pandemic How the turned my passion into a business

We all remember that moment when we were told that the whole country was going in lockdown and we were to stay at home for three weeks. It was the defining moment in 2020 that has changed and shaped many lives.

By MAJA KENNEY

I QUITE ENJOYED THE THREE WEEKS of guilt free nothingness. Speaking to other business owners it is clear that even when we take a well-deserved break, we still feel like we should be working. The fact that everyone had to stay at home and basically do nothing meant I could finally relax. I was starting to think I’d be quite good at the whole retirement thing, and my garden had never looked so good!

Freedom to change direction

However, the realisation soon hit that the events sector was not going to come back anytime soon. I needed to adjust to the fact that my business supplying exhibition stands was not going to keep me busy for a while.

The time was perfect to assess my priorities and figure out what I actually wanted to do. Having passed my motorcycle test in my forties –something I had wanted to do since I was a teenager – I have definitely made up for lost time. On average, I cover 12,000 miles a year. There is no easy way to describe how I feel when I am riding my motorcycle. The cliche of ‘freedom’ is used so often because it is true. Since obtaining my licence and buying my first motorcycle, I have been showing people some of the roads in North Wales. It is a well-known fact that North Wales offers some of the best roads in the UK for motorcyclists, and so the idea of offering day tours around North Wales came to me.

The challenges of lockdown

I tested the market for my idea on social media. Initially we were limited to what could be covered in a day, because hospitality venues were still closed. But at the first sight of ‘freedom’, the bookings started coming in and I took my first group out for a day. We brought our own sandwiches and coffee flasks and set off.

Despite high levels of anxiety beforehand, the day was a huge success. At each planned stop, the happy faces of my customers as they took their helmets off, made my heart do a happy dance. The feedback, the comments and the smiles were all I needed to confirm I have made the right choice.

Taking it to the next level

The day tours carried on around the restrictions until the hotels started to open up. At this point I extended the tours to offer three or four days and cover more than just North Wales. I designed a three-day tour to cover a day in North, a day in Mid and a day in South Wales. And even then, this was just scratching the surface of what Wales has to offer.

It has been wonderful to be able to share some of the lesser-known roads with other motorcyclists.

It is very much a seasonal business, though and last winter I signed up to become an Amazon delivery driver. The long hours, the poor pay and less than ideal working conditions made me even more determined that 2021 would be a great year that pushed my business further.

National to international Spring 2021 I started the tours up again and it’s been a busy year. One of my early bookings in 2020 asked me to take them on a tour to Slovenia. This is my home country and I jumped at the chance.

Five of us flew to Ljubljana and hired the bikes, while one rode all the way from the UK to Slovenia. We spent five days riding the roads and despite it being a very small country, we still didn’t get to see everything. Most people tend to visit Lake Bled and Ljubljana or just ride through to get to the Adriatic coast. It really is a hidden gem of a country and unexplored by motorcyclists from the UK. I thoroughly enjoyed the planning, organising and running the tour, one of the best ones of the year, for sure.

As the year draws to a close, I am already planning 2022 dates for Wales, Scotland, Slovenia and Tasmania, to mention just a few! I have found that the majority of the tours I run are bespoke for a particular group of riders. However, I make sure that there is a selection of tours that are open to anyone, and these bring together a real mix of people.

All I can say is, the whole world changed at the start of the pandemic and that has definitely made a huge difference to my lifestyle. The grand old adage of ‘Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life’ couldn’t be more appropriate for me.

Maja Kenney Maja’s Motorcycle Adventures majasmotorcycleadventures.co.uk maja.kenney@gmail.com