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Welcome to a report on the NEC Show where our favourite bike manufacturer was conspicuous by their absence!

This is a photo of Hall #1 at the NEC. This hall was the main area used for bike manufacturers, the other two halls were mostly bike parts, clothing, bike holidays etc.

I visited the show on Saturday 1st December, and it was really bustling with bikers. It was three years since I last visited the show, and I was sceptical about the value of going.

However, it was surprisingly enjoyable, I met some interesting people, and bought a few goodies home...

So I thought I'd share with the Squadra' some of the more interesting photo's and links to suppliers who you might want to check out.


This first one was an interesting idea - you can program into an LED brake light display a scrolling message. The person on the stand pointed out that although there was nothing to stop anyone displaying abusive messages, that might cause offence! No kidding?

The messages are programmed in with a remote control. You can program in 5 messages upto 250 characters long.

The suppliers - Audicator, also offer an audible warning device to tell you that you've left your indicators on - of course none of us ever do that do we?!


This image of a bar end mirror combined with an LED indicator looked to be well made, and might suit some of the naked bikes in the Squadra.

I had a nice chat with the supplier - Oberon-Performance, they do a range of quality footpegs, handlebar risers, tax disc holders (including a cylindrical one which can be rotated to view the disc), brake levers, other styles of bar end mirrors, fuel caps, and such like.


There were a number of bike holiday companies at the show. A couple of the top-end organisers were getting a lot of interest, they were:

Global Enduro who advertise in the mainstream magazines - they offer a really interesting range of tours including 'enduro himalaya' which is ridden on Enfield Bullets, where you ride upto an altitude of 17,000 feet. The owner of the company 'Simon' talked to me for about 15 minutes about the tours, and what you got out of it. He was a really great guy. While we were chatting, a few people who had been on his tours turned up at the stall, and there was a great sense of friendship amongst them - indicative of what you could expect to get out of a trip like this. I'm conviced I'm going to do it, just a case of when...

A few stands away were Globebusters. The organisers of these tours - Kevin and Julia Sanders are hugely experienced in touring on bikes. Their longest trip from Alaska to Patagonia has been filmed and starts tonight on National Geographic 4pm - 6pm. 'The Ride' is a huge holiday - 5 months duration, £17K plus you supply the bike. Feels like a retirement present! Here's a couple of photo's of these two tour organisers:



While we're on the subject of holidays, I met a great guy on the Gravel Travel stand - a big friendly biker with a huge personality, who had lived in Finland for a year (this was interesting for me because of next year's bike tour to St Petersburg - more of that another time...

Anyway, he described one of their tours of Namibia as being like touring South Africa ten times over. They supply Yamaha XT660's for their tours which come in at £2650 for about 2 weeks all-in. As with most tours there are extras, but the price includes most of the costly items.

Here's a couple of interesting bits and pieces that caught my eye:

Zanier Heated Gloves - these have a rechargeable battery pack in the cuff. They are fully waterproof, and felt good on. Supplied by Thaw Ltd.


There were a number of suppliers of custom made earplugs. People were lining up to get fitted - cost about £60 at the show to get fitted.

This involves the supplier taking a mould of the shape of your ear canal, - see the blue gunge coming out of the guy's right ear on the photo - looks horrible doesn't it?!

From this a mould is created, and you get the ear plugs in a few weeks along with the mould - in case you lose one, it's easy to get a replacement made.


There's an option of getting the plugs with mini speakers built inside them for connection to MP3 or mobile etc.

Ultimateear were doing a great trade in these, if I'd had more time, I'd have been tempted myself.

Moving on to safety, a new initiative to rate the protection from crash helmets has been launched. Named 'SHARP', the Safety Helmet Assessment and Rating Programme, they had a huge stand, and were demonstrating the effect of a crash on various demo pieces of saftey gear. I missed the one on the crash helmet (doh!), but saw them demonstrating how a foam back protector...

DOESN'T do much good. This is why what appear to be back protectors in some jackets are no longer allowed to be called this - they have to be referred to as comfort padding or something similar. There were a few stands selling proper back protectors including Knox and Force Field Body Armour. I favoured the latter - but you have to make your own mind up on this sort of thing.

In the event you need to ship your bike abroad, here's a supplier that can do this, James Cargo Services, covers many countries on most continents.


As you would expect, the BMW and Touratech stands were mobbed. Claudio from Long Way Down was signing autographs.

The photo opposite is of their F800GS - it was a nice bike to sit on. I reckon it will sell more than the 1200, because of it's more nimble size.

It was good to chat to the Touratech guys about their range of optional extras - their catalogue is immense, and it's worth getting hold of a copy if you are into off roading or touring.

They had a range of impact / vibration protecting mounts for GPS. Though these weren't supplied to the Long Way Down guys, and the chap on the Garmin stand reckoned it wasn't necessary for road use. The Garmin Zumo was reduced by £50 at the show, and included the 2008 maps pre-installed. So it was a 'buy'! I'll let you know how I get on with fitting it.

And finally, for no other reason than photogenic qualities, here's some of the metal and 'plastic' eye candy on display at the show:


All in all, a really good day out. I enjoyed it, and will make the time and effort to go next year. I hope you enjoyed the report of the page. Oh, and girls are Rebecca and Danielle - no phone numbers available...Cheers.

Ed:- But where was Mama Guzzi? : GO