Your letters & funky first bikes
Don’t spend it all at once
I have two motorcycle policies and have recently seen the provider telling customers that we may be entitled to a refund if restrictions have curtailed mileages. Today I rang them and told them that my annual mileage on the first bike had dropped from the estimated 5000 miles per year, to under 1000. After much tapping on the other end of the phone, the call handler revealed that I was entitled to a discount. 9p. Yes, 9p. Thanks guys! Brin Taylor, email
Give it the hard shoulder Just reading the article about the call to ditch smart motorways and I am a bit surprised at the excuse made by the Transport Secretary that it’s not feasible. He says that “it would require the equivalent land for 700 Wembley Stadium-sized football pitches to undo it all”. Surely they could keep all the signs and technology running as normal while they employ a few road marking teams to drive down the motorway, painting a solid white line to install a new hard shoulder. Dan, email
Carnet discrimination
I am surprised and horrified to read that carnets will be needed for race bikes being taken into the EU. I can understand that when a commercial transport company moves bikes into Europe then a carnet would be required but when a private individual tows their own bike for use at a race track, the requirement seems disproportionate. If I go on a ski or golf holiday I don’t require a carnet for my sporting items because apparently these are a ‘normal holiday item’ unlike a race bike. But what is normal for one person is not normal for another. Participation in a minority sport seems an inane argument for the need of costly paperwork. Steve Parrott, email
Green shoots of biking
My great grandson Albert Bane just joined Team Green. He seems pretty chuffed with his choice of wheels. Stuart Farrow, email
Stick within the rules
It certainly looks like it for a minority of ‘bikers’ who have all been on extended essential journeys this weekend via the Yorkshire Dales. Yes, we’d all like to be out but most of us are sticking the rules. Stuart Moffat, email
Can’t hold back progress
I have been riding bikes for 35 years. The howl of the exhaust and the induction growl from a big fourstroke is just a part of why I, and many others, ride. At a MotoGP round years back, even the Moto3 experience was incredible, you heard and felt the bikes. They were inside you. If you know, you know. I miss the scream from my old 350 YPVS Allspeeds as well, the trail of smoke and the intoxicating scent of Castrol Power 1. So many of us will wax lyrical as we reminisce about our two-stroke days but I don’t remember us being that vocal when the two-strokes slid quietly into extinction to be replaced by four-strokes. Would we go back to two-strokes? The hassle of filling an oil tank, heat seizures, narrow power bands, frequent rebores? Or do we prefer the ease and practicality of four-stroke ownership? How does this differ from a move to electric bikes? Ultimately, fossil fuels are not going to be with us much longer. We could produce synthetic petrol, the technology exists, but there appears no appetite for it, and all development is focused on electric vehicles. So we have to accept it, come to terms with it, and move on and find a new way to enjoy our new type of motorcycles. Paul Whale, email
Check before travelling
I read with interest your useful summary of the various rule changes affecting motorcyclists in England according to PM Boris Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown. But you failed to flag that readers should be careful about crossing into Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and should check each country’s national lockdown rules before travelling as these are very different (and as a Scottish resident, I can report not nearly as clear at the moment). D Ramage, East Lothian
It’s a snow-go area
I’m sorry but I have to contest Richard Newland’s opinion in the February 17 MCN, ‘Snow joking matter’, where he shows an Africa Twin on road tyres, and talks about how it is quite possible to ride in the snow and ice. Any advanced rider training will tell you that one of the basic skills is knowing when to ride and when not to. Mark, Leighton Buzzard
Brits beat the Russians
Just read the article about Ural being the first to have a left-hand driven sidecar wheel. In 1929 Baughan Motorcycles in Stroud , Gloucestershire, started producing driven side wheels controlled by the passenger. So the Brits beat the Russians to it.