SPOKES: A visit to the 'Motorcycle Live' show in England

BIRMINGHAM, U.K. (ACNI) – The bike show makes me feel old, and young. It’s an oxymoron, a paradox, an incongruity; thoughts of the creaky, cozy Earl’s Court in London, packed with cumbersome past-age beasts reflecting incandescent lighting on miles of polished chrome and steel, diametrically opposed to the hanger-like interior of Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC) with its white halogen glare under which squat brutal knots of snarling carbon-fiber waiting to puncture a flaming hole in the cosmos...

“We’ve come a long way,” I say to Dad as I clamber aboard Triumph’s brand new Street Triple R, recalling the time he helped me onto a Triumph Bonneville T140v some 30 years ago.

It feels nice. “I wished I’d never sold mine,” I tell Dad before dismounting and helping him onto the bike. A silly grin spreads across his face.

The two-hour train journey had been tiresome, and I arrived, late, and grabbed my press pass before meeting Dad by the entrance to Hall 3. I’d chosen Monday because I’d figured that, following the weekend, the show would have been less crowded. I was wrong, indeed. The throngs were so vast, I had to navigate by way of manufacturers’ banners and flags suspended from the cavernous ceiling.

The Motorcycle Live Show at the NEC takes place every autumn. For bikers of all sorts, even types that aspire to scooters, it’s an annual pilgrimage. Here, under this vast canopy, every genre of motorcycle enthusiast is present, from greasy rockers to slick speed merchants and every category therein.

The show is laid out over five huge halls, each bursting with trade stalls – dealerships, accessories, clubs, travel, charity etc- and enormous manufacturers’ stands with swollen crowds clambering over bikes like children in a playground. There is an area for freestyle motocross and even a section for newbies wishing to undertake their maiden ride. In short, it has everything.

Dad and I got stuck in, heading first to Triumph, where we ooohed and ahhhed accordingly. Since the incarnation of the modern Triumph, they’ve gone from strength to strength offering a range of bikes to suit virtually every taste. I’m not a fan of their retro bikes. I own an original Triumph Bonneville, and the new ones strike me as a little bit contrived, save the Thruxton, which manages to combine the old school with the modern, just. But the aforementioned Street Triple R the hooligan Speed Triple and their 675 Sports bikes are true all true originals, and that hearty 3-cylinder engine is sublime.

In some respects Triumph also manage to sidestep the plethora of Harley clones, which could be found on the stands of Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha and the worst culprit of all, Honda; and have a range of cruisers that nod to their American counterpart without leaving them half naked, calling for a policeman. In the case of the Rocket III, a behemoth of a bike, they seemed to have reinvented the wheel.

Triumphs also have a range of Adventure bikes. Attractive and powerful they may be, but really, there is only one bike for the job: BMW’s R 1200 Adventure. The machine on display was replete with light-metal panniers and a top box and looked ready to be ridden over the summit of Mt. Everest. Though getting on it was another matter entirely, Dad didn’t even try, and even I almost had a hernia getting my leg over the saddle. It was worth it though. It’s deceptively comfortable, and it was easy to forget that this bike was designed to take you over all known terrain.

BMW also leads the supersports market with their genre-busting S 1000 RR. For the first time in a generation, a European machine has taken on the Japanese and come up trumps (they’re making their debut at next year’s MotoGP, incidentally), and in doing so have changed the identity of BMW motorcycles in an instant. This thing is in a class of one. It even looks good, which is somewhat of a miracle as, let’s face it, the BMW acronym used to conjure up images of Teutonic flat-twins of a bygone age. Having said that, these bikes are still sold from new, so they must appeal to somebody. Anyway, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” as Dad would say, even if they do look like something discovered at the back of the Reichstag.

The big four – Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha and Suzuki – were spread throughout the NEC, each one displaying the usual host of crowd-pleasing big and middle range sports bikes, day-to-day commuters, tourers, cruisers, choppers (for want of a better word) right down to small-bore learner machines and, I’m sorry to add, scooters.

Something sinister is afoot. It used to be that a “scooter” was an unpretentious 125cc-and-under tool “for getting about on.” It wasn’t making a statement – well, it was to me, but I’ll spare you that. There were scooters aplenty at the NEC, all overseen by grey-looking men and big-boned ladies, but they didn’t stop at 125cc; there were bigger ones there too.

Take Yamaha’s TMAX (please). It has a 530cc engine yet looks like your typical scooter. Suzuki offers a 650cc scooter, that’s an enormous amount of grunt for a riding position, designed for the likes of George Bush senior. I’m also fairly sure they’re unsafe (well, more so than your average mid-sized bike) because you’re sort of lolling back in a couch with your feet up. That’s for watching the news, not ripping round the streets laughing your helmet off.

Which takes us nicely on to the meat of the show: the sportsbikes.

The big four offer a similar range of top-end exotica, from middleweight 600cc machines that are more than enough for yobbo (lout) shenanigans on public roads, to bikes in excess of 1000cc with top speeds of 180 m.p.h. plus. While it may be hard to justify such excessive power to the man in the street, to bikers these machines command a curious mixture of respect and lust. I’d have one at the drop of a hat, but practically speaking (due to my location in the East End of London), they’d be impractical for my needs outside of a Sunday thrashing.

