Press — motorcycle industry

We arrived at Norton’s state-of-the-art Solihull facility with a mixture of excitement and cautious curiosity. Memories of the rather underwhelming Donington site visit back in 2020 still lingered, so expectations were balanced somewhere between hope and healthy scepticism.

For most riders, global politics feels a long way from the garage. We think about tyres, fuel range, weather and the open road. Yet every time you fill the tank, you are quietly connected to events happening thousands of miles away.

We tell ourselves younger riders are choosing retro bikes because they crave authenticity. Because they want steel frames, analogue dials and “real feel.” Because they’re rejecting rider modes and radar cruise control in favour of purity.

Motorcyclists across the UK have become used to one unavoidable reality: insurance is rarely cheap. Yet recently a new question has begun surfacing in garages, cafés and rider forums across the country. If a motorcycle is simple, modestly powered and relatively inexpensive to buy, why does it sometimes cost so much to insure?

For a brand that’s been around since 1901, Indian Motorcycle has a surprisingly modern problem: how do you honour one of the richest heritages in motorcycling without becoming trapped by it?