Museum LIVE 2016 Free Open Day- Details Announced.

NATIONAL MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM “LIVE” OPEN DAY-SAT 05/11/16.

Following the massive success of Museum LIVE over the past two years, Saturday 05/11/16 will see the museum host our 3rd annual free open day when everyone will be invited to visit the museum collection free of charge. There will also be a host of other free attractions including our amazing “stars on stage” feature which is presented in association with wheel builders to the museum, Central Wheel Components Ltd 
Museum Live 2016 Timetable.

To assist visitors, everyone arriving on site will be given a free timetable with a full list & timings of all the day’s exciting, free, events.

Free Museum Entry: Everyone will be invited to visit the newly reconfigured museum collection, free-of-charge. If you think you’ve seen the museum before-think again!

Indoor Autojumble & Trade Area: The event will feature a large indoor autojumble held within the warm & dry surroundings of the National Motorcycle Museum’s conference facilities. The event will also feature trade stands & displays from many well-known names including Footman James insurance brokers and Bonhams auctioneers.

Meet The Experts: In attendance will be some of the museum’s specialist suppliers & craftsmen (including our own restoration team) who will be available to chat and answer questions. Also unveiled at the event will is an exciting new permanent display “the history of wheel building” presented by wheel builders to the museum, Central Wheel Components Ltd.

Stars on Stage In Association With Central Wheel Components Ltd: Racing legends CARL FOGARTY MBE & JAMIE WHITHAM will again host two special FREE TO ENTER “stars on stage” features at 11.00am & 2.00pm

Held on the stage in the museum’s magnificent Britannia suite these free 1 hour chat shows will feature Carl & Jamie as well as other motorcycling personalities. Appearing courtesy of Phil Morris Racing two very special guests will include TT superstar IAN HUTCHINSON & British Superbike front runner PETER HICKMAN. All our guest stars will also be making personal appearances to sign your favorite memorabilia. 

NEW FOR 2016!

Museum Live “Start Up” Feature.

See & HEAR some of the most famous race machines in the world started up in our special LIVE START UP area. Bikes old and new will include the Hislop “White Charger” Rotary Norton, NVT Cosworth Challenge, Vincent “Super Nero” sprinter, the Phil Morris Racing owned 2012 ART GP12 Moto GP bike (ex-James Ellison), plus many others including genuine Moto GP Ducati’s and WSB machinery-not to be missed!

Museum Shop & Restaurant: The Museum shop and restaurant will be open throughout the event. A wide variety of catering will be on offer including breakfast, lunch, a range of hot meals & snacks plus a special BBQ.

Plus The Draw For The Best Classic Motorcycle Raffle Prize In The World:

Our summer 2016 raffle to win a 1990 Norton Rotary F1 worth over £22,000 will be drawn by one of our celebrity guests live on stage during the afternoon of the event on 05/11/16.
There’s still time to enter to win this amazing prize with raffle tickets available to purchase on-line from www.thenmm.co.uk or by calling the Museum on 01675 444140   

For further details and updates on Museum Live 2016 see www.thenmm.co.uk   

The National Motorcycle Museum is conveniently located in the heart of the Midlands Transport Network, with Birmingham  international railway station just a five-minute taxi ride away.

At over 1000 machines the National Motorcycle Museum is not only the largest collection of British Motorcycles in the World but also an award-winning venue with conferencing and events facilities.

The conference centre has 13 purpose built suites available, including the Wardroom, seating small parties of up to 20 guests, and the Imperial Suite which can host 1000.
Website & On-Line Shop: www.thenmm.co.uk

National Motorcycle Museum, Coventry Road, Bickenhill, Solihull, West Midlands, B92 0EJ

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Meet Gil Edwards who’s riding a Chief Vintage between music gigs this summer

Gil Edwards is celebrating 50 years in the music business this year and what better way to spend the summer than to ride between gigs on an Indian Motorcycle.

In fact all of the members of his band, ‘Gil & The Vintage Chiefs’, are riding all over Norway on Indian Motorcycles and will be playing music they say is ‘Road House’ style.

“It’s the kind of music that I grew up with,” Gil explains. “I have just finished recording an album in Germany called Celebration, and I have two previously released albums called Can’t give it up in 1999 and Mayday Situation in 2004.”


