behind the tedious A18 motorway and congested towns of Misterbianco and Paterno, where my Monster 696’s pipes had gently roasted my legs.

Signs prohibiting bikes and lowering the speed limit to 20km/h (12mph) in the event of volcanic sand on the road gave the first hints of Etna’s continuing activity. As I passed through alpine-like villages, the vegetation gave way to black, barren volcanic rock, which at one point had almost entirely buried an abandoned house.

At Nicolosi Nord (Etna tourism central) I abandoned any thoughts of taking the cable car towards the summit when I saw the lengthy queue, and contented myself with a few crater-side selfies while trying to avoid being blown off Etna by the gusty winds. Too encumbered by bike kit to follow the ant-like line of sightseers plodding up a higher crater from a recent eruption, I remounted the Monster and started the slow ride down the switchbacks the other side, glad of the 696’s engine braking.

Sandwiched between two tour buses with little room to overtake, I inhaled the sweet floral scent from the roadside yellow broom, which no doubt contributed to the flavour of the Mount Etna honey being sold in the car park.

After some slightly hairy hairpins, I stopped for a gelato in Zafferana Etnea before pottering through narrow lanes north towards Linguaglossa. The olive groves, almonds and

citrus further south in Inspector Montalbano country round Noto had been replaced by hazel coppices, apple, peach and pear trees, and ultimately by vineyards.

The diversity of north east Sicily's landscapes continued to delight. The Alcantara rocky gorge, which reminded me of the south of France, followed the vineyards before giving way to cereal fields, untidy smallholdings and the odd roadside fruit vendor. (Sadly, there was no room for giant peaches in my Kriega tailpack.) Meanwhile Etna puffed out wisps of smoke, while a patch of snow could be seen on its northern flank. The road climbed through pretty villages clinging to cliffsides, like Rocella Valdemone, with photogenic churches hanging above valleys below.

Much to my surprise, I then passed through damp-smelling temperate woodland, bracken and gorse, which cleared to reveal a hilltop with rocky outcrops like Dartmoor tors. Only the jangling of bells round the necks of the grazing sheep, when I stopped to take a picture, confirmed I was definitely not in Devon!

The final 20 or so km through the Nebrodi mountains to Montalbano Elicona brought the first Sicilian roads in worse condition than my Surrey commute, with uneven peeling tarmac and a fine collection of potholes. Arriving at the Montalbano hotel with clouds looming overhead, I was ready to hit the bar and work my way down the list of the fine red wines grown on Etna’s rich volcanic soil. The mountain makes a good day ride.

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Bikes for Good

Mental Health Motorbikes M

ental health used to be a taboo subject, but not any longer, and the last decade has seen a social revolution in how it is viewed, openly talked about and treated. One new approach, especially (though not exclusively) for men, is to find a way into the issue via shared interests, and Mental Health Motorbike (MHM), which was founded in 2020 by Paul Oxborough, is the perfect example.

With a backgound in youth and community work, and 30 years a motorcyclist, Paul was probably an ideal person to get people talking about their mental health, with biking as the essential lubricant. “The idea came out of a difficult situation,” he told MOTORCYCLE RIDER. “We lost a friend to suicide and decided we had to do something about it. Having been a motorcyclist for so long, I knew that community and thought that was a good place to start.”

Paul was sponsored to take a two-day training course in mental health first aid, a recognised qualification which has become the charity's focus, training up other people to offer a 'first responder' service for those who need help. He bought a BMW R1200GS (“an impulse buy”) and at first the idea was to just turn up on the logo'd bike at events and hand out leaflets, but that soon changed. “After more research, we realised that this had to be an open group, not just for men, which is how we've ended up with a very diverse group of people, aged from 17-70, and women as well as men. One of the things they all have in 30

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Motorcycling is good for your mental health, and there's a new charity to prove it common is a love of motorcycling. It's the glue that holds us together.” In fact, diversity has turned out to be a strength. “Some men can find it difficult to open up to other men,” says Paul, “but when there are women in the group they are more likely to. It's the same with older people, who often come to us because they've had to give up their licence and have lost their motorcycle social network as a result. But having those older people in the group is really useful, because they can bring their time and experience to help the younger ones."

