29th November 2008 - I've been to the NEC bike show this week. It would be easy to say how disappointing the show is, how every year it gets smaller and rather less impressive and how the continental shows are so much better supported in every way. It would be easy because it's what everyone else says, so it must be true, right? Well yes. And no. There's little doubt in my mind that the Milan and Munich shows are better presented and larger. And for sure if you compared the NEC show today to that of six years ago it would come up lacking. And yet the facts, as opposed to the perception, don't bear that out.

There are at least as many manufacturers there and at least as many visitors as there have ever been. And the European shows actually don't have more visits, more launches, more real impact. In short, the NEC show is as big and bold as it has ever been. Perhaps the stands are a little smaller and more compact, and perhaps the overall spend is a little less. Times are hard, after all. But the truth is that the NEC show is thriving - it's just our perception that suggests otherwise.

I've got a worrying idea why that may be. It's because we're in danger of growing up. It isn't that the show itself is any less dazzling. It's that we're so jaded by glitzy launches of the next super mega hyperbike that it all just starts to seem the same. This week I looked at the new GSX-R 1000, a bike which in every sense should have lit my candle and had me salivating in anticipation, and I instead of saying "Cool, when can I get one?" I found myself saying "Nice, but what's the point?"

And there's the rub. Because without a doubt, each of the latest incarnations of top end sports bikes are better than the last. And without a doubt, for the moment at least that's where the market is in the UK. But why are we getting tumescent about the latest kilo saved here and an extra horsepower gained there on bikes which are already massively faster than almost any of us are capable of handling? Do we really need monobloc radial brakes, laptimers and the other track biased paraphernalia we're getting offered now? It's getting harder and harder to exploit the performance on offer at the best of times - perhaps we need to take a look at what we actually want to get out of riding instead of what sounds best down the pub, and then go on accordingly...

SB

22nd September 2008 - I've not said much about our race trips for the last few months, preferring to leave that to Laura while I just get on with having the occasional rant and writing reports up.

But there's something you need to know. The last two events we've been away for (Brno and Vallelunga) we've flown out as usual, rented a car as usual and stayed in an hotel as usual. We've also spent around the same as usual, perhaps even a little less.

Now before you decide that `i've finally lost my grip and am rambling about something that's completely normal, there is one very important difference. Normally we fly with one of the, um, "No frills" airlines because we don't have a huge travel budget. But the last two occasions we've struggled to get flights at the right times or the right prices and have been forced to look elsewhere. So we've ended up flying with British Airways. And that's where the usual travel experience has changed rather. Because we got treated like custmers rather than like self loading cargo, it was expected that yes, we'd like to check in online, have our seats allocated and even (shock, horror) take some luggage without paying extra. Food and drink onboard? Naturally - all included in the ticket price. And here's the real clincher. Flights at decent times to and from decent airports and, wait for it, cheaper than the alternative as well.

I like Stelios and Easyjet, though I have to admit that, in my opinion, Ryanair are a bunch of shysters whose business practices actually give honest hardworking con artists a bad name. But as the ticket prices advertised by low cost airlines bear increasingly little resemblence to what you will actually have to get you and your luggage to your destination, proper scheduled flights are looking increasingly attractive.

I'm sat here typing this in Club Class on the way back from Vallelunga. I've got room to do so, I've had a hot breakfast on board as well as a snack in the lounge before we took off and Laura's and my tickets cost eighteen pounds less than flying with Easyjet. Oh, and we get back early enough to still get a day's paid work in rather than having to take time off. What would you have chosen?

SB

28th August 2008 - I've been getting increasingly steamed up about the efforts that some worthy souls are making to stop us from getting ourselves killed and the real value that they have. I thought about this for a while, posted it elsewhere for comment but now I've decided to publish and be damned.

This might come across as a bit of a rant. Perhaps it is - who knows. But it's something that I believe needs to be said and I think this is probably the right place to do so, rather than as an editorial. It's an opinion, after all, and should be taken as that. Please feel free to argue or otherwise comment...

For rather a long time now we've been forced to come to terms with the unpleasant truth behind the established biking lore that says we'd be fine if it wasn't for idiots in cars who don't look. The truth, ladies and gentlemen, as we've said here several tmes in the past, is that outside of town the vast majority of us who contribute to the KSI statistics do it without anyone else's help at all. Whether it's through inappropriate speed, running out of talent at a critical moment or some unfortunate co-incidence, the fact is that we are very much our own worst enemies on the road.

But despite regular articles in the press highlighting this fact, we're still not getting it, it would seem. The Department of Transport have their Think! campaign, there's Bikesafe and Shiny Side Up and countless other worthy initiatives and yet we're still racking up those statistics and giving ammunition to the folks who would have us legislated of the road.

For sure, a few high profile idiots make it worse for us; whether someone who appears to have set out deliberately to beat the system with false registrations and multiple bikes to allow him to hammer past a particular camera at stupid speeds while giving it the finger or a spectacularly daft scooterist in Kent who decided to stunt in front of a camera; but even ignoring these clowns we're still managing to get ourselves hurt, all on our own. By the way, have you noticed anything in common between the two jokers I mentioned? Yep, they both got caught, convicted and, in one case anyway, jailed.

But I'm not here to climb onto my soapbox and preach. There'll be no holier than thou stuff on this page - I've done some frankly bloody silly things in the past and I suspect you have too so let's leave it at that. No, I've got a different agenda here. I want to explore why the message isn't getting through. Because, God knows, the message is clear enough. If you ride like a tool then you're going to get hurt, nicked or dead.