“The Indian-logo actually is the first logo that I can remember,” reflects Gil. “My dad used to joke that I was ‘made’ on an Indian; I’m 25% Cherokee and 100% Indian.”
When he was 10-years-old, Gils’ father gave him a hunting dog, but Gil wasn’t a hunting kind of guy and a few weeks later he swapped it for his first guitar and three years after that he had enough guitar skills to join his first band. That was 50 years ago.
“Yeah, you might say that I celebrate my 50th anniversary in the music business this year,” says Gil.

In the middle of the 60s, the young, soon to be musician also got his first motorcycle. It was a 200cc Triumph Tiger Cub, which was followed by a 400cc BSA before he went on to the heavy American steel.
“Nothing beats a big American V-twin,” says Gil.

Today, Gil lives in Ålesund, Norway. It might be a long way from the North American west coast to the Norwegian west coast, but as he explains, “sometimes things just happen in life”. His move to Norway came about in 1981 when Gil was playing with a band in Seattle. He met some Norwegian musicians that were visiting the USA. A few months later they called him and offered him a job as bass player in a band in Norway.

“I had never been to Europe, so I saw this as a great opportunity,” says Gil who first thought that he would only be there for a few months, maybe a year, but 35 years on and he’s still in Ålesund.

Gil has performed all over Scandinavia and has a strong fan base in Germany and all over the world. “Today all of us live some of our lives in the virtual world and I have lots of American fans on the internet, even if I do not live there any more!” Gil jokes.

Gil bought an Indian Chief Vintage earlier this year. “I truly was amazed and I love it,” he beams. “The engine has the most impressive torque and you can ride comfortably over longest distances. When I ride it in on twisty roads, I don’t feel like I have to slow down for the corners, but instead I can push it in a bit more and twist the throttle. So the Harley-Davidson I had is for sale now,” he says smiling.

During this summer, Gil and the Vintage Chiefs will be riding on Indian motorcycles between their gigs, leaving their roadies to transport their band equipment in the bus.

ABOUT INDIAN MOTORCYCLES

Indian Motorcycle, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Polaris Industries Inc. (NYSE: PII), is America’s first motorcycle company. Founded in 1901, Indian Motorcycle has won the hearts of motorcyclists around the world and earned distinction as one of America’s most legendary and iconic brands through unrivaled racing dominance, engineering prowess and countless innovations and industry firsts. Today that heritage and passion is reignited under new brand stewardship. To learn more, please visit www.indianmotorcycle.eu.

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TT Winner v British Touring Car Champion - on each others machinery

John McGuinness, 23 times TT winner and Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Champion Gordon Shedden go head to head on each others machinery - awesome!!

John McGuinness swaps Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP for BTCC Honda Civic Type R

Gordon Shedden shows off his riding skills aboard Honda Racing’s TT winning machine

Honda jointly hosted the unique event at Knockhill circuit on Monday, which saw Gordon swap his Halfords Yuasa Racing Honda Civic Type R for John’s Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP for 30 laps of the Scottish track.

The two vehicles are very different – the number of wheels aside – but the similarities are the manufacturer brand and tyre manufacturer – Honda and Dunlop. The sportsmen are different too, but both are at the peak of their sport; capable of using the tyres to their maximum to achieve the best lap times. Whether that’s in a 27 lap race, over 21 miles against 31 other cars on a smooth race track, or a single 37.73-mile lap of the daunting Isle of Man TT Mountain course, held on closed public roads. 

Swapping machines is no mean feat – to get competitive lap times, they both needed to learn the car and bike respectively in just a handful of laps. During that time, they also had to adjust to the very different tyres that were the only thing between their vehicle and the tarmac.

While Dunlop or Honda will not be releasing official lap times from the event on Monday, both boys were said to be incredibly close to each other’s lap times!

Tyre Talk – the differences


· Size matters – the contact patch on a bike is tiny compared to that of the car, just the size of a credit card.  At around 3-4 times smaller it has to take a power to weight ratio quite differently (close to 1 for a motorcycle against close 0.25 for a BTCC). And that is just for the rear tyre. The front contact patch on a motorcycle is yet again even smaller and needs to cope with the bike slowing at close to 1G deceleration.


· Wheely important stuff – the BTCC wheel is 18 inches in diameter – an inch bigger than that of the TT rear wheel, although the overall tyre diameter is actually bigger on a motorcycle. This means the tyre mechanics are different.


· A bit on the side – Gordon needed to rely on the side walls of the tyres on the Fireblade, while John’s Civic Type R was (mainly) squarely on the base of the tyres. The motorcycle tyre will deform more in the sidewall and tread area to key into the asphalt and generate grip whereas the BTCC tyre will mainly deform in the sidewall area to withstand the weight and get the support required.


