Jordan Gibbons, Author of “Riding in the Wild” - PR at Norton Motorcycles - London, UK Interview & ADV Cannonball Rally News

Author of “Riding in the Wild” now on the ADV Cannonball Motorcycle Book Club

Jordan Gibbons is a London-based freelance writer and photographer with an extreme interest in two-wheeled adventures.

He worked as a the Senior Reporter, News Writer and News Editor for MCN for six action-packed years and broke many amazing tales around new bikes and the issues surrounding motorcycling.

Jordan, a lover of all bikes – even Harley-Davidsons!- has taken to two wheels all over the world and attended many launches for MCN, especially on bikes of the adventure variety. Jordan loves a motorcycling mission and has ridden across Europe, Africa and India when the mood’s taken him. He’s also a keen member of the custom bike scene and has been known to modify a few bikes of his own.
Jordan is also partial to two wheels of the non-engined variety and is a former editor of cyclist.co.uk and has contributed to Bikes Etc.,. When he’s not riding, racing and crashing bicycles, he’s riding, racing and (spectacularly) crashing motorcycles instead!

Jordan now works for Norton Motorcycles and is incredibly excited about the new TVS-owned company and what the future holds for them.

Show Links:

2010 Busa Speed Run
2008 Drag Racing in FL

Episode Sponsor - Colombia Motorcycle Rental & Tour Co

Chapters

• 19:14 Jordan Gibbons

Transcript

Welcome to the ADV Cannonball podcast where we discuss all things on two wheels, the adventure bike cannonball, and other motorcycle related nonsense. Season two, episode nine. Welcome to the adventure cannonball podcast. Nice. Aaron, I got some news for you.

Tell me the news, baby. First of all, maybe I should introduce you. Aaron Pufal, thanks for joining me. Thank you, sir, for doing this. I, I got out for a little toot around on the bike this weekend.

It was super nice. That little spring ride. What was the temperature like? It was 12, so that made it about 53 degrees Fahrenheit. So it was really, really nice.

It was fun to get out. I started knowing, of course, that I was like, you know, I swing my leg over and I'm like, oh, I'm good. I'm good to go. We're not, you know, recognizing the fact that I haven't ridden that bike since, I don't know, October. And, I did put a little caution to the wind, and I spent a little bit of time in the parking lot right out here that was absolutely empty.

And I did some slow speed exercises. I put for example, I walked beside the bike with it clutched in, and then I put my right foot up on the left hand side of the bike and did some exercise with counter leaning and the leg out and, tight turns to the right, tight turn to the left just to, yeah, just to just to get used to the balance and the and the weight in the center of gravity. So I did not drop the bike, I have you say. Speaking of counterbalancing, I was recently at one of those GS trophy, events, and they really embrace the counterbalance, the counter leaning. And, I gotta I gotta up my counterbalance game because it's so very dramatic if you can, if you can really get the the weight over there.

So, yeah, that's something that I can have on my on my, on my list of things to do this spring for sure. I'm gonna back up for a moment and then go back to how we normally start. So let me let me first say, can you guess what I'm drinking? Sounds like wine. Is it, the red or the white persuasion today?

It is the it is the white flavor today. Nice. Nice. I've got a Red Bull, C Blue, sugar free, because I need to coast about a mile down the street to, get on a ferry. So, Yep.

Fair enough. Yeah. You can have zero in Sweden. Yeah. No.

Fair enough. Yeah. So, anyway, needless to say, I'm in for the evening. So, you know, there's a lot of podcasts where they start by going, got a little housekeeping. I think we should start this episode with we got a little housekeeping.

You ready for it? Yes, sir. What do you got? I made a mistake. Oh, no.

This is well, this is this is your mistake of the year. So as long as it's out of the way for the year. So tell me. I figure if I could just do it verbally like this, it would save me. You make sure the motorcycle the wheel will stay below me the entire time, so that'll be good.

Alright. So two episodes ago, after we had had, V Day with VJ, and I said that we were number one in India. Remember that? Mhmm. I do.

I was pretty excited. I made a mistake. Well, it can't be better than number one, so give me the bad news. Bad news is that we're number two, of course. As usual, number two.

Whatever. I'll take it. Sometimes it just goes that way. It's You know, where else are you going to? It seems this it seems to be happening.

Like, ever since the gecko, it's like, boom, right in the number two slot. You know where else you know you know what else where else we're number two? No. Baja, Mexico to the Pacific North Northwest. Nice.

I'll take a little Pacific Seaboard action. Yeah. Congratulations. Yeah. Yeah.

And and and, just to confirm, you know, think about our first podcast, what ocean is on that side? Yes. Yes. Indeed, sir. Please let's not let's not let's not get our Atlantic and Pacifics mixed up again.

Oh, let's not. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Our a listers had just dropped down to seven.

I'm actually, hopping on a ferry. I'm gonna take the bike out for the first time this year. I'm gonna coast down the hill. I'm in Port Angeles, and, I'm hopping on the Coho ferry. And, I'm heading over to, Vancouver Island, for the rest of the week, and, that's pretty exciting.

And I'm gonna test out some new gear. I'm testing out I use in ear monitors, hooked up to my Sena. And they serve two purposes. One, they serve as earplugs, plus I can actually hear things, you know, really clearly. So So I was using some really cheap ones, and I was getting some, you know, abrasion in my inside of my ear.

So I switched to these Shure. They're called Shure SE two fifteen pros, and I'll report back. But just putting them in, you can tell that these are not just your bulk Chinese copies. These are pretty sweet. They're a hundred bucks, but I figure I'm gonna start the season off right.

I'm not gonna buy any stupid Farkles for the bike, and, I'm gonna improve, my comms because you're just in your helmet all day. Right? So, yeah, I'm gonna test those out so I have a full report on the new Shure in ear monitors for you. Nice. Yeah.

I I remember when when I was out there with you last, we had, just back to the the in ear monitors. You had again, they weren't they weren't expensive. I remember I had a pair, and they didn't work for me, so I gave them to you. And, it was kinda thing that you're like, oh, well, you know, they're working today, and I'll just bring out the new pair for tomorrow, if they didn't work. But I remember, just your your setup just, again, repeat your setup.

So you take that so if I recall, you have the but before you get on the bike and before you put the helmet on, you put these in, and then you plug the 3.5 into your, what? It so I have the wrong Sena. Right? So I had to buy an adapter that I disconnected the speakers, and I threw them out that are in my helmet. There's a little adapter you can get for $14.

I got mine from Revzilla. They have, free shipping. And I have a little pigtail that just hangs out of the bottom of the helmet. So it sounds like a huge pain in the ass, but it's, like, life changing. So I put the in in ear monitors in, and then I put on my helmet carefully and make sure that the in ear monitors have a good seal, so I'm not getting wind noise.

And then, and then, yeah, and then I just fire up my, my, my comms. Serves the two purposes of killing the wind noise and then getting actual sound quality into your ear holes directly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I thought I I tried that. It was a really good system, and then I ended up going back to the having the, the Harman Kardens in my helmet, which had really good sound. And I used earplugs that had that are designed for motorcycle riding, which have a hole in them, which allows sound to come through, but wind noise doesn't. So Yeah. I tried I tried both systems, but it is louder overall than your system.

Like, you can everything's dialed out except for the the audio or whatever you're piping into your ears. Yeah. And just to close the topic, I the the in ear monitors give you really good quality. So you're not listening to, like, a podcast or something while you're on a motorcycle stuck on I 95 because, you know, quiet sound isn't making through with with all that wind noise, especially if you're going at a decent speed. So it is a pain in the ass, but it's just once you get used to it, it it's just it's perfect.

