‘A triumphant ode to optimism, to listening to the call not excuses’
Bike blurred the lines between life and work so much so that Ben Miller and the magazine became inseparable…
Sleeping through a sandstorm in the Sahara, the night’s raging winds giving way to the most beautiful sunrise. A sense of purpose, a family, friends. Three mesmerising laps on a factory Honda RS250. Affirmation. A restless imagination. Lost Friday afternoons in a East Midlands’ boozer, Dan Walsh laughing like a drain as he gulped Guinness and primed Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street on the jukebox again. A wanderlust. A week at large on a Harley in a Californian heatwave; no itinerary, no plan, not a care. Tokyo, Paris, Milan. 180mph sausage, egg and chips at Bruntingthorpe. Italy’s Amalfi coast. Misano on an RSV4, kneedown and giggling in a flash-flood on race wets. An all-consuming love of travel, of motorcycles, of writing and of photography. Mugello on a Fireblade. Borneo, Bedford, Brands. Bike gave me all these things, and without doubt it changed my life. In truth, it changed it twice; first when I discovered the magazine and became a reader, then again when I joined the team. The first issue I bought was February 1995, and somewhere wheels began to turn. 17 years old then, cars were everything. But I’d scan Loot for affordable motorcycles (basket-case Bantams, mainly) and, despite an absence of any motorcycling in my family or friendship group, an idea began to take hold – the idea that motorcycles might just be man’s very greatest invention –riding them the most noble of pursuits. 1997 and I’m at university, second year of Coventry’s lauded car design degree. Only there’s a problem: cars are starting to bore me. I start buying Bike regularly, initially for research purposes (my second and fourth-year projects will both be motorcycles) but the magazine’s brilliance draws me in and confirms my hypothesis – motorcycles are indeed man’s very greatest invention – riding them is the most noble of pursuits. My degree requires a six-month professional placement. While friends work for the likes of Jaguar in the drizzly Midlands, I fly to sunny Sydney for a life-changing six months with a bold start-up. No Bike, no Sydney. Someone once told me great magazines are like going to the pub with like-minded friends. That’s exactly how Bike felt. And then, somehow, it got even better, its millennium relaunch taking it full coffee table without sacrificing a shred of its all-important soul.
And then bam! Dan Walsh’s ‘Moroccan dash’, and nothing is ever quite the same again. For a magical half-hour a bedroom in Little Chalfont gives way to the endless horizons of southern Europe and North Africa, and I have an epiphany.
‘What day is it? Another lazy Moroccan afternoon in the fishing village of Asilah, and we’re living in God’s pocket. I’ve got the sun in my eyes, fresh fish in my belly, cold beer in my mouth, cheap smoke in my hands and warm sand between my toes. The Atlantic’s sparkling in front of me, my best girl’s basking beside me and the ZX-9R’S parked up behind me, under the protective gaze of Said, an apprentice wise guy.’ Two decades on, I can still recite swathes of Dan’s story word-forword. Time has not diminished its dreamy poetry, nor its goose-bumpy clout. Now, as then, it’s a triumphant ode to optimism, to naivety, to listening to the call not the excuses, to the road, and to The Dream – exploring the world on a bike and living the days that must happen to you. For years I’d had no clue what I wanted to do. ‘Moroccan dash’ brought a startling clarity: I wanted to do this. I wrote, I applied, and in February 2001 it happened – I joined Bike.
I dread to think how much money Bike’s publishing company has spent trying to distil the essence of magazine genius. There’s a little science, sure. But there’s also alchemy and the infuriating truth that, as in elite sport, form is temporary – almost as soon as you realise you’re onto something, and that the team you have is good, it’s gone; they’re gone.
For me, then, Bike’s brilliance lay in its breadth, its humour and the talented bunch of motomisfits that have always gathered to its banner. Current editor Hugo steered the ship, his passion for – and knowledge of – all motorcycling, not just the latest and greatest, making for addictively eclectic and unpredictable issues. A deadly serious group-test starring the thennew R1? Well obviously. But let’s follow that by riding an R1100S to Barcelona, to race in the Boxer Cup, and Dan heading into the Sahara with nothing more than a baguette and a warm bottle of Coke. From 1997 to the day I left in 2008, Bike was the most influential force in my life. It and I were inseparable, the boundaries of life and work wonderfully blurred. I am forever grateful.