RIDERS FOR HEALTH HOLD ONLINE BRITISH MOTOGP AUCTION
To celebrate 25 years at the British MotoGP, the sports’ official charity, Riders for Health, is launching an online auction of exclusive memorabilia and experiences.
The online auction began on August 26 and will run throughout the British MotoGP weekend, giving fans the chance to win signed memorabilia, photographs and paintings from some of their favourite motorcycle racers.
To place a bid on any of the items, visit www.ridersauction.org. The auction ends at 4pm on Sunday, August 30.
To make it as easy as possible for race-goers to join in with the online auction, bidders will be kept up-to-date on the progress of their items via text message – so they can bid for riders’ items as they watch them compete in this weekend’s racing!
Some of the fantastic auction items include signed Valentino Rossi drawings and paintings, one of Mick Doohan’s race gloves, a special edition signed Dani Pedrosa t-shirt and a chance to ride the Ducati Desmosedici Two-Seater bike around the Silverstone circuit on the Sunday of the 2015 British MotoGP weekend.
Each day leading up to the big race on Sunday, Riders for Health will be adding exciting new items to the online auction.
www.ridersauction.org
All of the money raised from Day of Champions and the British MotoGP online auction will help Riders for Health ensure health workers in Africa have access to reliable, well-maintained motorcycles and ambulance so that they can continue to transform health care for 21.5 million people.
Blood Bikes Manchester will be hosting a volunteer rider recruitment day on 31 August 12-4pm at:
Inner Circle Training
Meyer Street,
Stockport
SK3 8JE.
Blood Bikes Manchester has been operating for three years, making free deliveries of urgent blood, samples, medication, records and donor breast milk to NHS hospitals and other health charities such as St Ann's Hospice. It's manned by volunteers who are out every night, weekends and bank holidays clocking up the miles on their purpose-designed fleet of blood bikes and saving about £145,000 for the hospitals they support.
www.bloodbikesmanchester.co.uk
The Get On Experience, an ideal introduction to motorcycling for non-riders, is hitting the road.
Get On has several dates and venues fixed across the UK between now and the end of the year, to give non-riders their first taste of riding a motorcycle or scooter for free.
For the first time, Get On will be utilising Test Centre spaces, which are ideal for running these events.
Sessions are taken by qualified instructors and last 30 minutes. Full safety equipment is provided, although riders are asked to wear sturdy shoes and full length jeans.
Bookings can be made beforehand via the Get On website, or on the day, subject to availability.
Get On is the motorcycle industry's free 'try out' programme and is open to anyone aged 15 or over, who wants to try a motorcycle or scooter for the first time in a safe and structured environment.
Instructors can also give advice about where to find high quality trainers should riders want to take a CBT (Compulsory Basic Training). This allows a rider to use a 125cc motorcycle or scooter on the road and usually takes around a day to complete.
The Get On road-shows are as follows:
- Uxbridge Motorcycle Practical Test Centre (near Brunel University) - Saturday, 5 September
- Farnborough Motorcycle Practical Test Centre (near Farnborough Airport) - 13 September
- Silverstone British Touring Cars Championships - 19 - 21 November
- Motorcycle Live - NEC 28 November to 6 December
For additional details contact Stevie Muir press@mcia.co.uk
Yamaha is running two off-road taster days to stimulate interest in its 2016 YZ competition range.
Although called the 2015 MX Pro Tour, the events are tailored to suit beginners, leisure riders and serious motocross racers.
The tour will be visiting Nympsfield, Gloucestershire, on 10 September and Bevercotes, Nottinghamshire, on 13 September. Available to test will be the 2016 YZ125 and YZ250LC two-stroke machines and the YZ250F and YZ450F (pictured) four-stroke machines, which Yamah says "have what it takes to put you at the head of the pack".
Places are limited and will be £40 for three 15-minute test rides. The MX Pro Tour is a great opportunity to help you decide on your next off-road bike purchase and all you’ll need to bring with you is your riding gear.
Bookings at www.yamahamxprotour.co.uk
MOTORCYCLE PARTS, ACCESSORIES AND CLOTHING BUYER
CONTACT DETAILS: Chris Turner, CTurner@demon-tweeks.co.uk
We’re both a bricks and mortar shop and an online Motorcycle store. We’re growing and looking for a buyer to join our team.
WE HAVE:
• A showroom shop and a massive warehouse that both need filling with the right stock at the right time (and another warehouse on the way too).
• Accounts and good relationships with all the top-drawer brands.
• Dedicated stock control, product maintenance, and web content teams to support you.
• A team of passionate enthusiasts
• Lots of opportunity for development if you want it.
YOU HAVE:
• A passion for Motorcycling.
• Solid buying skills and experience - ideally as a buyer but possibly as an assistant or junior buyer.
• Strong organisational habits.
• A need to be busy all the time.
• An enthusiasm for Excel.
• Reliability and professionalism.
• Online retail experience
YOU MIGHT ALSO HAVE:
• Online retail experience.