But it's not for running to the grocery store. It's most definitely for, you know, crushing miles. But anyways Alright. And when you were editing our, the captain Lee interview that I did with a conversation with captain Lee, there were some things that resonated for you about that. Tell us about that.

Yeah. I'll put some links in the in the show notes. So I don't know. It was back in the day. So we used to ride out there because you and I obviously used to live in Fort Lauderdale.

And on a Sunday afternoon, there was nothing to do but go on the exact same routes that, captain Lee was talking about. So I found the video from 02/2010, It's a terrible video. And, so I had a Hayabusa back in the day, and I remember doing a speed run down Highway 24. It's just super straight, and there's no one on it, especially on a Sunday morning except for other bikers. So, I was trying to hit that 300 kilometer hour speed limiter on, on the Hayabusa.

And I was just I was getting really close to it, and I kinda chickened out because I didn't wanna I was concerned that the engine would, like, turn off or something. Like, the rev limiter the the speed limiter would be really abrupt, and it's just you know, it's scary doing 300 kilometers an hour. So anyways. And then, did you ever go out there on '24? If I did, at the time, I had the D r six fifty, and I rolled out there, and it was really just to get out there and to run the canal roads on the sides in the dirt just to find some place where you could get on some dirt roads in Florida.

So I went out to the canals on either side of the in the Everglades. Yeah. Yeah. There's you're you're not doing a lot out there. That's for sure.

But, there was one thing we could do out there is and I have another video that it's on my YouTube channel, and I'll post that link in the show notes is there was a abandoned landing strip out there. And at night, they used to turn it into a drag strip. It was a, you know, properly set up drag with a tree and everything. And, so I would also bring, the Hiboost out there. And later, I had a k 1,300 or something I used to bring out there.

And you could actually race against people. So one of our friends had a CBR 1,000, highly modified. And, and, of course, I'm putting the video up because because I won the race. So that's the only reason I'm up there. That's I crushed them by fractions of a second.

So, anyways, yeah, it it was nice to go down memory lane, with captain Lee. And, you know, Florida has its good points, but the the motorcycle riding isn't, isn't that great. To the captain Lee, I just saw on his post. He actually you know, we talked about doing that ride, and then he just put his bike week. And he also just put up a he'd also just put up a, video, which was that exact ride where he went down to, the Rod and Gun Club.

And, I can't I think that was a Rod and Gun Club, but he talks about the whole thing. And it's he's on his bike, and he's out there, and he's got a a friend with him. So, anyway, if not a family member, I can't remember which. But, anyway, it's, it's super cool to see exactly what you're talking about. That whole area is well represented, done a great job with the, well, he's got a professional camera crew, so that helps.

Yeah. It definitely helps. And we all think we're we're YouTubers until the actual work comes into play. And I'm like, you know what? I just don't have the patience for this.

Yeah. Fair enough. Alright. So drag racing days, if you wanna catch Aaron's video on the when he's out on his boosah and he crushed the CBR, that link I'm gonna put that link in the show notes. Right?

Yeah. I'm gonna put both of them on there for for fun. And then, I wanted to share because it's spring, I did some insurance, you know, just an o just a a look at my my insurance, policies. And I had realized that I have full collision on my GSA and a few other bikes that I have here. And I'm like, what is going on here?

So I like over twenty five or thirty years of riding, I've never destroyed a bike. And if I have, you know, hurt the bike, I've I've just fixed it. Right? So I did the math, and I've spent $3,040,000 dollars on full collision on my motorcycle. So just by removing I have GEICO.

Just by removing collision and leaving theft and leaving million dollar liability on there, It cost me for three motorcycles. It cost me $200 a year only. So it saved me a thousand dollars a year if I got rid of collision. And I'm just based on my my history, I'm like, I should've just stopped doing that years and years ago. But, anyways, I just wanted to share with everyone, as an experiment, if if if you just fix your own bike anyways, do that exercise and see how much money you can save, and then you can do your own assessment whether or not you need that full collision on there or not.

That's a really good point. I have to I have to admit that as as I've mentioned before on this podcast is that, if you register a bike in Stockholm, there's more people who want your motorcycle besides you. There's more people to pick up your motorcycle. Right. I get that.

And there's more things to run into with your motorcycle. So, where we have the house out here, it's a bit it's about 25 miles outside of Stockholm, a straight run on the on the commuter train. And to ensure things out here, it is 50% of what it is in town. So I'm registered in town, and my wife is registered here at this apartment where I'm currently sitting. And, needless to say, she owns all the vehicles.

That's right. It's funny because it's actually really sad is that, I have a folder with all my, you know, titles and ownerships, and I always have my Hayabusa title in there. And it really annoys me because that motorcycle got stolen off my front porch, front porch, in Fort Lauderdale, when I owned it. And so I've definitely suffered the the wrath of people who want your things, just as much as you do. So, yeah, that always pisses me off every time I go into that folder and I see that that damp thing there.

I should just throw it out because, clearly, it's being parted out or is on someone else's drag strip or something. But yeah. So that that bike got stolen from me. Not on less less than a year of owning it. And, actually, that's what happened.

So that bike got stolen, and then I bought the k series, BMW, which was also amazing. Aaron, I think it's time to come clean. You ready? Yeah. So, I took your bike.

I took it out to the drag strip. I raced from Peaks, and I lost. You lost? Well, at least at least make a video of it for Christ's sakes. Yeah.

Yep. Bad story. I'm so sorry that I'm sorry that happened to you. Yeah. Anyways, what are you gonna do?

Have you, have you read anything lately? Yeah. So I've last week, I said I was reading Far and Away, and I finished it. And it was really, really good. I'm I'm not a big Rush fan, you know, but I know a lot of guys of of our vintage, are.

So it was a really good riding book. He he he basically is a drummer for Rush, and he would he would every time they go on a tour, they would take the motorcycles, him and one of his friends. And then when the rest of the band would fly, he would ride the motorcycles, him and his buddy. And he had a GS GS or GSA, and then they would actually do, like, gravel roads and, you know, things like this. And so it's it really is a good motorcycle book, and it's kinda fun to hear about his modesty and, his work ethic and, and, you know, a lot of a lot of those, a lot of those aspects of being in a in a huge band like Rush.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That's a that's very cool. Yeah.

Far and away. Far and away. Neil Perk. Let me tell you a little bit about the, the the week that I had in London. I know we talked about this a bit briefly on the last on the last podcast.

Yeah. I think you're rubbing it in. But, yeah, if you wanna do it again, feel free. Yeah. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna I'm just gonna bury it right now.

And and then I promise I won't mention anything else about me getting to spend time with Jordan Gibbons in his man cave. I promise I won't say that again. Sure. Sure. I'm I'm sure you won't.

I'm I don't right. So, so I guess now's a good time to intro really officially. I didn't really I just kind of kind of was winging it last time just about information that was accurate about him, but let me give you his official bio here. So, I did have an opportunity to sit with him. He was really generous with his time.

He is he's just he's really had a funny, self deprecating sense of humor, which is extremely witty. So he's extremely intelligent and, yeah, and you can hear it in the interview. He's he's he's funny. He's funny. He was great to talk to, and we coulda talked all day.

So Jordan Gibbons is a freelance London based writer and photographer, and he has an extreme interest in two wheeled adventures. He's worked as a senior reporter, news writer, and news editor for MCN, so that's motorcycle news. He did that for six years. And in in doing that, he did a lot of things like he would break amazing stories about new bikes and the tales surrounding issues in motorcycling. He's a lover of all bikes.