To a certain extent, the sports tourers address these issues, but I’m not really a fan of compromise (though I must admit, the CBR 600F looks quite tidy) and, really, why have a 600cc R6 Yamaha when you can have a 1000cc R1, irrespective of common sense. Then I happened upon a solution in the form of Suzuki’s GSX-R750. It’s the ideal bridge between the mid and massive, with a large dollop of mental. It’s the perfect size for doing everything and, of course, it comes with that famed Japanese reliability with easy access to spares and goodies. It even has a slightly different aesthetic to its contemporaries; there is something primeval about it.

A lot of the big Japanese sportsbikes look very similar – not boring, by any means, just a bit unsubtle. You need to head over to Europe to find a bike that performs brutally yet looks more beautiful than, well, a Ducati 1199 Panigale.

This bike is enough to bring you shaking to your knees. It’s without peer when it comes to beauty, and it commands a reverence that inspires genuflection when bathing in its aura. But it’s also very expensive, and if you think big-bore Japanese bikes are impractical, this one is frustratingly focused. It’s pure, thoroughbred racer, and that’s it.

I managed to get to sit on one after a bit of queuing, and it instantly felt like I was aboard some sort of missile, with a similar degree of comfort I hasten to add. Nose down, bottom up, this would be painful on a day-to-day basis... not that that mattered a jot, yes, it’s expensive and day-to-day costs would be prohibitive, and doubtless it’d contain Ducati’s tradition reliability issues, but, oh yes please!

After a spot of lunch (a Subway sandwich, not very nice, and ordering one is like being on a trading floor) and a nice cup of tea to calm down, Dad and I went back in to finish where we’d left off. I noticed that the KTM stand was looking very lively; they’ve built up a range of very competitive sportsbikes that have a unique aesthetic, sharp and aggressive without being ostentatious, and are manufactured to a very high spec. They’ve developed a nice portfolio on the back of the success of The Duke, the best supermoto on the market, for now at least.

Husqvarna are Swedish and better known for producing award-winning motocross bikes, in addition to chainsaw and sewing machines. Recently they’ve been trying to develop new models but this hasn’t been helped by checkered background economics. Cagiva bought the motorcycle wing of Husqvarna in 1987, but since 2007 BMW has owned it.

I bought an SM610 in 2009. It was a lovely bike, a big gutsy single, and it looked and went beautifully. But there was one problem. My local dealership went into liquidation, and with no mechanical back-up – things essential for a new machine –I was forced to sell the bike at a loss. The SM610 has been superseded by the tweaked SMR630 but that’s not the bike that drew me to the Husky stand, though of course, I gave it a fond look-over. The all-new Nuda 900 had been designed and developed to take on The Duke, and what they’ve come up with makes The Duke feel antiquated. It’s thrilling to look at and the specs are very impressive. So long as Husky can look after their new customers, I don’t see why it can’t go all the way.

The list of desirable bikes was running into the tens. I asked my dad if he could have one bike in the hall, which would it be? Dad opted for a big BMW K1600 on the basis it would make a brilliant sidecar bike. I was still deliberating between the GSX-R, the 1199, the Street Triple R and the Nuda. Unable to make a decision, I figured I’d have them all until I wandered into the Norton stand.

Present at the NEC was a decent handful of once-antique bike marques boasting new machinery. The most obvious was Triumph, but also present were MV Augusta, Matisse, Royal Enfield and now Norton, the brand back in British hands after 15 years of US ownership.

The new CEO hasn’t been resting on Norton’s laurels. A new factory has been built in Donnington (that’s where the British MotoGP is held annually) and they have a brand new bike, 99% British, in full-time production. The Norton Commando 961 comes in two delicious flavors. The Sport and the Cafe racer, both featuring the all-new 961 parallel twin are stunning, and perhaps more pertinently, selling fast (they’re also developing a MotoGP bike – more news on that in due course in my ACN column).

The Norton has it all – beauty, brawn and that quintessential “British” feel to it that stood Triumph in such good stead in the US market during the 1950s and ’60s. But this is no “retro” machine; it nods to the golden age of British bikes but without trying to be one. Finally, I’d found the bike I’d have over all the rest... I think.

I said goodbye to dad and took the train back to London, digesting my thoughts about the day as I rattled southward. It was a shame I had missed Cal Crutchlow officially opening the Motorcycle Live exhibition with the start of his 800cc Yamaha GP Bike. By all accounts it was deafening, and due to some inclement weather conditions, I also missed Dani Pedrosa. He finally showed up the following day. Still, it was a super day out, and everyone I came into contact with was friendly and helpful, as one would expect.

By the time I alighted at Euston Station, I had all but decided that if I sold the house and advertised the wife, and I could have that Norton, and maybe that Suzuki too... and the Ducati.

Triumph? Back to the drawing board.

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About Jamie Dwelly:

UK-based James “Jamie” Dwelly has been riding bikes since he was eight, started out on an 80cc Yamaha converted by his biker dad for off-road usage. When his mother realized his passion wasn't just a passing “kid fad,” Jamie got a second hand yz1000e Yam, which he happily rode for another three years before retiring at the grand of age of 12 when an accident left him with a perforated disc in his back. At 18, Jamie bought a Yamaha RD200 and has never been without a bike since. After a succession of fast, beautiful bikes, he currently owns a 1976 Triumph Bonneville and is eyeing up another ludicrously nippy crotch rocket to sate his lust for speed. E-mail Jamie at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .