Riders’ Lives ~ Mark Williams

1. What was your first motorcycling experience?   

Rigid frame BSA Bantam, considering that I learned to ride it around a Northumbrian slag-heap, it was rather unwisely hand-painted white.

2. What is your current bike?

Near-mint 1985 Honda CBX750F

3. What bike would you most like to ride/own? 

Another Laverda Jota, preferably with a 120 crank. Never should’ve sold mine… but we all say that, don’t we?

4. What was your hairiest moment on a bike? 

Riding a Yamaha XS-2 back to London on the tail-end of an acid-trip during the glorious summer of ’76. It ended in blood and tears, obviously.

 5. What was your most memorable ride? 

A Honda CB750FB from Los Angeles to Laguna Seca raceway via the desert backroads with colleagues from Motorcyclist magazine and girlfriends aboard a GS850 and RD400 respectively. Pure joy.

6. What would be the ideal soundtrack to the above?

Erm, a Laverda Jota exhaust system. You don’t need music on a ‘bike.

7. What do you think is the best thing about motorcycling? 

Riding as close to the limit as you dare and circumstances permit. Sadly, due to getting ancient and the crush of idiot car drivers insulated from reality by sat-nav, smartphones and Red Bull, that’s more and more difficult these days.

8. What do you think is the worst thing about motorcycling?

Not being able to ride anywhere near the limit any more, the price of modern bikes (which most people can’t ride close to the limit anyway), insurance (which deters new blood) and tyres (ludicrous).

9. Name an improvement you’d like to see for the next generation?

Real industry incentives to get newcomers buying bikes: the Get On campaign has clearly failed

10. How would you like to be remembered? 

Mysteriously.