He even admitted that he is a lover of Harley Davidsons. I didn't you know, that wasn't prompted. He just came right out. And, he's taken to adventures that are two wheels all over the world. He's also attended many launches for MCN, especially on bikes of the adventure variety.

Jordan is a motorcycling mission lover and has ridden all across Europe, Africa, and India. And when the mood takes him, he pretty much gets on a bike and goes wherever he likes. It was also really cool to see the bikes that he in the book that he actually had in his garage that, he wrote about when he did the big trip in, I did so many. I can't remember which one it was. But the bikes that he's he's done trips on, it was kinda see them all in in the, in the actual garage in different states of assembly.

He's also a keen member of the custom bike scene, as I mentioned, and that's something that we talk about in the interview, and he's been known to modify a few bikes of his own. He does go into great detail about that. Jordan is a partial owner of a two wheel and non engineered variety and the former editor of cyclistuk. Sorry. Cyclist.co.uk, and it's a contributor to bikes, etcetera.

There's a lot of other publications that he's he's contributed to a lot throughout the years. When he's not riding, racing, or crashing bicycles, he is riding, racing, and spectacularly crashing motorcycles instead. He is now working for Norton Motorcycles and incredibly excited about this new chapter in his life, and he is the senior communications manager. So, it was exciting to hear about that and to hear his whole, his whole story about how he got there. And we just had a lot of time right talking about his book.

So with that, 5% Jordan Gibbons. Registration is now open to the public for the next ADV cannonball rally. All riders on any motorcycle are welcome to join the adventure. Whether you're looking for an exciting and highly organized coast to coast ride with a group of like minded riders or a friendly competition for cannonball glory, it doesn't matter. Everyone can participate.

Head over to cannonball.com to secure your rally starting position today. Now back to the podcast. Jordan Gibbons, thank you for sitting down and taking time to chat with us about motorcycles on Adventure Cannonball podcast. I'm glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

The primary reason to have you on this podcast is to discuss your new book, Riding in the Wild, but I'd also like to ask you about the shop where we're currently sitting, your, man cave with a revenue stream or Yeah. Yeah. With a revenue stream as you as you indicated. I'd like to get your opinion on The UK bike culture and then finally talk about what's next for you. Sure.

So firstly, to understand your origin story, what's the first motorcycle you owned? How old were you? Where were you living? Can you talk a bit about that? Yeah.

The first motorcycle I owned was not a good first motorcycle. It was a CBR 600 f, a Honda CBR 600 f. And I bought it on eBay from a guy who'd crashed it. He crashed it on a track. So, basically, I I would have been a young 17 year old boy growing up in Manchester, virtually penniless.

Like, I had I, I had no money to buy a car, basically, so I wanted, I wanted to buy a motorcycle. And and I also had this idea of the motorcycle as as being this kind of, like, freedom machine. So I'm of the age where I've grown up watching The Long Way Around on TV and thinking it was this amazing thing, and I couldn't believe that motorcycles were capable of going to these places and doing these things. Obviously, I couldn't afford a GS. I was a 17 year old boy.

And where we lived over the road, there was a there was a car mechanics, but quite an old school one, like, you know, like a like a almost like a backstreet place. And the guy was he was really friendly with my old man, and I got chatting to him once. And when I was, like, 16, 17, I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life, And he suggested I came and worked with him for the summer and learned about how to fix stuff. So we, like, you know, we fixed cars. We did all this kind of stuff.

And I thought, you know what? Maybe if I could buy a motorbike that's already broken, and he suggested he would help me fix it. So that's exactly what I did. So I went on eBay. I bought a CBR six hundred f for 400 pounds and then spent the summer fixing it and then learning to ride and getting my license.

And then miracle of miracles, because it was a CBR six hundred, I didn't kill myself as a 17 year old boy. Yeah. Those are quite fast machines. I spent time on those. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a quick bite. The f was like a more comfortable, slightly sedated version, but ultimately, I I still I think there was still probably about a hundred horsepower. So, you know, more than enough to be getting on with. But, yeah, that was where it all that was the genesis for me.

That was where it all started. That's a nice segue actually into my next question is, so today we're sitting here in your East London custom bike shop aptly called The Shop. Yeah. In your book, Riding in the Wild, there are many pictures of bikes in different states of disassembly on the roadside. Not all at your hand, I must say.

No doubt in an effort to get the machines back on the road. So one might argue that there is a world of difference between affecting a roadside repair and opening a bike shop for customizations. Can you talk about the inspiration there? You may have just touched on it, but can you talk about the inspiration of what it was to open this place where we currently sit? Yeah.

Sure. So, so I'd always, yeah, I'd always loved working on things ever since then. I think, and I am quite I'm a relatively practical person, but I don't have, like, a practical job. And I don't pull things apart and fix them for my for my work, like, day in day out. And I had some friends who, like me, enjoyed motorcycles, wanted to customize motorcycles ourselves.

So to begin with entirely just for our own pleasure and we needed a place to do it. Doing it on the street is rubbish, it rains, you gotta pack all your tools in now so on and so forth. So about nine or ten years ago there was a few of us who who got this place. So there was me, there was my friend, my buddy Damien, and a guy called Howard. And, yeah, we opened this place and started to begin with, we just started chopping up our own bikes, and then people would like, hey.

That's cool. Could you do mine? And then so we started making a few. And I'll be really honest, we at the time, we were all freelance, so we had a lot more time on our hands to do this. And we each one of us was good at a different thing, so we'd all do different bits of a bike.

You know? Like, I have I'm not good at wiring. I'm just more patient than Damien and Howard. So I would do the wiring, and I went and I learned how to paint and pinstripe and do all that kind of stuff. Damien's a really good welder.

And to be honest, actually, Howard was his job was he is an electrician. I don't know why I ended up doing the wiring. He should have yeah. You know, he wired this entire building. I don't know why he didn't do that.

But maybe it was he was sick of it as a day job. But so that's what we did and we built and sold a few bikes, under our own name. And then and then we kinda slowed down just because, we a few of us got full time jobs, babies, all that kind of stuff got in the way. But we decided to keep the workshop more as like a social hangout space. So now we, you know, we invite people in, people are free to use the space or I should say people can rent the space.

And then if they wanna do their own projects and use our tools and we pass them on to John and help them. So there's a guy in Dan at the moment, Danny, he's just been doing up his Yamaha, and I've been helping him showing how to weld, all that kind of stuff. Once upon a time, it was a vaguely commercial enterprise. These days, it is not even remotely commercial enterprise. Yep.

Fair enough. One can infer from the bespoke nature of the shop that you are not set up to have people rocking up and knocking on the door and saying, could you please change this tire? So that said, can you comment on the preferred type of bike customizations or are you doing much of that? Yeah. Yeah.

We we are still doing I think the the big thing we discovered was that when you when you do when you take on a project, when you do a a a custom motorcycle for someone, they all have they often have a vision in their head. And if they're depending on the sort of person they are, how practical they are or not, they I think sometimes people don't appreciate how long a something that seems relatively simple might take, or they want something that's incredibly difficult to achieve or they've seen somewhere else. And one of the things we found was it was like the customer relationship management side of it was way harder than the building of the motorcycle. And, like, you know, you would, emails back and forth and all this kind of stuff. And and and trying to get that across to someone, you know, someone would be like, oh, I've seen this really cool thing on another bike.

Could you replicate that? And you and you'd say, yeah. We can do, but that's gonna cost so much money because, like, it looks really simple, but that is super hard to do. So we changed a little bit. So so we stopped doing any form of commission, and instead, what we decided we would do is we would just build motorcycles that we like in our own image that we want.