· Under pressure –tyre pressures vary. There’s up to 1.1 bar of difference between the bike and car pressures to get the best performance – double the pressure in the front tyres when cold for the bike compared to the car. A motorcycle tyre will run between 1.5 bar to 1.6 bar hot, whereas a BTCC tyre will be aimed to run at 1.85-1.95 bar hot. It may not seem such a big difference for most people but Gordon or John would have spotted that change of tyre performance with less than 0.1 bar difference!


· The magic ingredients and construction – While some ingredients or at least concepts may be tried in one discipline and transferred into another, the secrets inside the tyres are very different – but they have to stay secret.

John McGuinness: “It was brilliant; I didn’t want to get out of the car to be honest. The first session all happened really fast but then I settled down into a groove. The whole mindset changes when you swap from what you know to something new, and I was a bit nervous, but we’re all racers and just want to go fast.

“It’s hard to see the apex, you’re strapped in tight, and it’s quite warm in there. You’re breathing in engine fumes and there are lots of rattles and bangs, it’s such a different world but I was shocked by how nice and precise it was. Dunlop put on some soft, sticky, amazing grippy tyres on the Honda Civic Type R and they gave me so much confidence to go fast.

“My Honda Fireblade had the same tyres we used at the TT where we did a 132.6mph average lap and we brought it here and did some riding on those same tyres which is testament to Dunlop and how good their product is. You know we put our lives in the hands of a few things, but tyres are such an important part of the package.”

Gordon Shedden: “It was absolutely out of this world, you maybe build a picture of what you think it’s like in your head, but nothing compares to it when you’re out there. It’s phenomenally fast but once you get used to it you learn to relax and get more confident. It was an absolute privilege to have a go.

“It was the first time I’ve ever ridden on a slick tyre and I cannot believe the grip that the contact patch the size of a credit card can actually give you, it’s just absolutely mind blowing. The speed obviously is as you’d expect, the world passes by at a million miles an hour. I can only imagine what it’s like going round the TT course, and John is welcome to stay on that!

“Each stint I started to relax more and get more confidence in the grip that was available. The brakes on the race car are fantastic with four big slick tyres to hold the thing on, so you wouldn’t believe the bike would have the stopping capability that it does.”

To view the film content of the challenge, please click here: https://youtu.be/Hz36XDBViAI

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JOB: QUALITY ASSURANCE CONTROLLER - PRODUCT STANDARDS

Quality Assurance Controller – Product Standards

Location: Witney, Oxfordshire

Remuneration: Competitive salary + bonus + benefits

OXFORD has developed a range of branded consumer products targeted at the motorcycle and cycle market, some 11,500 SKUs in total. Most products are designed and/or specified in-house, sourced from the most appropriate factories and then sold both in the UK and via distribution partners in over 80 countries worldwide.

The person who takes on this role will be responsible for all aspects of quality assurance, including product safety and compliance with product legislation, standards and added value approvals. 

Working hand-in-hand with our product managers and quality control team, the successful candidate will define and agree the standards which our products should meet, set up the procedures for checking that those standards are met (if necessary, devise and apply tests) and ensure compliance before and after production.

Candidates will demonstrate both relevant experience and a balanced approach to the role, combining commercial acumen with a passion for ensuring the integrity of the products which are brought to market.

As well as having up-to-date knowledge and experience of the application of product standards and safety legislation, the ideal candidate will:-

• Be highly organised with an excellent eye for detail
• Demonstrate good communication and interpersonal skills
• Have experience of dealing with different levels of technical product engineering
• Operate well both autonomously and as part of a team.
• Offer expertise in the following areas: CE & BSI testing, REACH & RoHS standards, added value product approvals, risk assessments

If you want to be a part of the Oxford success story and have the desire and ability to seize this exciting opportunity, download and complete an application form today from our website.

All applications should be completed in full and accompanied by a letter detailing why you are applying.

Oxford Products Ltd, De Havilland Way, Range Road, Witney, OX29 0YA

Telephone: 01993 862 300  

                    

www.oxfordproducts.com 

                       

info@oxprod.com

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JOB: EXPERIENCED MOTORCYCLE TECHNICIAN

EXPERIENCED MOTORCYCLE TECHNICIAN AT

CARL ROSNER

CONTACT DETAILS: triumph@carlrosner.co.uk , John Church or Robert Rosner

      

We are looking for a fully qualified, experienced motorcycle technician to join the workshop team here at Carl Rosner Motorcycles working on one of the UK motorcycle market's leading brands. 