I've got an idea of where the problem might lie, at least partly. It's with those noble souls who try to protect us from ourselves. Because as motorcyclists we are all, by definition, old enough to make certain decisions for ourselves and take responsibility for them. Even at sixteen you are old enough to be legally responsible for anything you do at the controls of your moped. So we naturally take exception to being nannied - having our responsibility for our actions, and the freedom that entails, eroded in some way.

Adverts intended to shock or give a serious warning generally don't. You couldn't show a TV ad in the UK that would genuinely shock. It just wouldn't be allowed - remember the fuss that accompanied the AIDS awareness ads in the mid eighties? So what you get instead is some earnest sounding voiceover artiste giving a genuinely patronising message that we all shrug and ignore. Because we don't want to be patronised or told what to do. The most effective road safety ad is one which works on a more subtle level like the "perfect day" campaign that ran last year. It mixed humour with a serious message and was totally unpatronising. (You can see it here if you can't remember it) The ones running today, on Eurosport for example between bike races, are frankly rubbish. Because they don't actually say anything useful, they just try, unsuccessfully, to shock. Oh look. It says I could crash if I ride like a racer on the road. Best I don't, then.

Another part of the problem lies with the still currently peddled lie that "Speed kills." Because it patently doesn't - I've regularly ridden at 150mph and I'm still alive. I've flown at 1,500mph and survived that. And a few weeks ago I had lunch with a chap who spent a couple of days doing rather more than 15,000mph in a space shuttle. By the fact that he was eating and talking I have to assume that he too had survived the experience. So speed does not kill. But the primary focus of road safety organisations across the realm is to reduce speed, whether it needs to be reduced or not. And so education in other areas gets missed out. As does engineering out dangerous bits of road - the global panacea is to reduce the speed limit and put solid white lines down instead.

Here's a thought. Look at the KSI stats for anywhere you like. Find the ones which have a primary causation factor of excess speed. And see just how far over the speed limit they were. If someone has a big messy crash at, say, a hundred miles an hour on a national speed limit road, how is reducing the limit further going to help? Because he was already forty miles an hour over the limit. Is he going to worry about it being sixty instead? Is he hell.

An advertising campaign that said "Riding like an arse kills" would have some merit. And would get a lot more attention as well. Not least because using that word on prime time TV is more shocking than anything the DfT can come up with.

Let's have a look at something else. KSI statistics. That's killed and seriously injured. First of all, they are profoundly different things. Seriously injured people can get better. Killed ones can't. And when you consider that a broken little finger makes you a KSI statistic, as does any decent sized cut, it makes the whole thing even more of a travesty. And because we're not actually stupid we recognise that the figures are meaningless. You know - you go past a sign that says, for argument's sake, "Slow down - 12 casualties in the last 2 years" and you just know that in most cases at least eleven of those twelve could have walked home. So, like anything else crying wolf, you eventually ignore these warnings and carry on riding as normal.

While we're looking at exercises in futility, let's turn our eyes on what you might call active road safety schemes.

Picture the scene. You're riding to work. It's rush hour, it's busy. Your riding is OK - you're not being daft and everything is sweetness and light. Up ahead you see some dayglow jackets by the road and you find yourself getting pulled over by a policeman. Why? Because the council have decided that it's time all bikers on this stretch of road got pulled over and patronised about advanced rider training, hi-vis clothing, riding with lights on, whatever. So the copper gets to waste his time and yours, some council bloke in a yellow jacket gets to feel important and you get inconvenienced. This isn't apocryphal stuff, it's happened to me three times in the last few years and I have to say I was not impressed. I'm a big advocate of advanced rider training, I always have my lights on and I came away from the last encounter feeling completely anti all of it as well as rather cross at the pointless wasted opportunity.

And while we're on the subject, since when have small number plates or loud exhausts been safety issues? I don't use them myself - not my bag - but I've seen lots of people get a "safety" talk that's ended up with them getting a rectification notice. By all means do vehicle checks - licences, insurance, cover it all - but don't dress it up by pretending it's about safety. Because it isn't, and again the message gets distorted into something counter productive.

As I said before, this may seem like a rant, and I guess to an extent it is. The trouble is, I'm actually worried about the way we're carrying on hurting ourselves. Not because if we keep it up I'm going to run out of readers, but because if we don't start to put our house in order pretty soon, someone is going to come along and do it for us. And the solution won't be pretty because it won't be developed by someone who rides a bike. We've fought off leg protectors, compulsory power restrictions and various other things over the years. They were just the tip of the iceberg - new technology will make it easier to fit speed limiters, for example, regardless of the genuine danger they pose to a biker as they shut the throttle mid-corner. And we're seeing the licencing process get harder and harder, too.

But short of banning bikes completely (don't believe it couldn't happen) none of the measures being punted around will really make much difference. Because they won't change our attitude.

Bikes are fun. Exhilarating. Thrilling, exciting and occasionally a little bit scary. And bikers are generally people who live in that sort of space. As such, we're never going to go for the patronising approach, the lecture from a school master or similar. It'll just bounce off. Nor will be swallow statistical fudges, lies or distortions, because actually we're fairly smart too.

Here's a simple suggestion to the people who do these things. Tell the truth. Don't glamourise it or dress it up in any way, just tell the truth. If riding like an arse kills, and it plainly does, use that as a basis for your adverts. There are plenty of people who have survived doing silly things or who have seen other people be less fortunate and who would talk about it. Use pictures, use interviews, use stuff that is genuinely shocking if you must. Make it funny. Make it something that would get passed around on YouTube. Whatever, but pretend you're trying to sell a product that nobody wants but everyone needs.

Because that's exactly what you're doing.

SB