Like, here's a cool motorcycle. We love that. And then we just set we just put it up for sale. And if someone wants to buy it as it is, great. If they don't, that's it.

And then I think we we agreed they would be like, we'd change the color. If someone's like, oh, I love this motorcycle. I wish it was blue. Yeah. Fine.

We'll paint it. But if someone's like, oh, I wish I had this and that. No. It's this is how it comes. If you wanna change any more than that, get someone else to customize it because it was yeah.

So the last one we did was or Damien did it was either a Yamaha, XV seven fifty. And I think maybe I will I've pretty much finished that b and w down there. I've had it for a long time. I think I've done everything I wanna do with it now. So I think I'll give that a real, like, a brush over a really good service, maybe a fresh lick of paint, and I'll probably sell that soon.

And sell that one. So it's a bit like the Henry Ford. It's like you can have a car any color you want as long as it's black. A little bit like that. Yeah.

Yeah. For sure. That's right. I sympathize with it. I hear you.

I have to say as well, coming from the the maritime world from private yachting sector, it's, you can have have the let's say that a perfectly laid out charter week with a with a charter guest or an owner is is perfect up until it meets the owner or the charter guest. So, you know, you're going across. You've got some beautiful blue water and, you're going across the, you know, the Grand Bahama Bank or something and you're like, once we get over there to where that telephone antenna is, we're gonna go in there and dock and we're gonna come out on the other side, this amazing spot like in the Exumas where Yeah. We can take you out and have a private beach that runs for, you know, three miles and have jet skis there and everything you want. And they'll go, but I'm gonna go to that beach.

In the meantime, now you're good there. And they go, okay. We'll go we'll go to that beach now. Yeah. So everything else is just done.

Right? And the entire thing, you're you're talking to all the crew. You're like, okay. So we're not gonna do the, you know, the beach the beach. We're gonna have a different beach going on.

Can you guys get the you take the intrepid and run over there and set this up? Yeah. So it's it changes everything entirely. I totally get that. Yeah.

So, yeah, that aspect of the management is, expectation management. It's like a it's a completely different thing. Like, it's it's a whole job in of itself, you know, for sure. With his with his own skills. Yeah.

Yeah. That I have, I have a friend in Sweden and, he runs his own company and he's, you know, he's the owner and the CEO and it's quite successful. And, in his title, he actually has called himself expectation manager. It's true. It's so true.

Yeah. That's great. That's great. So, I'd like to turn the page here. In your book, riding in riding in the wild, you generously detail 20 unique adventures with amazing photography covering almost 50,000 miles or 80,000 kilometers spanning five continents, many islands, and land masses in between.

Of the many adventures depicted in the 272 pages, are there any that are standouts for you? Before I did this, I was a motorcycle journalist and, but I in my like spare time, fun time, my friend Stefan ran a still does, runs a business called Pannier, which is like cycle touring or bikepacking, which is a really, really popular thing. It's a bit like motorcycle travel, but the idea is is you you it's lightweight, off road, exploring lesser known places, the idea behind bikepacking as opposed to really traditional bicycle touring. And I I really enjoyed that. It was, an amazing like, we had some really amazing adventures, some of the strangest ones.

And during during lockdown, so twenty twenty ish, we got approached by the publishers of writing the World's End Publishers, Gustalsson, who wanted to do a book all about bike packing. So I helped him, with all these trips, brought all the photos for that, and then they approached us again maybe a year or two later and said they wanna do another one. That first one had been super successful. We wanted another one. And I did about a third of the writing in that one.

And around about the same time, I'd left motorcycle news. I'd gone freelance, and they used to publish a magazine called Built, which is a custom motorcycle magazine. And while I was the editor of Built, I would receive pictures for these really cool stories where someone had taken a custom motorcycle or a classic motorcycle and ridden it around, done all these great things with it, but there was just no home for it in the magazine. And I remember and I'd started collecting all these things up. I would see these guys on social media doing this interesting stuff, and I'd think to myself, god, there's there's something in this, but I don't re I at the time, I didn't really know what it was.

And then I did that second bike packing book, and I thought to myself, man, maybe Gestaltin would publish a book that has a collection of all these stories in. So I just got in touch with the editor and said, I've had this idea. I I wanna do it's gonna be exactly like our bike packing book, except it's motorbikes instead of bicycles. And and they said, oh, we'll put you in touch with the funny enough, they said, we'll put you in touch with the CEO. And I thought, that's a bit strong, isn't it?

Like, I mean, you got a editorial team. And I had a call with the CEO maybe two weeks later, and it turns out the guy was a mad keen motorcyclist. And within about thirty seconds of our conversation, he'd greened at the book and we were just away then. So there, you know, I anyway, I was collecting I had I'd collected all these or collected. I'd seen all these different people who'd done these routes and all these amazing things over the years, and I wanted to bring them together.

But the two there was two two which are my favorite now, but there was one which was almost like the main inspiration for the book, having seen it. And that was James Bachman's trip, like, through The Americas. So we it's it's in the book, but it doesn't I I can't I don't think we fully explained the crux of what his journey was, which was that so him and a couple of his friends, what was interesting about their trip and the reason why I really wanted to include it and the the reason why it was inspired me and I love it now apart from the amazing photography. I think he's gone on to be a National Geographic photographer now. But I they did something that I really believe in, which is using the motorcycle as a vector, as a thing with which you do something else rather than in and of itself.

So their trip was really it was a mountaineering trip. They wanted to travel around scaling these mountains, and they just chose to travel around by motorcycle instead of chucking all this stuff in a van. So they had all their motorcycle equipment piled onto these motorcycles. They'd from they made their own panniers, like, all this kind of stuff because they were just, like, they were just poor mountain climbers, and they threw all their stuff in it, and they would travel to these, you know, remote places, like, all, you know, out to up through Alaska to used to be called Mount McKinney, didn't it? It's called Denali now, isn't it?

They yeah. So they traveled up to Denali, in, like, horrendous weather and then the same, like, through South America into the Andes. And the pictures were just amazing, but it encapsulated everything I love about motorcycle travel, which is going to really interesting places, going by slightly different route, as in using a motorcycle, not a fan, but also, like, just adapting what you have. At the start of the book, you know, I talk about different types of motorcycles. What is the best adventure motorcycle?

And in one simple sentence, the best adventure motorcycle is the motorcycle you already own. Just find a way to use it. It's a really good comment you make, and I love the the, you're having a conversation with a friend that you also talked about in your intro. And you said, what is an adventure? And it really is it's like going someplace where you you're just not sure where you're gonna end up.

Yeah. And that was there's a guy called Dave Lomax who runs Adventure Spec, which is in The UK, a huge, like, adventure parts and kit supplier, but they're, like, internationally known now for for sure. They, supported a guy called Linden Poskett on his round the world journey, and they ship all over the place. But he is like, I'm gonna if I call you the grandfather of venture, that would both enormously insult him for his age, but also, maybe overplay. But he, he was definitely, I'd say, an early pioneer on most the motorcycle adventure circuit.

And it was him who said that to me, you know, for someone who's so well traveled by motorcycle, so experienced to think of an adventure as just turning left instead of turning right, I thought it encapsulated it really well, which is why I stole it and put it in the book. But But I've credited it now so it's fine. Do you have an idea of what time span those adventures capture these 20 that you've put in there? Yeah. I think at this point now, it's not well, I don't know because it's two years since since I originally started writing it.