Training & Support

These peer support groups talk online (though there's also an increasing live presence at shows, see below) led by moderators who have taken the mental health first-aid training course. Since MHM was officially launched in March 2020, Bennetts Insurance have stepped up to help finance the training programme, and by February 2022 over 130 people had been through the course.

Anyone can apply to do the course, though Paul emphasises that this really is 'first aid'. “It doesn't qualify you as a counsellor or therapist,” he says. “The idea is to train someone who can listen to what the issues are and work out how best to support the person who has come to us for help, and which professional to put them in touch with. If there's a GP referral, someone could be waiting three months for a professional, so we have a members-only group on Facebook to help them through that period. On Sunday evenings we have a virtual ride out on zoom so that people can www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

Opposite page top: Support from DocBikes, among others, has been crucial Opposite page inset: MHM is run by riders, for riders Top left: High profile support from Charley Boorman

come and just talk about bikes.”

Obviously people may come to the charity in a fairly desperate state, and so far over 100 people have been at the point of suicide when they approached MHM. “There have been some real emergencies,” says Paul, “and it's been a challenging time in many ways, but we've helped them all.” Not all calls are that critical, and a traffic light system is used to respond in the most appropriate way. Someone in a crisis and needing immediate one to one support gets a red light. Amber signals that they need access to the peer support group and a green light if they just need to chat, in which case an MHM volunteer will invite them to a local event. The group has about 100 'ambassadors' across the country, who act as local contacts, giving out cards and putting up posters at biker meeting places.

Support from big names like Bennetts, Thorneycroft Solicitors, Biker Down, DocBike and others has enabled MHM to have a public presence at an increasing number of shows. They were at Motorcycle Live for the whole ten days, with a generous-sized stand which needed 22 volunteers to run it over the show. “We had people coming onto the stand who needed help,” says Paul, “and they could see that we are non-judgemental and ready to listen. The other success we've had is that people we have helped have gone on to take the training and are helping others.”

As for the future, MHM has big plans for 2022. The aim is to www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

Above: The official MHM BMW GS is seen out and about Left: Volunteers help raise the profile at shows Right: Paul Oxborough is Founding Director of Mental Health Motorbike

put 1000 volunteers through the mental health first-aid course this year to radically increase the help on offer, along with a higher profile at shows, cafes and meeting places. It seems like Mental Health Motorbike is a group whose time has come.

Case study – Simon Free

I had some mental health issues, then along the road to recovery I had a dose of realisation that I shouldn’t be living to work. After my strenuous walk with the black dog of depression I needed to find something for me. I wanted a motorbike. I needed to be reminded that life is about the journey and not the destination. I started to look at bikes on the net, read the magazines and eventually visited the bike shows and showrooms. Biking was the perfect way out, and I knew I had found what I needed all along, a positive hobby.

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ws

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summer.

Busy Bee This time, a club with real cafe racer heritage – the Busy Bee. VINNIE explains

W

Top left: On Brighton Seafront – Brighton Burn-up is a big event for Busy Bee Top right: Triton and Cafe Racer Day at the Ace Cafe Right: All powered two-wheelers are welcome

Contact: www.busybeemcc.com

Promote your Club!

Want your club to be profiled on these pages?

Email us: editor@bmf.co.uk

hat makes this small club extraordinary are its members, and we’ve got some cafe racer classics – both bikes and riders!

The club takes its name from what used to be the Busy Bee Cafe on the A41 in Watford, just north of London, which was a popular venue in the 1950s for the cafe bar cowboys who would run to the Ace Cafe, down to Brighton and elsewhere.

The cafe itself is long gone, but the club was formed around 2000, has a membership of just over 100 and welcomes all who share an interest in bikes. We meet on a Wednesday evening at Broadlakes Social Club near London Colney, St. Albans from 6pm and organise regular runs across the year including charity runs and the usual places/events of interest.

Look out for our stand at events, such as Triton & Cafe Racer Day at the Ace Cafe or the Brighton Burn-up day, ably manned by our Chairman Brian Beasley and his wife Pat who give their time generously to ensure the club is welcoming and well run, so come and say hello. Wherever we meet, it's always friendly with the inevitable reminiscing, boasting, tall tales, good humour and general bike-obsessed banter.

