Press

1986: When Motorcycling Went Superbike Mad If 1976 was about survival, 1986 was about swagger. By the mid-1980s, motorcycling had shaken off the uncertainty of the previous decade and rediscovered its confidence — loudly, brightly, and at very high speed. This was the year when bikes stopped pretending to be sensible transport and started marketing themselves as barely civilised race machines. Plastic fairings replaced chrome. Power figures became bragging rights. And riders, once again, wanted machines that looked as aggressive as they felt. Looking back from today’s electronically managed, safety-netted world, 1986 stands out as the moment motorcycling unapologetically embraced...

If you want to understand modern motorcycling — not just the bikes, but the attitude, the resilience, the sheer bloody-minded determination of riders — you have to go back to 1976. Not because it was glamorous. Not because it was easy. But because this was the year motorcycling stood at a crossroads and chose to carry on anyway.

For the first time in more than a decade, the UK Government has unveiled a full national road safety strategy, and for once, motorcyclists are not being treated as an awkward footnote. Announced on 7 January, the plan promises sweeping reforms aimed at cutting deaths and serious injuries on Britain’s roads by 65% by 2035, rising to 70% for under-16s.

What Vespa is really highlighting here isn’t nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. This isn’t about rose-tinted memories or retro styling exercises designed to sell yesterday back to us at tomorrow’s prices. What Vespa is celebrating is something far more valuable — an often overlooked, almost intangible kind of progress.

There are legends in motorcycling, and then there is Sammy Miller. Few names command the same universal respect across trials, motocross, road racing and motorcycle heritage. In November 2025, that status was underlined once again when Miller was awarded the Royal Automobile Club Lifetime Achievement Award — a fitting tribute to more than eight decades spent shaping the very fabric of motorcycling.