James Bartman's is probably one of the oldest ones. That must have been eight years ago, maybe even maybe even more. I'm pretty sure it was pre COVID, so which seems like yesterday, but was obviously, like, five years ago. So, yeah, James' must be seven or eight years ago. A couple of them are a little bit, maybe hovering around that time as well.

Yeah. So you've done these trips. You know people who've done these trips. What what was the moment where you thought, I need to put all these and capture all of these into one book? What was the sort of the the the come to Jesus moment there where you went, this is I need to I need to capture all this and cap I need to have all this in one spot.

This is worthy of a book. It was so it was when I was sending the very last issue of Built to print. So Built got to 40 issues and then the publishers decided to close it. And there was still this pot of really interesting stories that looked amazing that I really wanted to to publish. And and I was thinking, there must be there must be an outlet for this.

And I'd seen other I'd seen other books like Gestaltan is a publisher, but they they use some really beautiful adventure books. They'd done they'd done one a few years ago called Ride Out, which was kind of, it was motorcycle stories but not in the same not in the same vein. And a few, they'd done some ones that were more about people's individual solo adventures. So some people who'd ridden around the world and documented their entire adventure in one book. And I and I basically, I'd never seen anything else quite like it.

I'd seen other adventure books out there, which which were more sort of, like, practical in their application. It was it was very much a how to go and do this thing. If you wanted to go ride around Morocco, you wanted to go ride around The Americas, or you wanted to go ride around Asia, it's how you went and did it. I'd never seen anything that was just basically, hundreds of pages of kind of FOMO of just trying to make you wanna just, you know, my I said to myself when I was, like, originally put pitching this book, if someone hasn't picked this book up and then read through it and by the end of it doesn't wanna throw the thing on the floor and go out and ride their motorcycle, then I failed. And that's the idea basically, was I really wanted something that would make you just wanna a a book that you pick up and immediately wanna put down.

Yeah. You yeah. I can I can, having having read that actually on on the on the flight over here, there was parts where I was looking to understand about the trip that we're taking up in the coming, in September that Aaron and I are taking in the Himalayas? Yeah. And I was looking for the Mongolia, and I've been there with business, and I was looking for areas.

And I was so it's it's unique. What this book is, what As as I see this book is it it it's it inspires people to come out and wanna and want to, again, put the bike down, put the book down and pick up your I mean, pick up your your kit and get on your bike. But it's it's also written in a way that it gives practical tips. I love I love the the way it's put together in such it's like it reminds me of the old, Banana Republic catalogs. When you look at the Yeah.

What you should carry and different things, and and it's really a no nonsense. You know, cameras will get covered in dust. Make sure that they're, you know Yeah. Smaller cameras are better. Don't carry them on your body.

You should carry them here. You should take water. You should carry your water here. There's different things that give it a very practical sense. At the same time, one of the things that's really nice about the book is that beyond just being a how to guide in that regard, it is, inspiring.

It includes things like what to carry, as I mentioned, and it also shares the best roads, ones to avoid, must stop places, festivals, or pubs depending on time of year you're there. Swimming swimming spots, I thought that was quite cool. Yeah. And it all the while, as you say, it gives a gentle push for those who are on the fence about considering such a trip. Yeah.

So have you received any feedback from readers that you have inspired? Yes. A couple of people, including someone, someone emailed me and said they'd gone and done, Ashley Watson's trip in Portugal, and which was really nice because that's one of the ones I wanna go and do, and I'm probably gonna go and do it this summer, actually. So I'd again, I'd this is one of those ones where I'd met Ashley a few years ago when he just brought out some his his his first I think it was the Evisort jacket. And, and he told me that the way he'd tested or designed this jacket was by going riding, like, a thousand miles to a couple of thousand miles through through Europe and and and and Spain and Portugal.

And he showed me these pictures. I was like, man, that looks great. And I just kinda, like, filed it away in my brain somewhere. And then he was one of the first people I contacted when I decided I was gonna make the book. And as I remember when I was assembling the book, it that was one of the ones that really resonated with me.

And I if I looked back through my WhatsApps, I could I would probably find it. I remember messaging so I had someone help me write a guy called Ross. He he did some of the writing with me, Ross Sharp. And I remember messaging Ross saying, I just finished writing this bit and looking at the photos, and I'd inspired myself to do it. And and it was a really good feeling.

I remember feeling, like, really revved up and wanting to go go out and ride my motorcycle, on on that particular trip. So that was one of the ones I really wanted to do. And so I've set myself aside some time this year to go and do it. But, yeah, last summer, someone emailed me to say that they had, they'd gone and done it. And I was like, heck, I I, like, couldn't quite believe it.

That was a job done. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I was like, tick.

Next. Yeah. It's, you know, it's the same it I've it was the same when I was a motorcycle journalist. So I I was I was worked for MCN for about six years. There were thereabouts.

And you I write a lot of news. You'd write reviews. You'd go and do these trips. And, you know, you I you know that people buy the product. You know that people buy the magazine, that they go on the website, they read the things.

But for some reason, the the idea that there are real people out there enacting your advice or taking in what you say is quite abstract. You until eventually, you you meet that reality and it's quite I used to find it quite not alarming, but, like, startling, like, in a good way, not in a negative way. The I've known the guys, Robert and Johnny from from Malay for a few years, and they've provided a few routes for for the book. And I've been on their events, and they before they do their their rallies, they always do a pre rally dinner. And they were they were hosting a pre rally dinner at a place called the Duke of London, here in London.

And one of the things they do to try and introduce people to each other is just take ten, twenty, thirty seconds, at the, like, a moment in the dinner and everyone stands up and just says, hi. My name is Jordan. I'm gonna ride this motorcycle because to motorcyclists, that's the most important thing. You know? What mode do you ride?

And and then maybe a little bit of a story as to, like, why you're there or something like that. And a a couple of years ago, I went to the one of the pre rally dinners for for a rally that I wasn't going on, but but Robert just invited me. And this guy stood up and said, hi. I'm John. I'm riding a Triumph trucks and whatever it was.

And he said, and I'm, I'm here because I read about this in Motorcycle News. And I'd, you know, I'd done the rally the year before and written about it. And I was like, I couldn't quite believe it. I was just I remember he sat there just thinking, oh my god. This this guy's actually taken my advice.

And Robert and Robert pointed out that I was sat there. And then his friend stood up and said, well, I'm here because he told me about it, because he read about it. And and it turned out on that that year, because it was the year after I'd written the report, there was, like, five or six people on that on that quite small event, about a hundred people go on it, who'd who'd read about it in in MCN and had had said, that sounds great. I'm gonna go and do it. And even though I know in my mind's eye that enough people read these things, buy these things, people are gonna take that advice, it was quite and I do it.

You know, if I wanna buy a washing machine, I go online and read about it. I just never bump into the person who writes the washing machine review. But it was, yeah, it was it was really astounding to do it. So, yeah, so to have an email for someone to say they were gonna go do it, it was it was just, yeah, it was one of the best feelings in the world. It was incredible.

Nice. Well, I have to say that because we booked, I'm sitting here in front of you and asking you questions Yeah. Because it inspired us. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's it's the the power it can have is astonishing. Interesting. In the beginning, in your intro, you talk about you mentioned a journey that you have through Japan, yet there was no journey of you taking a trip through Japan that I noticed in this book unless I just entirely missed it. So basically, there there are, I guess the question really is there's a lot of content out there.

So at what point do you decide what to leave on the cutting room floor and what to include? Matt, that was tough. That was really hard. So when you when you produce something like this, I think we you you you develop a set and then you try and you you wanna try and spread out over the world for a start, you know, because you've gotta be aware that some of your readers are gonna be in Europe, some are gonna be in Asia, some are gonna be in America. So you want a bit of an even distribution.