• Elite negotiating capacity.
• An extensive collection of bikes in your garage.
If you are interested please send your CV with a covering letter and current salary details to:
Chris Turner, Sales and Marketing Director, E-mail CTurner@demon-tweeks.co.uk
Area Sales Manager Required
CONTACT DETAILS: Don McMartin, www.bickers-online.co.uk
A rewarding and exciting opportunity has arisen for an Area Sales Manager to join the UK’s most progressive and vibrant distributor of motorcycle hard parts and tyres. Well known and highly respected throughout the industry, the company was founded nearly 40 years ago.
Covering the North (Northern England, Scotland and Ireland) working from home, the Area Sales Manager’s role will be to generate the maximum amount of profitable sales through the achievement of sales targets and by making new and existing distributors and dealers aware of the Company's excellent product range.
Your responsibilities will include:
- Generate sales to achieve maximum profitability against annual sales targets.
- Identify and exploit new sales opportunities with existing and potential customers.
- Monitor customer accounts within the allocated sales area to ensure that sales potential is fully exploited.
- Establish and maintain effective communication links with other company departments.
- Maintain accurate records of all sales activity and prepare regular forecasts to enable effective forward planning.
- Develop knowledge and maintain awareness of company products and competitors.
- Highlight and monitor any bad debts and assist in collecting them as and when required.
- Provide feedback to any relevant company departments about complaints and problems to try to ensure that these do not arise in the future.
- Maintain contact with the sales office and distribution department in relation to account queries returns or damage to goods etc.
- Attend and participate in quarterly national sales meetings.
- Monitor feedback from customers to measure their satisfaction with company products.
- Attend at exhibitions and trade fairs throughout the UK and Europe
An ideal Area Sales Manager will hold the following skills and experiences:
- A proven successful background in field sales preferably gained in the motorcycle or allied industries
- Confident in presenting at all levels.
- Excellent communication and computer skills with experience in using CRM systems.
- Well-presented and personable with the ability to build and hold rapport with clients.
- The ability to close on face to face sales.
- Target driven and the ability to perform to KPi's.
In return you will receive a salary of £24,000 basic, per annum plus commission resulting in the realistic OTE of £40,000 plus (uncapped). A fully expensed BMW company car, laptop, mobile telephone and company credit card
Applications in writing with full CV and covering letter should be made to:
Mr Don McMartin
Director
Bickers
Maxxis International UK PLC
Carr Road, Felixstowe,
Suffolk IP11 3RX
Two world records were smashed at the Ace Cafe London on Sunday. The cafe claims it was the biggest all-female biker meet and the largest all-female ride-out.
Organisers Nimisha Patel from London and Sherrie Woolf from Wales report that 618 ladies attended the Ace Cafe between 9am and 3pm on Sunday.
The old record was 221 women with 190 bikes, set in Australia in September of last year.
Organised rides to the Ace Café took place from Oval Motorcycle Centre in South West London and Wollaston BMW in Northampton.
Patel said: "First, a huge thank you to everyone who got on their bike to be part of such a memorable event. Without your input we wouldn't have reached such a successful record of 618 awesome women on Motorcycles! Massive thanks for your support throughout and every penny donated, Sherrie and I are so pleased with the outcome!
"We are now in the process of submitting this and the second record of the 'most women riding a motorcycle at once (251), to the Record Setters, in order to make both attempts official."
Proceeds from a charity fund-raising raffle will go to the Hospice of the Valleys, also supported by the event’s co-sponsor, the Circuit of Wales.
Karen Cole, Safety and Training Director at the Motorcycle Industry Association (MCIA), said: “Forty per cent of people who took a free ride with Get On programme were women. Get On made it easy for women to try motorcycling for the first time.
Social-media has surely played a part in bringing women riders together in the past few years. The proliferation of female biking groups on Facebook has meant women riders can easily find friends to ride out with locally. As a result, small informal groups have been springing up across the country, which obviously helps generate and sustain interest in riding.”
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FLITWICK SET FOR CLASSIC TT DOMINATION
Veteran dealer and former road racer Steve Linsdell, proprietor of leading Bedfordshire Yamaha franchisee Flitwick Motorcycles, is returning to the 2015 Isle of Man’s Classic TT with another star-spangled team.
Keeping it in the family, his 27-year-old son Olie Linsdell will run Steve’s unique short-stroke Seeley Royal Enfield Bullet in the Bennetts-backed 500cc Senior race. Aboard the Enfield, which already claims fame as the only British pushrod single to ever achieve a 100mph lap on the TT Mountain Course, he is aiming to break the 110mph lap barrier this year.
And the team’s Paton eight-valve twin, on which Olie set lap and race records when he won the event in 2013, will be campaigned again by 10-times TT winner Ian Lougher. Favourite to take 500cc laurels after his victory on this bike last year, Lougher is targeting Olie’s as-yet unbeaten class records.
Flitwick MCs is also fielding Olie on a Honda K4 twin in the Okells 350cc race and a Yamaha FZ750 in the Motorsport Merchandise Formula One post-classic event.