Many members are still riding in their seventies and even eighties, a testament to great riding skills and no doubt a good

www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

deal of luck, despite their crazier days. They include former champions of road racing, trials, sidecar racing, the Isle of Man TT etc and have the injuries and replacement parts to prove it!

Bob Brooks, Ian Stuart and Charlie Williams, to name just three, are often at our meets – all three featured in the Ace Cafe magazine and in that classic film, The Leather Boys.

Our annual reunion takes place on the first Sunday in September at the site of the original cafe, which is long since demolished, but now marked by a plaque in the grounds of the Hilton Hotel on the A41 – the Hilton provides our catering on the day which includes fundraising and awards, plus evidence that we don't take ourselves too seriously.

We produce a great magazine-style newsletter each year which is included in the ridiculously cheap £10 membership fee, and which states our aim on the cover: 'Keeping our heritage alive' and 'No Meetings, no Rules and no Politics,' which about sums it up.

Check us out at www.busybeemcc.com or if you’re ever around our way do drop in to see us and bring some stories of your own to share...if you can get a word in!

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BMF FOUNDATION

What is the BMF Foundation all about? Trustee PETE LAIDLAW explains

T

he Foundation has been in existence for many years and was originally set up by the BMF as a way to financially support good work being done on behalf of the motorcycling community in a different way to BMF's core work (which is the essential task of representing riders, dealing with threats and improving matters). The Foundation is different in that it has a set of aims and objects to make the environment safer for riders and support medical research. In a nutshell the list is: • Improvements in safety by influencing road design • Influencing the design of other vehicles so that chances of injury to motorcyclists are reduced • Research into protective equipment • Prevention of vehicle crime • Research into the treatment of injuries typically incurred in motorcycle crashes and support for the care and rehabilitation of those injured Five trustees are responsible for the working of this, the charity arm of the BMF. Their main task is to accept and review applications, then grant the appropriate funding to worthwhile causes within the objectives. We are always open to applications which are genuinely in the interests of safety, medical research, treatment and rehabilitation. For example, a current pending application is to partly support the overall funding of a specialist unit for treatment of spinal injuries, but many other grants have been approved over the years.

I have been a trustee from the outset and have been pleased to be a part of supporting many projects, especially on road safety and design. An example is the IHIE (Institute of Highway

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Incorporated Engineers) Guidance for road design and the Kill Spills campaign, both of which made a significant difference.

A study on the underlying causes of motorcycle crashes was published to aid government thinking and decisions on traffic management. Moreover, there has been support for direct work on road safety through the BMF’s Blue Riband advanced riding scheme and providing medical data carriers for the Biker Down initiative.

The Foundation is supporting the biking world and is open to donations from small amounts, regular donations by standing order or legacy gifts. In common with other charities, your money goes further if you are a UK taxpayer and declare Gift Aid to add a further 25% to your donation.

The biking world can be better with your support through the BMF Foundation.

How to Donate

We can accept donations by cheque or CAF (Charities Aid Foundation) voucher. If you would like to contribute to the work of the BMF Foundation, post cheques and CAF Vouchers to BMFF, Jack Wiley House, 3 Oswin Road, Brailsford Industrial Estate, Braunstone, Leicester LE3 1HR. Ask for a form from the administration office if you would like to set up a regular payment or Gift Aid – contact Helen (a trustee) on 0116 279 5112.

Peter Laidlaw, BMFF Trustee Registered Charity, number 1097835

www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

Member Zoom Meet

T

he BMF's annual member Zoom meet-ups were held on Saturday, 19th February, and a great success they were too, with both individual members and club representatives attending.

These meetings began with introductions of the BMF staff and management team and their reviews of 2021 followed by a look forward to 2022. We had reports from Emily Rochester (Government Relations Executive Trainee), Cheryl McMonnies (Membership Secretary) and Helen Hancock (Administrator), then from the BMF Chair Jim Freeman, and fellow Directors Howard Anderson (Finance), Sheonagh Ravensdale (Communications) and Anna Zee (Political & Technical Services).

Questions, ideas and suggestions were raised from attendees and there was a good discussion and sharing of ideas.