And then also, you know, not not every single trip in this can be around the world void. You know? There has to be stuff that's a couple of days long, a week long, because as much as I would love to just quit my job and ride around the world for six months, that option isn't really available to me. And and it isn't available to most people. It's a luxury that not everyone gets.

So you're trying to balance, you know, epicness, you know, off road, on road, length, time, location, all these sorts of things. So when we when we started compiling it, I think I had about 45 different routes, and it ended up cut in almost exactly in half. It was, and there was some that had really amazing stories that I was really sad to leave out. You also have there's a little bit of boring stuff that you have to do like, yeah. I I'd seen these ones and you have to think about, oh, is that person gonna let us license their image for a feed that's appropriate or something like that?

Well, I mean, that's for gestalt to worry about, but ultimately, you know that some of the ones that you want are just not gonna make it for something really dull like that. But there was one that didn't make it into the book and I was really sad not to have it in there because it was almost one of the most insane ones, which was this guy called, hope I'm not gonna mispronounce his surname, I think he was called Charlie Weisel and he'd ridden around the world on like a custom chopper, like a big Swedish chop. And I remember what originally captured me is he'd he, you know, he did the road of bones up through Russia, Magadan, all that kind of stuff. And I remember seeing this photograph. He must have put his camera on a tripod and in a river.

And his back wheel was on one bank and his front wheel was on the other bank. Because the motorcycle was so long, it bridged the entire river as he rode across it. And and I really want I I was I really wanted to include that one, but that was just one of the ones that went on the cutting room floor. And but and it's it's so tough because you're like you think, oh, I'll just include that one. And then in the incline before you knew you are, the the thing's like six inches thick and it's just impossible.

So, yeah, there was a few there was a few that didn't make it and I was on the one hand, I was really, really disappointed that they couldn't all make it, but you've gotta choose somewhere. And and also I think what we ended up with there was the other thing for me was that I didn't wanna get any that were in there that I wouldn't have in there. Do you know what I mean? And that was I definitely by the time we were finished, I was really pleased with the final selection. I was, like, happy with it.

It was like, I thought it was nicely representative, of, like, different places, people, all that kind of stuff. Is there so as you say that there are some things that you that were sort of your darlings that you had to cut out. Are is there a plan for a follow-up book on the subject or have you already started planning, like, what's next in terms of your writing or publishing? So as things stand right now, there are no plans. And and that's not that's entirely me for that reason.

So writing a book is really hard. You know, it sounds kind of obvious, but it is it's a it's a really difficult endeavor in terms of, like, time, the commitment to time you gotta do. And, and, you know, unless you are Ian Rankin or, you know, another famous author, you know, who's who's gonna produce loads of, like, big fiction books and like that, Publishing is is an industry where it is difficult to make it your day job, nigh on impossible really. You know? No one actually, a better way to describe it is if you the best way to make a small fortune in publishing is to start with a large one.

Right? It's just, you know, it's you you it's it's it's difficult, like, to make it a a real thing. So you basically, ultimately, what I'm saying is it's gotta be a labor of love. You gotta do it because you really wanna do it. That's why I I didn't do riding in the wild to make money.

Like, that was never why I did it. I did it because I wanted to do it, and I wanted to have produced this thing. And I remember when I did those bike packing books and my, you know, my friend Steph was the, like, lead editor on it. It was his name on the in the cover. It was his name on the back.

And I was like, I I'm, remember thinking, man, I really I really wanna do that. I I really wanna say I've done that. So comp an accomplishment I'd really like. So that was why I did it. And it was and it was a really tough process just making it.

And also at the, at the time when I was doing it, it was it was kinda like rotten luck, but just exactly as I as I started it, a close member of my family died. So, it was a very, like, emotionally turbulent time, to to look back on. And and I just I was maybe about halfway through it just as I started to work at Norton. So I didn't finish it before I started work. So there was a period of, like, a couple of months at Norton where I would, like, get up crazy early in the morning, work on the book for a couple of hours, then do my full time job, then work on the book for more hours, evenings, weekends, like, con you know, constantly.

And it it it became a drag in a way that I don't like, I didn't wanna repeat, and it's not an emotion that I wish to hold over over creating it. Like, it be it no longer felt like a joyous thing at the end. It became like a bit of a chore, which sounds really clear because there's a lot of people who work very long hours very in very tough circumstances. Here, I'm complaining that I'm sat on my laptop for a few extra hours a day. But, it was, yeah, it was a it was a really tough thing to do, and I'm I think ultimately what I haven't had yet is enough distance and forgot you know, it's like if you eat something really spicy, you know, the time you're like, oh my god, why am I doing this?

And in, like, six days time you're like, oh, that was great. I wanna do it again. And, like, I, you know, I said, I said after I finished this, I was like, I am never ever doing another book ever again. And then, a close buddy of mine, Stu, Stu Parks, he's a really he was the designer on Built. He's a really amazing designer.

We do a lot of stuff together. And he messaged me the other day saying he'd been invited to his commission to do his book. And I was like, oh, maybe I wanna do another book. So right now, no plans, but never say never is what I would say to that. Yeah.

Great answer. Yeah. Great answer. You mentioned, MCN earlier, and I wanna just take a a detour. And I wanna talk to you about one of the things that I saw that I thought was really, really fun covers that you did, was you went out with the BMW team, and it was a it was a practice.

You were doing trials. I think you were you were in Wales, and you were doing a you were with a group of guys, and they were doing a team, and they were practicing, and they were gonna go to New Zealand, and you were gonna travel with them. And I remember the funniest thing, travel with them. And I remember the funniest thing which I thought, you have such an amazing self deprecating sense of humor and you're like, these guys are quite happy that I'm actually not riding with them. I'm just gonna cover them.

So can you talk about, maybe a bit about the event that you went to, which was was well documented on YouTube? Yeah. Yeah. And then what I didn't catch was anything when you actually went to New Zealand. Yeah.

Yeah. So that was, so that's GS trophy. So BMW does those events called GS trophies, and they do them each they there's like a host country where they do the event, and then each country gets to have, like, trials to go and you fix the you win you win a place, you do these things. So in The UK, it's done with Saipavi's off road skills and they do it like every other year and you go and you can if you come in the top three, you can win a place on GS trophy and you get to go and do have these amazing experiences with people from all over the world. And in The UK, the the journalist, the b BMW just approaches the journalist.

In other countries like South Africa, even becoming the journalist has a competitive element. You have to, like, almost, like, win your place on it. It's insane. And I'm an okay off rider off road rider, but I'm not, like, amazing like some of these guys were. But, yeah, well, it was it was a really incredible experience.

So, yeah, I hung out with those guys. We did the trials, in Wales, And then and then we only just about made it, I'm gonna say, to GS trophy because I remember when we jumped on the plane to fly out there and everyone was talking about this mysterious new virus because it was February 2020, which is when it took place. And then we got there and we found out the the Chinese team had been excluded. They'd taken the decision. It was too risky to invite them in because, it would you know, it was you were flying people in from all over the world.

They were gonna spend two weeks together or a week and a bit together and then fly them all out away. So if, you know, if anyone was ill, it would have been insane. But, yeah, we spend the best part of a week and a bit, two weeks, riding from basically near very near the top of North Island. So we started in Rotorua all the way down through the North Island on and off road, hop over into South Island and then away again. And, and then what Bean du Weed then does is they do like tours.