             

We are looking for a fully qualified, experienced motorcycle technician to join the workshop team here at Carl Rosner Motorcycles working on one of the UK motorcycle market's leading brands. The successful candidate must have at least 3 years technical experience with modern motorcycles and be able to use current diagnostic equipment as well as having a thorough working knowledge of all aspects of servicing and modern engine work. From time to time you may also be required to talk to customers and as such you must be able to communicate clearly and provide technical explanations in a way that can be easily understood.

Salary: £25,000 – £28,000 pa An excellent salary will be awarded to the successful candidate linked to experience and qualifications.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate should be qualified to NVQ level 3 and have at least 3 years technical experience of working in a franchised workshop environment. Working unsupervised in a safe and timely manner to high and exacting standards is essential. A self-starter with a flexible can do attitude, with good attention to detail working as part of a friendly team is a must. Full manufacturer training will be provided as necessary. If you are a qualified MOT tester that would be advantageous.

A full bike and car licence are essential.

Come in and talk to John Church or Robert Rosner about this position or email your cv to triumph@carlrosner.co.uk

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JOB: PARTS, CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES ADVISOR

PARTS, CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES ADVISOR

CONTACT DETAILS: JOHN CHURCH OR ROBERT ROSNER, TRIUMPH@CARLROSNER.CO.UK

We are looking for a Parts, Clothing and Accessories Advisor who will be able to bring their passion and enthusiasm for Aftersales to Car Rosner Motorcycles. This is an excellent opportunity for the right candidate to join one of the leading Triumph dealerships in the country working with one of the most successful and exciting brands in the motorcycle market today.
This is a demanding role but for the right candidate a highly rewarding one also.

Duties include but are not exclusive to:

▪ Ordering and issuing parts, clothing and accessories
▪ Handling customers enquires swiftly, courteously and efficiently.
▪ Actively increasing business of motorcycle parts, clothing and accessory sales wherever possible.
▪ Working with our motorcycle technicians to ensure a seamless customer experience

 Salary: £15,000 – £20,000 pa

An excellent salary will be awarded to the successful candidate linked to experience and qualifications.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate will have a passion for motorcycles and successful experience as a Parts, Clothing and Accessories Advisor in the bike or car industries.

Excellent customer service, communication and organisation skills are a must, together with superb attention to detail. 

A full car licence is essential.

Come in and talk to John Church or Robert Rosner about this position or email your cv to triumph@carlrosner.co.uk

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Skully helmets - no more...

Hi-tech helmet-maker Skully has crashed, and burned the fingers of nearly two thousands small investors who supported the product’s development through a crowdfunding appeal.

Pre-orders for the AR-1 raised more than $2.4 million on Indiegogo in November 2014. Billed as a sophisticated “augmented reality” helmet – featuring a heads-up display and a 180-degree rear-view camera – the project has instead driven home the harsh reality of the risks of sinking money into unrealised online schemes.

Unlike the oft-promised deliveries, few of which, if any, were actually honoured, the end came quickly. As we report in the forthcoming August issue of BDN, news emerged earlier this month that the San Francisco startup had ousted its founder and CEO Marcus Weller and his brother Mitch, and handed the helmet straps to chief operating officer Martin Fitcher.

However, since BDN went to press, website digitaltrends reports that the company has closed down, although Skully’s website remains online – still offering free summer delivery but indicating that its helmets are “sold out” – and the management still talks about “continuing to fulfill our pre-orders”. Deliveries had originally been slated for May 2015 and there has been growing criticism from investors, as we reported in our October 2015 issue ('Skully fiasco shakes crowdfund confidence'). On the back of that story, BDN contacted Skully in November and was assured that deliveries would begin the following month.

As well as question marks over the number of helmets produced, the company evaded repeated requests to provide evidence of the safety certificates it claimed to have for the American and European markets. There would be two versions, we were told, one for the American market that would be DOT approved and one for Europe which was ECE approved.

“Those are the two primary certifications which the helmet will be launching with,” the spokesman said, concluding: “We are excited to near the official shipping date and we have no doubt that customers will find the AR-1 helmet worth the wait.”

The only wait now for investors is whether they will get their money back – and the wait is likely to be a long one indeed.

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