‘30 YEARS OF RIDING COUNTED FOR NOTHING’
Fagan at 44Teeth is a bike journo and racer with a penchant for big skids and wheelies, and poking the biking establishment with a pointy stick
The motorcycle industry is as guilty as any tabloid rag when it comes to negativity surrounding biking. Doom and gloom seems ingrained, along with that ever-tiresome adage regarding an aging two-wheeled population.
A few years ago, a Motorcycle Industry Association survey revealed the largest insured biking demographic was aged 20-30 years old. The second largest is 50-plus, probably skewed by so many coffin dodgers owning more than one bike. It’s a similar narrative to the ‘sportsbikes are dead’ drivel. But a journey through your local town/city will reveal an onslaught of nippers on L-plated machinery. And a shit-load of sportsbikes. New bike stats are one thing, but not everyone rides a bike registered in the last 12 months. However, with just 958,857 motorcycle tests taken over the last 20 years, compared to 1.8million car tests passed last year alone, we do need to get more new people on bikes. Official figures reveal a steady growth in motorcycle tests taken since the new test arrived in 2009, but they detail every Mod2 assessment, so a chunk of those will be retakes and A1/2 riders being forced down the funnel.
So, if there really is a shortage of youthful throttle jockeys, how do we attract these young spunkers into the biking bosom? We could start by restructuring the ludicrously convoluted and costly tests that have little relevance in the real world. I recently failed my Mod1 test as part of a journalistic feature, revealing that 30 years of riding and racing bikes means bugger-all when faced with a car park full of cones and some contrived exercises.
By 19 years old, with the monotony of another identical test and potential financial ruin ahead, it’s no wonder so many youngsters choose four wheels over the inconvenience of two. And by the time they’re eligible for Direct Access, the route has been forgotten completely. The current scootageddon-shaped clusterf**k in London, and Sadiq Khan’s catastrophic failure to prevent social meltdown in the capital, won’t be helping either. It’s probably helped drive the 37% drop in small scooter sales this year (big bike sales are up 7.7% though), too. We need positive change, so let’s not get too dragged down by stats and surveys. The motorcycle landscape is progressing nicely, maybe it’s time some of the industry insiders ‘progressed’ too, to make way for some new thinking.