So anyone can go and and join one of those tours if they want. You know, it's like an operator tour. And one of the one of the guys I know, Rob, he stayed on to do it, and they do it in we did it in February, which, of course, is like wintertime for, sorry, like, coming into that time for them. And, yeah, Rob when Rob went over there, he was this other journalist. He was there.

I can't remember which team he went with. And he went and he decided to stay and help run them to tours. And, of course, the tours never happened because of COVID. He just got stuck in New Zealand for, like, six months, but with just the stuff he'd gone out there with. So I remember seeing a picture of him in literally, like, in a campsite in his tent with snow on the roof and everything.

But, it's a really GS trophy is a really incredible experience. Though, all the riding aside, it's it's this amazing, like, teamwork moment. So you go there and you've got, like, three you've got your three teammates, and then there are maybe there's probably about twelve, fifteen other countries out there each one. And each day, you ride with you ride with different people. So, you know, Monday, maybe you'll ride with the French team all day.

Then Tuesday, you might ride with the South African team. Then Wednesday, the American team, and you keep changing. And along the way, you do the riding, and then you get to these little special stages. And, some of them are about teamwork. Some of them are about just riding quickly.

Some of them are kind of like, have, like, strange puzzles to them and sort of those sorts of things, little challenges. And it's just like a yeah. Just a giant kind of, like, bonding session, I suppose. And I think in the so we did the we were the UK team, and we were solidly mid pack. We won one challenge, which I'm which I'm really proud of because I think it was a very British thing to win, which was basically we had to take a ferry from North Orange, to South Island.

And on the ferry, they basically did a pub quiz, which which was BMW themed. So it was like pub quiz questions all about BMW motorbikes, and we won that. And I was so so proud because I was like, oh, it's so British to win the pub quiz. Yeah. I gotta bring home the gold somewhere.

Yeah. That's But it's, it's a really amazing experience. I would say depending on wherever you're listening to this in the world, if your local country participates in GS trophy, I'd really encourage you to go along, do the, like, spend some time with those things, take part. It's a really great experience. And, yeah, the I it's funny there was a there was, one of the guys from the American team, I think his name was Dimitri Tournas.

I think he was originally Greek. And he'd wanted to take part in it for years. And he'd come back and he'd, like, entered the little competition to to win his place, not won it. And they'd gone and done more rider training, kept coming back, kept coming back. And after about, like, five or six years of doing more rider training, eventually, he had upskilled himself enough that he won his place on the GS trophy.

And it was like I you know, some guys, they just they just naturally cut hands in their turn up, but he'd really worked for it. And I, I really appreciated that, valued it. That's, that's really interesting. The when I when I watched this, I was like, I wanna learn more about that. But it's also it's a great they do a lot of of great events BMW does.

I've also noticed there's some with, Yamaha and Tenere as well. I just need to Yeah. Yeah. More of those people are, like, branching out into that stuff. I guess, like, it's more in BMW's blood.

Like, the, you know, the original r 80 GS is, I mean, how old is it now? Like, in it's such an it's like one of the original or more original, like, modern, what I'd call like a modern adventure bike. I know obviously there was off road bikes, big off road bikes from Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, but that was the original one, I suppose, as you'd know it. Yeah. So if we could switch gears and chat a bit about The UK bike culture.

Yeah. Yeah. So here in London, I'm struck by what The UK's obsessive dedication to classic and modern classic motorcycles, Orton. Yeah. This is reflecting the great riding destinations like the Ace Cafe, Bike Shed, Caffeine and Machine, and Baffle House.

Can you shed some light on this cultural phenomenon for the rest of the world who are predominantly relegated to the Sunday meetup at the local's Starbucks? Yeah. I well, I mean, Britain has long had, like, a deeply ingrained motorcycle culture, because for a long time, Britain was the center of motorcycle manufacturing. You know, if you go all the way back to the early late 1800s, early 1900s, yeah, you had, you had Triumph, you had Norton, you had Royal Enfield, you had BSA, like if you wanted a rough superior, if you wanted to have a motorcycle in the tens, twenties, thirties, forties, you bought from a British motorcycle brand. And then as you get, you know, later on, in, you know, into the fifties, sixties, seventies, certainly in The UK at least more other brands came, you know, came over and started to be a bigger thing.

But motorcycling has just been a big part of of British culture and some of that's, you know, that retro stuff still exists. Like, you know, you you talk about the, you know, you got the old school stuff like the Ace Cafe, which exists, like the Tunnup Boys, Mods and Rockers, Scrapping on Brighton Beach, all that kind of stuff, fifty nine Club. And then you've got that sort of new wave second generation motorcycle culture, which is predominantly based on, I would say, like, motorcycle racing, British superbikes, World Superbikes, MotoGP, that a real, like, resurgence here in the eighties and nineties. And then you've got what I would argue is like third wave motorcycle culture, which is, yeah, Baffle House, Caffina machine, the bike shared, which is more, yeah, which is like custom bike culture and that sort of thing. I think nearly all of these things have started I find subcultures fascinating, started in other subcultures.

So that kind of flight first wave of motorcycling, yeah, there's like it starts in rock music, punk, that sort of thing. And then second wave probably came a little to some extent, maybe even from, like, performance cars, you know, like big fast forwards, things like that. And then the new wave stuff, a lot of people say it came from like skate culture, which I can certainly see in this in the it's very much so in The US. And there was some sort of like really, some really iconic films from like the early two thousands that were big in that subculture. I can think of like Chopper Town and Brit Town, which were like, these things that me and my friends used to watch.

You see these like American skate guys who've got workshops like this and, and they're just cruising around in, like, Northern California and Southern California riding their motorcycles, and you think, man, that what a great lifestyle that looks like. But, yeah, motorcycle culture is is still huge over here. Long long may it continue, I say. What you commented on earlier about music segues into this next question. So often, outsiders celebrate the nexus between British bike culture and music, specifically punk rock, rockabilly.

How do you see the London music scene influencing today's bike life or vice versa? They're definitely the I would say that motorcycles fits into that music scene rather than the other way around. So you see people and there are, like, who who I think ride a motorcycle as part of that lifestyle, and there are, you know, there are certain cool events. I've been to a couple of, like, more like hot rub kind of meets and things like that. And and they have it's, I would just call it like general greasy culture really is the best way to describe it.

But, yeah, I mean, the stuff it's still got the Ace Cafe. They do the Brighton Run. Like, yeah, I think I mentioned them earlier, the fifty nine Club, which is that kind of like rock and roll aesthetic. And even see I mean, like, I'm, I live in South London. I'm just around the corner from Ace Classics, which is, like, vintage motorcycle restorers customized.

They do Ace Desert parts, things like that. And you go there and all those guys or not all of them, a couple of the guys who work there, the mechanic in particular, looks like, you know, he's come straight out of, like, a sex pistols record sleeve. So, you know, he's like, I hope he doesn't hear this and become offended. Yeah. I don't know.

He looks like a little Sid Vicious or something. So, yeah, you can definitely still see that culture evolve. I think, is it still yeah. I mean, it's definitely still alive. It's not something that I particularly take part in myself, but I know loads of people who do.

Yeah. For sure. What does your average weekend itinerary look like, and what do you ride locally here? What's your your go to machine? I mean, if any of them work.

So I've got I I own three motorcycles these days. So I've got my KTM, which is the, started life as a it's it's called a six ninety. It started life as a six ninety Enduro with a kit on it from a guy called John Florea out in Eastern Europe who produces kit six ninety, and that's that's in the book. That's the one I rode around Morocco. So that is my newest and arguably most reliable motorcycle.