These included: •

Decarbonisation is the biggest challenge of our lifetimes.

Continuing to keep the pressure on the government idea that private travel is ‘so 20th Century’ and that all commuter-led ideas are compatible with rural areas • Seeking representation for small motorcycle businesses that tend to be ignored by some business representatives, who appear to focus on larger companies • How we move into the online world of influencers • The petrol engine's future and the different ways to move forward • Ending the confusion over different terminology for different • types of powered two-wheelers eg bike, motorcycle, electric • scooter, moped, etc.

Very soon the hour was up and after a quick poll the meeting closed with many positive feelings and everyone looking forward to the next time.

Helen Hancock www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

National Road Rally 2022 - 3rd-4th July

Plans for this year’s National Road Rally on 3rd-4th July are well underway and we have a terrific matrix of 126 controls which is the most we have had for many years. We have tried to get locations as far north (Newcastle upon Tyne), south (Land’s End), east (Norwich) and west (Craven Arms in Shropshire) as possible and ventured into areas we have not been before. We hope that when entries open in May, we will have all our usual supporters and some more who are starting out on their NRR addiction! As always, updates can be found on our Facebook page and group also on our website www.nationalroadrally.co.uk We are excited to be able to announce that we have also taken over the running of the Welsh National Road Rally (7th May) and the Scottish National Road Rally (3rd-4th September). All information can be found on the individual Facebook pages.

Entries for the Welsh National Road Rally open beginning of March, NRR mid-May and Scottish National Road Rally mid-July.

2022 Motorcycle R I D E R

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Down YOUR WAY ALL THE BMF CONTACTS YOU NEED REGION 1 – SCOTLAND

Regional Chair - Tom Duncan, 01506 842131, 07887 835321, tom@tomduncan.co.uk DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY Frank Dickinson, 01556 612102, dickietriker@googlemail.com Neil Hunter, 01556 610524, linda-hunter@sky.com AYRSHIRE - Pauline Speirs, 01560 321791, fastrakscotland@aol.com GLASGOW - Nick Elliott, 01416 379305, drnickelliott@gmail.com PERTHSHIRE John Gauld, 07803 622317, jag1969@o2.co.uk REGION 2 – NORTH EAST

BINGLEY - John Lancaster, 01274 560174, john-lancaster@sky.com Tina Walker, 01377 217242 REGION 3 – MIDLANDS

REGION 4 – EAST ENGLAND

CAMBRIDGESHIRE Tim Flinders, 01223 212721 NORFOLK - Richard Pike, 07754 104377 REGION 5 – LONDON

Contact - Anna Zee, anna.zee@bmf.co.uk

Councillor - Jim Freeman, jim.freeman@bmf.co.uk REGION 6 – SOUTH EAST

BERKSHIRE - John Ward, 01344 428667, 07880 645970, john.c.ward@hotmail.co.uk HAMPSHIRE - Ian Hammond, 07989 531121 iphamonda@googlemail.com KENT - Mike Gallafent, 01322 400775, 07503 165035, michaelgallafent@yahoo.co.uk OXFORDSHIRE - Hugh Jaeger, 01865 554814, 07762 093310, hugh_jaeger@hotmail.com REGION 7 – SOUTH WEST

COVENTRY AND WEST MIDLANDS - John Nelson, jsnlsn@btinternet.com

Regional Chair - Jim Peel-Cross, 01249 819671, 07470 899546, jimpcross@hotmail.co.uk

DERBYSHIRE - Rod Nuth, 01283 810166, rod@nuth.me.uk

BATH - Carenza Ellery, 01225 835599, 07962 076370 (text preferred) cbx550mini@gmail.com

LINCOLNSHIRE - Mitch Elliott, 07982 802588, elliott.mitch@gmail.com WARWICKSHIRE - Mark Lunt, 07767 870117, mark.a.lunt@gmail.com NOTTINGHAMSHIRE Jerry Hough, 07825 997969, jerry.hough@mail.com HEREFORD AND WORCESTER Frank Whittaker, 01531 635843, frankwhittaker62@gmail.com SHROPSHIRE -James Ellerby, jamesellerby@btinternet.com

