Helping the youth of today
Project prices may be squeezing out young enthusiasts, but inspiration and effort can still spur them on
Ian Abbot applauds budget lightweight projects like Will Coleman’s ‘Sinnis’ (see Rick’s Patch in the January issue) for young enthusiasts, but feels that my other comments and features on young people are unrealistic – those involved having support of dads involved in the trade and other useful connections.
It’s my mistake if I’ve created that impression, but I must set the record straight – it’s effort, not privilege, that got my young friends riding. It’s true that magazines tell success stories – you don’t read about racers who never win, restorers who give up halfway through or specialists who’ve gone out of business. Road tests aren’t done in horrible weather, either – isn’t that unrealistic?
Magazines celebrate ‘good times’ and offer inspiration. Call it marketing if you like, but the most important thing is to get young people interested – and that’s more effectively done by showing riders their age with great bikes than telling them their only hope for a classic is a budget lightweight. Why is that anyway? Aged 16 I bought a project Panther for £150 – about a quarter of the cost of a restored one. Dad and I built it cheaply, giving me a bike that I couldn’t have afforded otherwise. But today that project would be £35004000 – even though restored ones are about £6000. The price difference between complete, useable bikes and projects is so narrow now, you can’t get your foot in the door of motorcycle ownership in that way anymore – but the apparent saving encourages people to go for a bargain that often turns into a nightmare.
It’s become unrealistic since my youth because of greed. It encourages sellers to bundle up unwanted rubbish bits to make ‘a project’ that catches out the very people we should be trying to help.
‘THE PRICE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN USEABLE BIKES AND PROJECTS IS SO NARROW NOW’