Classic Bike HQ

Lucky enough to be invited up to Classic Bike HQ this week to share coffee and ideas with Ben and Hugo - proper gentlemen, and lovely chaps with(like their mag)refreshingly under-control egos. 320 mile round trip on the bevel 900SS meant the oil was good and ready for draining on my return.


But..the building. Bizarrely (or perhaps unsurprisingly ) there are no pics on-line, but what a temple to Mammon. Big and shiny doesn't do credit to the size of the operation, which they share with Royal Sun Alliance. Everything from golf weekly to Kerrang sits in rows of identical desks with rows of identical Macs, broken up by the odd pot plant. Outside there are lakes, waterfalls and what could pass for a golf course.

Refreshingly, the bike titles (MCN, Bike et al) are easy to find. There's an ex-Schwanz RG500 in the hallway, and most swivel chairs have a leather jacket slung over the back. The mention of paper quality gets a wistful sigh, and when I say to editor Hugo I'd expected a prefab with a shed outside, he smiles "I'd prefer that"

And then shows off the mudguards that arrived that morning. What great people