Last month's little epistle, according to my reader, was a desultory, even dismissive whine and I should bloody well have been a bit more upbeat about what is, after all, the world's greatest motor bicycle extravaganza. Or at least the greatest one ever to be held inside damn great aircraft hangers sandwiched between motorways and railway lines in the British Midlands. And as a practising motorbicycle dealer himself, he probably knows what he's talking about... and as I'm not, I probably don't. But the NEC Bike Show doesn't need my slavish support and, conversely, will always get on very nicely thank you even if, or rather when, I should rattle on about its downsides in this mighty organ.(My reader at this point may also have something else to say, possibly for once on the positive side, about the distinct lack of references to my latest female accomplice, but this has less to do with any begrudging nod in the direction of objective journalism, and more to do with a nasty brush with the Sex Discrimination Act and a local massage parlour which I had inadvertently confused with an employment agency. In these days of multi-tasking it's sometimes so hard to tell the difference... But for the moment I must struggle on unaided by a talented right hand woman or, indeed, a woman's talented right hand. These things are sent to try us).
But, as I predicted, I did manage to review the two off-road bike shows despite last's month's punishing schedule... well punishing in the legal sense anyway... although my lawyers are still hopeful of winning an appeal on grounds of diminished responsibility. And I'm afraid to say that the Telford event was a rather lacklustre affair with none of the major manufacturers/importer exhibiting, although our old friends CCM were having what one might uncharitably call a bit of a 'fire sale' and some dealers did their best to present some new 'OS models to give the relatively few punters who attended summat to get excited about.
Well quite a lot more it seems, because as we've seen in recent weeks, several more dealers have thrown in the towel some of them big and long-established names. But quite apart from the commercially vital marketplace atmosphere of much of the Stoneleigh show, it confirmed a growing trend in stealth bikes sales that I'm pleased to say offers new hope for the future. Well new hope for the future of aftermarket extras, anyway.
What I'm talking about here is the increasingly common practice of off-road competition bikes being bought for road use, with all the attendant costs that behoves the buyer to bolt-on to his financial package, or bank loan as they used to be called.
The deal is basically this: you buy an enduro bike even though you're only ever likely to use it for commuting and maybe a spot of green-laning. But even if you do plan to enter off-road competitions, most of 'em these days involve some excursions onto the tarmac, which means they must be road-legal. And as most modem enduro bikes come without lights, indicators, horn, speedo and/or a silencer that'll pass ED muster, then the punters must buy the necessary bits that will.
For older machines, such as Kawasaki's long-serving but very excellent KDX220-R, enterprising dealers had to source the bits themselves and charge what they could. Corby Kawasaki seemed to be the unofficial suppliers for the parts which worked out at about ninety quid, including a wiring diagram apparently hand drawn by a spider. You can still, of course, road register a bike exclusively for daylight use, which is what many trials bikes are, and this make the aftermarket bits and bobs a little less lucrative... basically an old-fashioned bulb horn is all you need.
Whatever view you have of the morality of this from a punter's viewpoint - and as a punter I think you can safely assume what mine is - there is clearly an opportunity waiting to be mined here. Just think how much extra the poor beleaguered high street dealers - if such there still are - could add onto the brutally discounted price of an R1 or a CBR600RR if they came without road-legalities because such bikes were now only being sold as 'trackday' models? I can almost hear you rubbing your hands together with glee, and it's not actually such a far-fetched idea. After all, some people have been doing this sort of thing for years, not to meet the letter of the law but just to make their bikes perform half decently, and of course they're called Harley-Davidson dealers. Now if Milwaukee would only make an enduro bike... that'd show 'em.