Then I also have a BMW R100 that's from 1976 and that's like a twin shock scrambler, I take it off road and that is pretty pretty damn reliable. But lately my fixation is I've got I bought a Norton p 11 in October or November, and I just properly got it running for the first time, literally last night as we were recording this. I fired it into life. One of the other guys who shares the workshop with me, Marcel, was like desperate to hear me fire it up and it just wasn't working. And then about two minutes after he left, it burst into life and I was very proud of that.

But that will become my thing. So, yeah, most of the time, a typical weekend for me is gonna be, I'm gonna come in here on a Saturday for a few hours and try and see if I can coax one of these bloody things into life. And then if we do, I'll, chuck a bike in the back of the van because running around Central London, it's not really my thing, and either head out into, like, Essex or up into Norfolk or Hertford where there's some there's some really good, like, we call it green laning, but it's like our word for off roading. There's some really good green laning where you can just enjoy it. And, yeah, I, I mostly just enjoy running like old smaller classic bikes these days.

I I had quite a bad accident about four years ago, three or four years ago, and and that I lost a lot of confidence for riding big motorcycles off road when that happened. So these days I tend to stick to smaller things that don't go as fast, basically. I haven't really I've barely ridden my KTM since the accident, actually. I'd like to segue into what you're currently working on. So in your current position, you are the senior communications manager at Norton Motorcycle.

Correct. And can you talk a bit about that? Yeah. So, so Norton, classic British brand, Norton has had a pretty patchy history. It's had 13 owners in about a hundred and twenty five, hundred and twenty six years and had some real ups and downs.

And it Norton was bought in 2020 by a company called TVS, which a lot of people haven't heard of, they're an Indian motorcycle company. They primarily produce small capacity motorcycles for emerging and then developing markets rather than developed. So they mostly sell bikes into South America, Southern Africa, East Asia, and they they bought Norton as the jewel in their crown. It's pretty common then to see, like, Indian businesses buying up British businesses. Tata and Jaguar Land Rover is a really good example.

And they wanted to build Norton up into what it should be, you know, this amazing, beautiful company that produces some of the best motorcycles in the world, the finest motorcycles in the world. So, yeah, I started working there a couple of years ago doing communications, which is like people think of us being like, deal sorry, dealer, like journalist related stuff, but that's just a really small part of what I do. The best way I can describe it is it's just like storytelling. That's what I've done. I'm just to I think of myself as just an important storyteller, be it books, magazines, photography, or whatever.

And that's what what I do basically. I help Norton tell its story to potential customers or just other motorcyclists around the world. There's a cool little lob to take up. Hey. I'll just show you one of the things I'm really proud of is I like to think think relatively innovatively, so it's very dusty, but this is an owner's manual for a new Norton Commando and it looks like a vinyl record.

Oh, very cool. And it's in side a, he's got all, like, the history of the brand, all this kind of stuff, all the projects we do and you flip it over like a real record. Alright. That's side b. Piece of vinyl.

And that's how you that's everything about taking care of your motorcycle. So two hallmarks of ADV cannonball are the sensitive venture Mhmm. And self reliance. And without a doubt, you have both of those in spades. So with that, we'd like to present you the limited edition ADV badass sticker.

Thank you very much. So please, please, display that some place. Yeah. I'd love to. I was going I'm gonna tell you what, I'll put that on my, I'll put it on my toolbox probably place.

Perfect. Thank you. Jordan Gibbons, thank you for taking time. I hope that we cross paths again riding in the wild. Yeah.

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And we are back. Yeah. Nice interview, Taylor. That was, I enjoyed editing that even though it was a bit of it was a bit of work. So people wanna know the geekiness that goes on.

It was a really echoey room. So, it was a lot of work editing. But, yeah, what a treat, that was to talk to him, and I think he's downplaying his his role today, with Norton motorcycles because he is a really humble dude. But, yeah, he's kind of a kind of a big deal. So it was really, it was a real treat.

Yeah. It was it was a, absolutely. I mean, that's that's, you know, it's fun to, to take the piss out of you about that as well. But I have to say that, you know, beyond the pleasure of of that alone, I have to say that it was a really it was really nice. And indeed, as I said, I could have spent the entire afternoon sitting and talking with him.

He's a busy guy. He's got a lot going on. He's got, yeah, he's got a lot going on. So he was very generous with his time. And for that, I am extremely appreciative.

So Yeah. And anyone who's listening, if you could please subscribe on whatever platform you're listening. This is really important because it helps, it helps with the our subscriber numbers and the downloads, which directly, helps support the show. So if you're listening, please click And then I also had a bit of cannonball news. Do you think I could, I could squeeze that in?

I think there's time. Great. And I also wanna mention to people that, I just finished editing the interview that Taylor did. It'll air next week, which is with Elizabeth Beard. And it was really a joy to hear you guys chatting.

Obviously, you guys know know each other, so it was it was nice nice and easy to edit that one. Yeah. She's she's, yeah, she's super bubbly. And it was, it was fun because I really when we flew her out to, to Colorado, she was, it was a different environment for her. But this time, when I went to visit her, like, it was home turf for her.

So she really, she she was bubbly and nice, and I think you you can really hear that in the interview. Yeah. I think sometimes people react react a bit differently with the the giant, you know, 80,000,000, you know, mansion and all these high profile people. And I think her humbleness, and the way she lives her life, was I she maybe even felt a little out of water when she was with us in Aspen, which just speaks to great how how great she is. But anyhow, I wanted to mention that, special thanks to number 11 from the ADV cannonball.

Hans is taking some swag to his event this spring. Thanks for doing that. And I wanted to, mention, we have our first father and son sign up, Tom and Martin from Easton, PA. And, I spoke to them on the phone, actually. They had some questions about navigation equipment, and, I helped them a little bit.

So I'm, you know, that's exactly the idea of the ADV cannonball rally is these great experienced father and son, and there's a lot of friends that are signing up. You'll see someone will sign up. And then five minutes later, there's another sign up. I'm like, okay. You guys are obviously friends and gonna share a share a hotel room, which is great.

So it's, pretty exciting to hear all these little stories, and then I'm looking forward to meeting everyone this this October. Yeah. It just goes back to the, the idea that what's being created here is a community, and it's not just you and me doing it. Like, we've created the platform, but it's nice that people recognize that this is a safe place. It's an event that's gonna happen.

It's well organized, and, yeah, we're here to build a community and and to make it fun so people wanna come back and do it year and year again. You know, and that's true because I still follow the Facebook page to, like, the Alcan five thousand and, like, other smaller rallies and the one in the Baja. And, you know, I've made a lot of friends, and let's just say I I go down to Baja or California or people who who were at that that rally this this winter. I will always hook up with them and have a beer and stuff. So, yeah, it's, the motorsports community as a whole is, is great.

Yeah. Absolutely. And, do you have any any more news to cover? No. That's it because we're out of time.

Alright. Great show. Thanks very much. Alright. Thanks, Taylor.

Roll the outro. Thanks for listening to the ADV Cannonball podcast. Please give us a five star review on your preferred podcast platform. That really helps us with the algorithm gods. All hail the algorithm gods.

You can buy us a coffee on buymecoffee.com/advcannonball or directly help save this sinking ship for the price of a pint at patreon.com/advcannonball. Follow us on all the socials with the handle @advcannonball. If you'd like to send us a question or comment for the air, or if you are a musical artist and want your royalty free music played on our podcast, or if you'd like to contact us for advertising opportunities, email us at podcast@advcannonball.com. Thanks for listening. And remember, don't be an ADV weenie.

Keep your right hand cranked and your feet on the banks.