This glorious spring weekend reminded me why I chose to live in Sussex; clear blue skies, sunshine, daffodils and cherry blossom everywhere... and thousands of bikes on the roads! What can be better than a sunny Sunday ride with mates, a cup of tea at the Chalet and then join the crowd cheering the old chuffers as they rattled past on the Pioneer Run down to Brighton? Hundreds of these brave bikers rode, begged and pleaded or pushed their vintage machines from Epsom Downs to Madeira Drive to the applause of many thousands lining the route.
But it wasn’t all play this weekend. Saturday saw the intrepid SEB team at the London Bikesafe H.Q. in Bromley for a day of road safety presentations and assessments. The boys in blue (or black) can’t call this “training”, but you’d have to be brain dead not to learn a lot from the day. The course is run by serving officers who genuinely want to help make riding safer for us in a real world, non patronising manner. If you are going to filter or make progress on your daily commute, this course is literally a life saver. All levels of riding experience were represented in the attendees and the course is relevant to anyone who rides a bike. Everyone who attended had a fantastic day and gained knowledge or skills that will make them better, safer riders. And having a fully dressed police bike acting as your personal escort while filtering through traffic is worth the course fee alone!
I mentioned in the last issue my belief that we will see an increase in the number of people holidaying in the UK and therefore more bikes on the road. This seems to be the case as tourist boards and leisure groups gear up for a boom in domestic holidays. This can only be good news for us as hotels, resorts and B&Bs will be making more of an effort for our business and not discriminating against a customer purely because they arrived on two wheels.
There are more bike shows than ever this year, including a new event to be held at Brighton Racecourse called Southeast Bikerfest on the 12th and 13th September, which SEB is supporting. This will be a show and biking party to promote a weekend of biking in the south east. With on-site camping, the Speed Trials on Saturday and the Ace Café run on Sunday - this is one weekend no biker will want to miss.
If you are planning to take your bike on holiday this year, I know you’ll be in good company!
Peter Karmios,
Editor
I want to go faster, I want to go faster..
