A future for Norton?
The UK’s Visordown is reporting that a former director and shareholder of Norton, Steve Murray, is positioning to acquire the firm and resurrect it. This might be good news because Murray is a genuine motorcycle fan with a sound record in marketing. He was pushed out of his position as marketing and operations director of the firm early on but kept his shares. The receivers claim ‘significant interest’ in the Norton brand, so we shall see.
Read Visordown's report.
Stash of vintage parts uncovered after flood
The UK’s Shropshire Star reported a quirky find recently, when an old store was being cleared after the recent series of storms. The house-clearance and salvage store used to be a motorcycle store until about six years ago. Noticing a trapdoor after lifting the ruined carpet, the owner opened it up to find a pit full of vintage motorcycle parts, including old Matchless spares, dating back up to a hundred years. How many of the parts will be salvageable is anyone’s guess…
Shropshire Star on the store's hidden past.
The wackiest bikes you've never heard of
Okay, you might just be enough of a classic motorcycle nerd to know Ner-A-Car, and you’ll have heard of Indian - but probably not this particular model. Published on The Things website, this list of out-there motorcycles is an eye-opener, that’s for sure.
17 Motorcycles You Didn't Know Existed, 1885-1950.
Shiny Side Up draws the crowds
This year marked the most ambitious programme yet for Shiny Side up, and the results were a great success. Nearly 7,000 people attended, not including the Burt Munro event, with over 1,100 signing up for Ride Forever courses and 881 Ride On newsletter registrations. If you’re one of the latter and reading this, hello and welcome!
There were lots of prizes to be won and some have already been drawn: the $250 gear vouchers for taking the quiz at the Bike Fests and the $500 Star Insurance vouchers from the Talk Series. So, keep an eye on your inbox to see if you’re a winner! Also, if you’ve completed the follow-up survey, you could be in to win one of the $500, $350 or $250 gear vouchers. Again, watch your inbox. Finally, if you signed up for a Ride Forever course at one of the events and want to win that $3,000 gear voucher (wow!), make sure you take the course by the 30th June to go into the draw.
Check out some of the posts, pics and videos on Facebook
Get your ears around KiwiRider
Talking of Shiny Side Up, the Bike Fest events were all seamlessly emceed by broadcaster Ray Heron. As a motorbike fan, Ray started his Powerband podcast series back in 2018, interviewing our own Dave Keilty on more than one occasion. Ray has now partnered up with Kiwirider, bringing the podcast series under their banner, including journo Mathieu Day-Gillett. Definitely worth a listen and it's available on all the platforms you'd expect: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio and more. Ray managed to get video and audio recorded of the Talk Series event at Kapiti so he's hoping to include that in a forthcoming Kiwirider podcast.
Check them out on Facebook.
Study: speed doesn't kill
A recent academic paper out of Sweden analyses the responses of nearly 1,600 riders worldwide who had been involved in a crash, drawing some rather different conclusions about causes and severity. Findings include the fact that more than a third of riders didn’t use the brakes, mostly it would seem because they didn’t have time to react. One that’s been seized on with glee by some is the assertion that 'how the rider falls and what he/she hits, trumps the discourse of speed versus injuries. Which seems interesting on the face of it but is surely just the old adage redux of 'it's not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the bottom'.
Have a read and see what you think.
Rubber side down
That’s all for this month. Be sure to get out and enjoy the fine weather while it lasts: it could be a great chance to book in some Ride Forever coaching. Until next time, stay safe, have fun and keep the shiny side up.
