Chops & Bobbers
GLADSTONE NO.1
Henry Cole has had his own battles with demons en route to becoming a globally recognised TV celebrity on World’s Greatest Motorcycle Rides, The Motorbike Show and Shed and Buried, viewed in 128 countries encompassing 19 languages, and reaching 255 million homes. “I had no hope of being anything other than an individual,” he says. “My father was a gloriously eccentric, handlebarmoustached army officer, my mother a stoically aristocratic 1950s BBC presenter. At the age of 51, I’ve tried anything and everything to fulfil the craving for individuality instilled in me by my parents. I had the dubious honour of being the first Mohican punk at Eton College, I’ve tried heroin addiction, I’ve been a session drummer, a war cameraman, a movie director, a TV presenter and lived a rock ’n’ roll lifestyle filming every heavy rock band in existence; anything that could take me away from the horror of conformity derived from an everyday life. “There’s only one drug that’s never failed to make me feel like an individual, and that’s riding a motorcycle. I already knew that at 15 when I started, so why the hell I had to go through that other stuff is one of life’s great mysteries. Anyway, with 25
14
retrobike
ISSUE #20
“LIKE ALL MÉTISSE FRAMES, THE TWINLOOP CHROME-MOLY TUBULAR-STEEL CHASSIS IS NICKEL-PLATED” years of sobriety under my belt, I’m now a workaholic and fulfilling a boyhood dream by launching the first new British motorcycle brand to come to the market since the Hesketh. I’m aspiring to create a high-end, bespoke and very exclusive range of motorcycles which encapsulate true British individualism and eccentricity.” Which is how I found myself inspecting the Gladstone No.1 staged invitingly on the gravel parking lot of my local Warwickshire pub, the Crab Mill at Preston Bagot. Henry had brought it for me to ride one Sunday morning in the lanes around Meriden, where its T140 engine was built in 1976 in what was still then the Triumph factory before John Bloor carpeted it with houses. Back in 2013 we’d shared a not so very different kind of motorcycle, but in quite different riding conditions, when Henry and I teamed up to set four new land speed
records on the Bonneville Salt Flats aboard another rigid-framed 750cc motorcycle, albeit a vintage Brough Superior with V-twin engine rather than this retro-styled parallel-twin bobber. This time, Henry has teamed up with Guy Willison, who jointly conceived the Gladstone and is responsible for building them. “I’ve known Guy since 15, when we both started riding bikes together,” says Henry. “He later became a heroin addict too, but he got himself clean and came knocking on my door when nobody else did and saved my life. We both share a love of early Kawasaki Z1s, Rickmans, Moto Martins and stuff like that, and we both had the same vision for what the first Gladstone would be. “As for the name, it was another Gladstone who left an indelible impression on me at the tender age of 12; my uncle