United Kingdom – A furious Welsh motorcycling colleague of mine has just telephoned me to say that thieves had stolen 4 rare motorcycles from his almost unique collection of 12 and carried them away would you believe in his recently restored classic Bedford van. It would appear they had simply lifted them through the roof of his garage using a JCB that had itself been stolen locally a few hours earlier. What he was really upset about was that some of his friends had spotted his bikes in pieces at a classic bike event some one hundred miles away and were according to their … [Read more...]
Identity Crisis
United Kingdom – With identity fraud on most peoples minds nowadays, we should take comfort in the fact that we are all, quite unique, but I expect we all know that anyway. If we chose to never communicate with anyone ever again, lose our memory or heaven forbid die, someone should be able to find out who we are or were. An amalgam of our age, gender, description, blood, marks and injuries are not definitive but coupled with our teeth, fingerprints and DNA, which are individual only to us, then we are quite simply unique. So to is our motorcycle, providing of course that … [Read more...]
Crime and the ‘Ace Café’
United Kingdom - The Ace Café may be a Mecca for the motorcyclist but in 1967 the ‘Ace’ and in particular the Grand Union Canal running behind it, once took on a different & more sinister tale of motorcycling. As you might imagine over the years many apocryphal tales were told about this part of the canal. Stories like the giant hand that emerged from the water and ‘took’ a child who played to close to the edge, or the old war veteran who had seen the grim reaper slowly rowing his boat and "touting" for customers. These stories continued all through the First World … [Read more...]
A Classic Case of Bike Crime
United Kingdom - The history of motorcycle (and other vehicle) crime. Crime has been with us forever. The motor vehicle however has only been with us in one form or another since the late 19th century. Like night follows day, vehicle crime followed up close behind & some offences are not quite as new as you might think! In 1891 for instance the police force, already 60 years in existence, were aware of the disquiet caused by these ‘new fangled’ horseless carriages, and over responding to local pressures from a frightened public (not to mention the horses), they … [Read more...]
