Zane has just gotten home from a month in Europe. It turns out there's plenty to do for motoring fanatics, especially in England. Check out what he got up to on his trip...
I’ve just returned home from a Europe trip. Whilst I was stationed in the UK for a few weeks, I got the chance to experience one of my all-time favourite motorcycling manufacturing nationalities. The bikes that came out of England have always held a soft spot in my heart…
Zane has just returned home from Europe where he got to see all the sights of British motorcycle manufacturing.
G’day all, it’s been over two years since I’ve done one of these. If you’re an avid reader of BikeReview, you would’ve seen my name pop up a whole heap more since Jeff’s injury a year and a half ago. I’ve been tackling the Deputy Editor role and doing a massive chunk of the sub-editing.
Despite working a dream job, I did need a little break from Australia. My last proper holiday was Japan nearly six years ago and with COVID over, I’ve been itching to get out of the country. My partner had a PhD conference in Birmingham, U.K, out of all places, so we decided to spend two weeks exploring England which gave me the chance to get some work done over there.
England is a funny one, everyone is extremely condensed in a small area and this is mostly evident within London. The most interesting part is that the BMW CE-04, which to me is easily one of the coolest scooters released within the past few decades, are absolutely everywhere in London even with the massive price tag. The actual infrastructure for electric vehicles has been sorted out so much better than Australia, people can actually hook their scooter up to a charger when they park it rather than needing to go and find one or charging it at home.
Three-wheeled bikes/scooters have actually taken off here. We don’t really have a need for them in Australia because the roads tend to have a fair chunk of grip, enough to rarely catch you out unless there’s gravel or etc. on the road. Here, there are so many adverse conditions to battle, namely cobblestone roads (especially when wet). It’s not uncommon that people would ride with both feet off the ‘pegs on the cobblestone, so that extra front-end grip that comes from an extra wheel seems to be a popular choice.
The most impressive thing about Europe as a whole? Print media is still alive and thriving. I still enjoy the feeling of ink on my fingers even though I work exclusively online now. Despite digital media really being the future of journalism, there’s certainly something about going to the local shop, picking up a magazine and flicking through it over a coffee and a cigarette. The amount of titles on offer is just out of the world, I ended up buying two magazines a week and there’s stuff like four titles just on classic Fords, motorsport magazines updated bi-monthly and plenty of old bike titles.
After a few nights in London and more quirks like seeing people with street-regoed quad-bikes, wearing no helmets, we headed out to Birmingham. The surrounding areas of Birmingham really bred innovation with in pre and post-war motorcycle manufacturing. The mid-lands saw iconic brands like Vincent, Triumph, Royal Enfield, Norton, BSA, Brough Superior, Ariel etc., I could go on forever here.
The National Motorcycle Museum has some of the most spectacular bikes in British history all packed in five halls…
Obviously, a lot of those brands are defunct, moved overseas or absolved by others, but the trade off of this is there’s a lot of local pride in the early manufacturing days of the mid-lands. This is heavily obvious with the most spectacular array of British motorcycling history located on the outskirts of Birmingham at the National Motorcycle Museum.
I’ll do a full write up on this spectacular museum soon but there are literally five halls PACKED with British motorcycles, parked bar end to bar end and most look to be in running order. When I say you need to go here with only like-minded people, I mean it. It’ll take you hours to get through the whole thing if you’re soaking up all of the information on every single bike.
Solihull, just outside of Birmingham, is also the where the HQ is of the revived Norton factory.
Solihull, just outside of Birmingham, is also the where the HQ is of the revived Norton factory. They’re not open to the public for tours just yet but I did get to have a full tour and a ride on the new Norton Commando while I was there. It’s seriously impressive what TVS have done in such a short period of time to resuscitate the absolute smouldering mess that was Norton under previous ownership.
Here I had a taste of what riding in England is really like, the countryside is beautiful, the towns are lovely and the people are extremely friendly. The roads aren’t the best for spirited riding in some places as they tend to get quite narrow, but there’s more than enough to soak up. Especially riding on a proper hand-built British machine like a Norton Commando.
Riding something handmade and proper encapsulates “old-school” deserves to be shot on 35mm film…
While stopped on the side of the road I had a few people come up to me to talk about the bike. Remember that local pride? Everyone knows exactly what you’re riding and the history behind a brand like Norton. It’s something that Australia had and then lost with Holden and Ford moving out.
The roads aren’t the best for spirited riding in some places as they tend to get quite narrow, but there’s more than enough to soak up. Especially riding on a proper hand-built British machine like a Norton Commando.
I spent a good hour just zipping around taking some 35mm film photos of the bike and the surrounding areas, soaking in the pure rush of fresh country air mixed with a thumping British twin on one of the most drop-dead gorgeous machines on the face of the planet.
Next on the list was a trip out on Hinckley to visit the Triumph factory. It’s plonked right in the town so you can imagine it’s certainly an important part of the history. Pretty much every motorcycle I saw was a Triumph…
Next on the list was a trip out on Hinckley to visit the Triumph factory. It’s plonked right in the town so you can imagine it’s certainly an important part of the history. Pretty much every bike I saw after getting off the train was a Triumph, I think it would be grossly inappropriate to ride anything else in Hinkley.
The new factory has been constructed up the road from the old one and they’re open to give people a tour. There’s no phones allowed on the factory tour due to some secretive business going on behind closed doors but it’s still an epic experience I’ll do a full write up on. Even if you’re not interested in doing a factory tour, there’s an epic little museum with some seriously important machines in there.
We headed back out to London to make our early train out to the Netherlands in the morning, I wish I had to opportunity to visit the ACE Cafe and the Bike Shed which are both staples of motorcycle culture in the U.K. Netherlands didn’t have a huge motorcycle culture, just delivery scooters and those weird quadracycle things.
France was our next destination, surprisingly a huge motorcycle culture. There’s a huge amount of those Peugeot motorcycles and bicycles parked up just on the side of the road, while the champagne region sees a lot of Japanese sportsbike riders use it as a ride destination.
The main take away from the trip is if you’re not on a bike in the U.K, then you’re doing it wrong. I wish I could’ve explored a heap more of the countryside and really engulfed myself in the culture there.
The main take away from the trip is if you’re not on a bike in the U.K, then you’re doing it wrong. I wish I could’ve explored a heap more of the countryside and really engulfed myself in the culture there. I wouldn’t say there’s a denser scene but there’s certainly more national pride for the hey-days of British manufacturing. Doing a month where I get to ride out to the Isle of Man TT, riding the course then heading out to the Goodwood Festival of Speed is on my bucket list. I somehow managed to plan it so I missed both, but I’ll make it out there one day.
I was supposed to visit the Royal Enfield technology centre but due to some poor organisation on my part, I couldn’t find a way to get out to the factory and due to being under 25, renting a car was not an option. My apologies to all the people at RE and UMI who put together that part of the trip for me.
Hopefully my life is interesting enough now that I’m home to regularly do these editorials, I’ll catch you soon regardless!
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