The short road to motorcycle extinction?

My local bike dealers, Doble’s in Coulsdon, Surrey (excellent, if you’re asking) have a second hand 2010 year Triumph Thunderbird for sale.  It’s immaculate; as well it should be with just six – yes SIX – miles on the clock.

What happened there, then?  Did the original buyer, who must have been local, go for a (very) short test ride, buy it, take it straight home and return it the next day?  Or was the mileage accumulated as it got moved around the showroom and therefore under some mad new EU law was deemed ‘second hand’?

But should I really be surprised?  There are other signs which seem to show that mainstream biking is dying out:

§       Most new bikes sold are sportsters; low bars, full fairings, ‘high chair’ pillions – weekend toys, pretty well unsuited to all-duties biking

§       So few new all-rounders are available – bikes like my 2000-reg Yamaha Fazer 600 that are much more than fair weather weekend play things.  This seems to indicate that there’s precious little demand for them because fewer people want to commute or ride all year round

§      The new rider testing regime is now so long, and so horrendous that all but the most seriously persistent - mad? - want to ride motorbikes.

But the real evidence that biking is dying is the fact that the Triumph Thunderbird Doble’s have for sale is just an extreme example of the mini-mileages bikes are clocking up.  Don’t believe me?  Just check out the classifieds in MCN – there are very, very few bikes that have done more than an average of 1,000 miles a year.

It’s sad, isn’t it?

So, for once, full marks for MCN for their new campaign to encourage people to take up motorcycling. Let’s hope it works.