Motorcycle Live 2014 has just ended, and Rescogs were some of the 117,000 people who made the annual pilgrimage to Birmingham and the delights of the NEC.
Apparently that’s 10% more than last year, and the halls certainly felt more than busy enough. If we were being cynical, we might also suggest that the average age of attendees also seems to have increased by the same amount since we last popped along a few years ago. Scarily I realised on the trek from car park that I first came to the bike show as a fresh-faced teen 21 years ago, begging my dad for an off-road bike – which I never actually received.
So what did we learn from browsing 250-odd stands, besides the fact that our apprentice photographer should have checked his camera equipment earlier? (Hence the mix of high quality and phone pics)
The big manufacturers seemed to be matching the usual investment in floor space. Almost all seemed to be split between the latest tackle and a selection of vintage machines to satisfy the need for nostalgia. And also to promote the current trend for retro and custom cafe racer-style offerings.
Indian showed their intentions to take on the cruiser market in a big way with a large part of one hall, including the new Indian Scout which looked good in the flesh. It manages to combine classic style with sensible modern improvements on the entry-level Harley, and combined with the Victory stand, provides a good alternative to H-D and big Japanese cruisers.
Kawasaki also stood out – besides a display celebrating 30 years of the Ninja with a selection of WSB bikes from the era when the series was at a high, they also had the Kawasaki Ninja H2 on display – and were regularly firing it up. Not only was the sound able to attract attention from the furthest corner of the hall, everyone we spoke to was excited about a bike which is defiantly not a ‘re-interpreted classic homage’ – and doesn’t just move things on by 1% more power or less weight.
Out of all the classic race bikes on display – Sheene, Roberts Jnr and Schwantz Suzukis, a Hislop Norton, a brace of successful Yamahas, for some reason the mean green Ninja of a Japanese wildcard rider stood out for me.
Of course there were some other racey Kawasakis on display, too
The exhibitors included the usual mix of stands selling cut-price kit and out-of-date T-shirts, the entertainment included various stars on stage, and there were opportunities to try bikes out if you hadn’t indulged in a pint.
Interestingly since the mid-2000s, the booth babes appear to have become a rarer site,and also entitled to more demure clothing. No more getting the wife into a bikini to drum up the crowds for your cut-price bike parts, which means the event feels a lot more family and female friendly. Plus it also means we’re not constantly asking young ladies to get out of the way so we can look at the motorcycles.
Instead, it appears everyone wanted to show their credentials by displaying as many custom bikes as they could. Besides the usual Carole Nash and magazine competition subjects, the traditional cruisers and choppers were outnumbered by retro cafe racers, brats, dirt trackers and whatever else you might want to call each minor difference in style.
It’s safe to say that sticking a CX500 in a chopped frame and bunging some knobbly tyres on it is no longer ‘out there’. Those that have been doing it for a while still stood out though.
And those that do something totally different were still guaranteed to raise some interest.
Overall it was a good show, proving there’s plenty of interest in motorcycling, and people willing to travel from across the country to see the latest bikes. When it came to clambering on and trying out the riding position, adventure bikes, cruisers and the KTM RC390 all suggested that recent trends will continue – and a lot of the people intrigued by the RC390 weren’t necessarily the young riders you might expect.
It’s more family-friendly which makes it more accessible as a day out, and although it won’t lower the aging motorcycle demographic by itself, does help. And besides the big names and crowded stands, it’s still possible to mooch around and find interesting items in the quieter corners – the likes of Herald Motor Co with a range of reasonably priced small capacity bikes, or the odd interesting machine from WK, alongside the likes of Metisse, CCM and EBR offering their own take on biking.
Aside from the reduction from a media day to a media hour, the only downer is after 21 years I still haven’t got the bright yellow Suzuki off-roader I originally begged my dad for in 1993.
Certainly the organisers must be happy – they’ve already got 21-29th November 2015 in the diary for Motorcycle Live 2015 at the Birmingham NEC.
Got pics from the show you want to share or thoughts about a bike we missed? Let us know in the comments or via Facebook, Twitter, email, carrier pigeon or morse code.
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