CORNWALL - Tiffany Coates, 07805 078062, tiffanycoates@hotmail.com WEST SOMERSET - Brian Cox, 07498 300504, briancox1965@gmail.com WEST WILTSHIRE Les Simper, 07789 354371, les.simper@btinternet.com SOUTH WILTSHIRE Roger Stone, 01264 398134 07928 822671, r.stone703@ntlworld.com

MORE BMF REPS NEEDED! If your county is not listed and you would like to be a BMF rep, we would love to hear from you - please email admin@bmf.co.uk 36

Motorcycle R I D E R

Numbered Regions REGION 8 – WALES

Central Wales Area Representative - Phil Harries, 07968 168486, dpharries1@aol.com REGION 9 – NORTH WEST

Regional Chair - Peter Laidlaw, 01282 776336, 07939 260524, peter.laidlaw@bmf.co.uk Rep/Councillor - Dave Barton, 01772 455018, 07971 519004, bmf_r9@notrab.co.uk Councillor - Mick Gibbons, 07940 816492, mick.gibbonsindarwen@ googlemail.com CENTRAL LANCASHIRE Derek Gustard, 07763 412859 derekgustardmagic@hotmail.co.uk

Simon Birchall, 01254 708893 Ste Bartley, 01254 278187 ste.bartley@googlemail.com REGION 10 - NORTHERN IRELAND

Regional Chair Howard Anderson, 07918 903497, howand@hotmail.co.uk

CO. ANTRIM Davy Gillespie (club liaison) 02893 350495, 07882 525777 gwocni@hotmail.com CO. DERRY/LONDONDERRY Alex Selfridge, 07842 424422 gi1jhq@hotmail.com NATIONAL AND ONE-MAKE CLUBS FORUM (NAOMC)

CHESHIRE - Jim Bradburn, 01606 836782 jimbradburn@hotmail.co.uk

Chair Stephen Davenport stephendavenport98@me.com

Cumbria David Kershaw david.kershaw@bmf.co.uk 01697 742 201

Deputy Chair Jacqueline Bickerstaff, 01327 705258 jacqueline.bickerstaff@ btinternet.com

EAST LANCASHIRE Mick Gibbons, 07940 816492, mick.gibbonsindarwen@ googlemail.com

RIDER TRAINING ADVICE Are you looking for training at any level?

Ring our membership office on 01162 795112

Secretary - John Gardner, 01695 622792, john.gardner119@gmail.com

WRONG NUMBER? If these aren’t the right contact details, let us know at admin@bmf.co.uk and we’ll put it right. www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk

BMF INSURANCE FOR BMF MEMBERS It’s time to get a great deal on your motorcycle cover with BMF Insurance, underwritten

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Get a quote today, call 0800 587 2955 BMF Insurance is administered by Bikesure Insurance Services who are a trading name of Adrian Flux Insurance Services. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

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WIN! A new 2022

Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 worth over £6000!

W

e love raffles at the VMCC, especially when the first prize is a ready to ride motorcycle.

So we're delighted to offer this brand new Royal Enfield Interceptor as top prize for our 2022 Draw which will be drawn and a winner announced at the Festival of 1000 Bikes in 16th/17th July at Mallory Park.

As a winner you will have the choice of the new ‘ready to ride bike’ or wait for delivery of a new one in your choice of colour.

RE's 650cc twin is now well established as one of Britain's top selling retro bikes. It's fast enough to be fun, easy to ride and looks the classic part, all backed up by thoroughly modern brakes, suspension and manners.

To enter:

www.vmcc.net/Raffles

1) Go to: 2) Watch out for raffle tickets included with Vintage & Classic Motorcycle, the VMCC members' magazine and at VMCC outlets 3) Buy tickets from one of our friendly volunteers at bike shows and events in 2022 For terms and conditions: www.vmcc.net/Raffles

Other VMCC Raffles in 2022:

*VMCC Members' Raffle for a Fantic Caballero 500 will be drawn on May 1st at the National Memorial Arboretum. Simply use your AGM proxy vote online at vmcc.net/agm to get your free entry. *Christmas Raffle will be launched at the Festival of 1000 Bikes on July and is expected to be drawn in December 2022.

OPEN TO ALL 38

Motorcycle R I D E R

www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk