Adventure! Everything is tagged an 'adventure' these days. Even a cruise, bimbling around the calm waters of the Med or Caribbean - unless you sail into a hurricane. An overused marketing word that has even gripped parts of our motorcycling world.

Triumph have just introduced the Tiger 1200, and Harley also have a newish 1250 V twin, the Pan America. Both with an adventure label attached. Which means their respective websites seem compelled to showcase these machines in mountainous or desert landscapes with the riders pulling powerful sideways manoeuvers on dirt tracks.

Along with the well established BMW off road school in South Wales, Triumph also have an operation in the Brecon Beacons. Now Harley are about establish their own school in mid Wales, that country is getting mighty crowded. I was looking over a Harley 1250 that was equipped with a luggage rack, when one of the Harley people engaged me in conversation. It turned out to be Mick Extance a doyen of off road enduro racing. In the past I've only ever seen him  swathed in bike gear, and usually flying past in a cloud of dust or mud.

Mick already runs his own off road school in the aforementioned mid Wales, and in '22 will be starting to work with Harley and their customers who want to learn to ride these to me unwieldy bikes over unsurfaced land. He assured me that once under power they are well balanced and 'easy' to handle.

We then went on to have a chat about the condition of motorcycling in general, and the difficulty of attracting younger people into a pastime in which the average age of riders is moving ever upwards. A figure that can be skewed by the number of young riders zipping around our cities on behalf of Deliveroo, Just Eat etc. The same is true for two wheel registrations. Distorted by the number of lightweight bikes in food courier services.

Credit Where It's due
Credit where it's due, the DVLA and MCN had an area for people to try riding a bike for the first time. Plus clear large display boards with all the information as to how you could progress through the different licence stages towards a larger capacity bike. Something it's easy for established riders to lose site of.

Suzuki had useful information displayed, that informed you of which of their different models you could ride at the various licence stages, under the tag 'Want to get into biking'. Adjacent were their latest and very attractive range of SV650's suitable for A2 licence holders. This is a bike I have bitter sweet memories of, having had mine converted to 750cc and tuned by Stan Stephens the renowned sidecar racer. I crashed it on its inaugural track day at Mallory Park. I didn't spend too much time at the main manufacturers very large displays. The number of bikes made for crowded conditions, and probably not that Covid safe. Although the NEC checked everyone's vaccination status before being allowed in.

BMW Entertained
BMW, as ever, entertained with displays of off road handling skills, and slow riding too, an often overlooked aspect of our sport. One of their instructors impressed us by manoeuvering one of their huge Transcontinental bikes through increasingly tight circles. BM also made their own contribution to starting to ride initiatives, by having a rolling road for people to try a bike and hopefully gain confidence.

BMW's R18 Transcontinental was a popular try out for couples. Why not indeed, it looks as if you could spend an evening sitting back on one and watching TV with a G&T to hand. But if you want ride it you'll be handling a machine that weighs in at 427kgs. Add a passenger and some luggage, phew! But it's a main road mile eater, and I would imagine aimed more at the US market. Over here the model displayed was price tagged at almost thirty one grand. The main bike it would be marketed against has to be Honda's Gold Wing.

Where Were...
Where were Yamaha? No presence apart from a Yamaha genuine merchandise shop, that I didn't see. Also Ducati had a large but very sparse exhibit area. Curious.

Checking my programme I realised that on my several laps of the Motorcycle Live halls, that I hadn't come across the Ural sidecar exhibit. I have no immediate intention of purchasing a sidecar outfit; but it's one of those quirky areas of motorcycling that is gradually fading from our consciousness. I found them, and was surprised at how almost sophisticated they are looking these days.

Gone are the dull military colours. Now they are bright and certainly a stand out vehicle. The importer told me that they are still made in Siberia, and they are only turning out fifteen hundred a year for sale to motorcyclists. The rest of their production is for the military, which was their historical purpose. Many of the components used on the new Ranger models are well known, such as Brembo brakes. No prices for '22 as yet.

Motorcycle Live lives until December 12th if you are able to get along, and want to enjoy some bike related activity, possible purchases, or plan some travel for when the days of cold and darkness are a memory, it's highly recommended.