SALE OF RARE SINGLE-OWNER COLLECTION OF 60 BIKES
A collection of 60 rare, predominantly American motorcycles will be offered at Bonhams Autumn Stafford Sale, taking place 17-18 October.
“This is an incredibly rare find,” said Ben Walker, International Director for Bonhams Collectors’ Motorcycles, who added that all of the bikes had been carefully stored in the Brescia-based private museum of entrepreneur and CEO of the Santoni Group, Tiberio Lonati.
Highlights include a 1910 Pierce 688cc Four, estimate £60,000-80,000, and a 1930 Indian 1,265cc Model 402 Four-cylinder Combination, estimate £40,000-50,000.
The collection includes a variety of marques and models, including a 1916 Henderson 1000cc Model F, estimate £30,000-40,000, pre-war great the 1911 Flying Merkel 500cc ‘Racer’, estimate £16,000-20,000, a 1920 Harley-Davidson Model J, estimate £18,000-24,000, and at one-hundred years old, the 1915 Thor 1,000cc Model U, estimate £28,000-25,000.
Bonhams Autumn Stafford Sale takes place 17-18 October at The Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show, Staffordshire County Showground. The Lonati Collection will be sold on Saturday 17.
www.bonhams.com/motorcycles
PM ACCOMPANIES OXFORD MD IN TOUR OF FAR EAST
Oxford Products MD Andrew Hammond has just returned from South-East Asia where he was one of a group of 31 business leaders accompanied by Prime Minister David Cameron.
The four-day schedule took in Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia, where Hammond got to meet the heads of state and enjoy red-carpet treatment.
Business was the order of the day. “Cameron led from the front,” said Hammond. “His message was simple: ‘the UK is open for business’.
Hammond made full use of the experience, meeting with several potential new supply contacts as well as both existing and new customers in each region, but confessed that although he expects Oxford to yield many positive results in the coming weeks and months, “the PM was definitely the best salesman on the trip”!
Full report in the September issue of BDN.
STAVROS SHOW ROLLS INTO TOWN
BBC commentator, ex-motorcycle and truck racer and eternal practical joker Steve Parrish continues to tour theatres with his MAD (My Adolescent Dad) Tour with his daughter.
It's an evening of funny stories, moving tales and his passion for living life to the full!
Hosted by his daughter Frankie, she extracts the emotion and feeling from Steve (Stavros) Parrish about his life, loves and experiences giving you a chance to appreciate how times have changed! Will we ever have characters like Stavros emerging from our modern day racers! Come along to the show before this character disappears!
Upcoming shows are at the Gaiety Theatre, Douglas, IoM, on 28 August and The Capitol, Horsham, on 2 October.
For more details on the MAD Tour check out www.madtour.co.uk
For more information about Steve take a look at his web site www.steveparrishracing.com
SAMMY MILLER EXHIBITS BIKES AT DONINGTON CLASSIC
Sammy Miller MBE will be attending the Donington Classic Motorcycle Festival this weekend (7-9 August), where he will be exhibiting a selection of rare and prestigious motorcycles.
Miller is a former Grand Prix podium finisher, having taken a run of podiums in the 125cc and 250cc categories between 1955 and 1958, finishing third overall in 1957 250cc World Championship and was also a three time winner of the North West 200.
Miller also excelled in trials riding and secured the British Trials Championship an incredible 11 times, as well as two European titles, whilst taking more than 1,300 wins throughout his career.
Post-retirement, Miller established the famous Sammy Miller Motorcycle Museum, which is home to over 300 motorcycles, including one of the biggest collections of exotic racing bikes in the world, as well as road and sports bikes and sidecars.
At the Festival, Miller will be displaying a 250 four cylinder Two Stroke Moto Villa (pictured), a Suzuki RS67 125cc from the 1960s and also a BMW Rennsport from the 1950s.
For more information visit www.donington-park.co.uk.
ED COSKER HOSTS MV OPEN WEEKEND
Refurbished Ed Cosker Superbikes, official MV Agusta dealers for Hereford, Worcester, Gloucester and Shropshire, is hosting an open weekend on 8-9 August. It has 100 MV Augustas in stock and available for immediate delivery, and six demonstrators.
There will also be tasty Italian food and refreshments for all visitors and a raffle whose prizes include trips for two to Milan for a long weekend, and an MV factory tour.
Cosker’s refitted showroom near Bromyard has been the home to Italian motorcycles for over 45 years and played a part in the development of a legendary Italian superbike. The Collington Works was home to the famous Slater brothers, Richard and Roger, who were the UK importers of Laverda from 1970. In the mid-seventies Roger, a keen racer, extensively modified his own 3C and the result was so effective he suggested to the factory that there might be a small UK market for something similar. The outcome was the Laverda Jota which went on to become their largest-selling model and a worldwide icon.
The dealership also stock a good range of late, low-mileage superbikes from Ducati, KTM, Yamaha and BMW.
