Bikermike1411
Registered user
I went to the Manchester Bike Show at Event City today. It's a massive hall (two, actually). I made two observations.
1. BMW weren't in attendance. KTM, Triumph, Honda, Suzuki and Ducati all had their adventure bikes there to sit on. I like the KTM. No way I could afford one.
2. There was a shocking lack of big-name clothing retailers. Plenty of little independents, but none of the big names who I thought would have been there shifting last year's stock at decent prices.
I really wanted to try on the range of ADV helmets (Shoei, Arai, Nex, X-Lite etc). There were none. Absolutely none. The only 'large' shop there said it simply wasn't economic to bring them.
Actually, thats slightly incorrect. There were some from brands i'd not heard of (LS2), but knowing nothing about them and being slightly sniffy about what goes on my head, I ummed and ahhed and eventually settled on a Shoei GT Air. My last three lids have been Shoei's, and I've read good reviews about these lids. And the price was outstanding for a 2017 model (£120 off RRP).
I made the choice (and i'm extremely pleased with it) based on the fact that I have two bikes (my GS and a Blackbird), and couldn't see myself riding a peaked lid on the Blackbird.... but it would have been great to actually try on the rest of the models I had thought about.
Incidentally, I don't think I saw any AGV lids, and the only Arai I saw was in a glass cabinet!
What gives? I would have thought that in today's adventure bike climate there would have been a greater presence of ADV stuff!
1. BMW weren't in attendance. KTM, Triumph, Honda, Suzuki and Ducati all had their adventure bikes there to sit on. I like the KTM. No way I could afford one.
2. There was a shocking lack of big-name clothing retailers. Plenty of little independents, but none of the big names who I thought would have been there shifting last year's stock at decent prices.
I really wanted to try on the range of ADV helmets (Shoei, Arai, Nex, X-Lite etc). There were none. Absolutely none. The only 'large' shop there said it simply wasn't economic to bring them.
Actually, thats slightly incorrect. There were some from brands i'd not heard of (LS2), but knowing nothing about them and being slightly sniffy about what goes on my head, I ummed and ahhed and eventually settled on a Shoei GT Air. My last three lids have been Shoei's, and I've read good reviews about these lids. And the price was outstanding for a 2017 model (£120 off RRP).
I made the choice (and i'm extremely pleased with it) based on the fact that I have two bikes (my GS and a Blackbird), and couldn't see myself riding a peaked lid on the Blackbird.... but it would have been great to actually try on the rest of the models I had thought about.
Incidentally, I don't think I saw any AGV lids, and the only Arai I saw was in a glass cabinet!
What gives? I would have thought that in today's adventure bike climate there would have been a greater presence of ADV stuff!