The Joy of Motorbikes.

Bikes at the moment seem to be a niche market and a minority hobby mainly my age group, blokes in their 50s…there seems little uptake, particularly in the UK for youngsters to progress beyond scooter mopeds.

The reason my age group have stayed with bikes is because I believe we happened to just be around at a particularly golden era for them

I grew up as a young lad in the 1970’s, I was always around the streets on my bike but, although far too young, I already loved motorbikes. Believe it or not but back then there was literally just 3 TV channel to choose and unlike now there seemed a lot of bike related content. Programmes like CHiPs, The Fonz in Happy Days were huge and Evil Knievel was at the height of his crazy exploits. Further towards the racing there was Peter Collins regularly on Saturday afternoons ITV’s World of Sport winning Speedway World Championships, Kick Start the trial rider test where part of the course involved riding over a VW Beetle and then of course there was Barry Sheene on BBC becoming World Champion at Grand Prix races.

So all that content attracted a generation of young fans to motorbikes plus it was also the time when mopeds were unrestricted and could easily do 60mph and you could ride them at 16. You could also take your test at 17 and then ride any size bike you wanted straight away. With that in mind the 1980s was the era of Yamaha RC125, 250, 350LC’s and these were the bikes everyone wanted, and even better they were affordable. So again we were the right age at the right time at 17 to get going!

My particular passion grew because my Dad had been a biker and had black & white photographs of him and mum on a variety of bikes in the 50’s and early 60s which brought bikes home and then on Wednesdays Motorcycle News came out, so I would go collect it from the local newsagent for him. I absolutely loved looking at every page, even as a 6 year old.

Imagine my delight aged about 8 when dad came home with a purple Yamaha FS1E moped. The first bike he’d bought since I had arrived. Looking back now, it was in a bad state, left outside, dirty, bit rusty in need of some TLC…but in my eyes at the time, in our garage it was the greatest thing ever! Over a few weeks I sat there watching/helping/hindering/asking questions as dad spent the time making it look like new. It was the first bike I actually sat on the front, first bike I went on as a pillion, first bike I managed to kick start and the sound of that little engine, the blue smoke and the 2-stroke smell was and still is one I treasure.

Only short times have I not owned bikes since being 17 just love having one.