Wild One Tours

22/08/2026

THE GAINS AND PITFALLS OF A MOTORCYCLE TOURING COMPANY:
From the start Wild One Tours was never motorcycle touring company in the traditional sense.
I had envisioned it as such and in setting the company up, I initially wanted to make it so and gave it my best shot at doing this.
But there were for me insurmountable hurdles that caused me to downgrade my business to a retailer of tour plans and the provider of a single service, that being a tour guide service.
The hurdle was the Package Travel Regulations. UK law, mirrored across Europe.
This states that if you arrange more than one travel service, for instance on site representative (tour guide), accommodation (hotels) and transport (rail or ferry) then your business is either a legal entity known as a travel agent or a tour operator.
These businesses are highly regulated and are legally bound by liabilities. Insuring these liabilities is mandatory and expensive.
As a former police officer I was very capable of researching and understanding law, including case law. By means of which we can see what has happened in court to others who have not adhered to the law.
It seemed to me that most people who were operating motorcycle tours companies were doing so illegally and putting themselves at risks of severe financial loss. Some of which was personal and outside the protections offered by being a limited company.
For example if as a multi service providing tour operator, you have anyone in your group take ill or die while on tour. It is your first instance liability to repatriate them. Yes you can then claim from their insurers, but in the first instance repatriation is up to you and this is why you have to take out mandatory insurance for the risk.
Similarly if anyone suffers dissatisfaction or loss on a ferry or hotel and make a reasonable claim, that is your responsibility as a tour operator to compensate. Only then can you try to recover from the actual at fault service provider. Again this risk is covered by mandatory insurance.
I protected clients deposits in a client bank account, which I only accessed to withdraw funds once the tour guide service had been delivered as per terms and conditions on my website.
A client account to protect customer deposits only works if you don't rely on the deposits to fund your mandatory insurance requirements and other costs.
Most travel agents and tour operators pay a bond and insure that bond.
My quote for an ABTA bond was £36,000 and annual insurance for that was £4,000.
I couldn't afford this investment and therefore my choice to operate clearly as only a single service provider and therefore exempt from package tavel regulations.
I'm no longer in the business and therefore not a competitor.
It seems to me that most people who are operating motorcycle tours as a business are nice people, but don't understand the risks of financial ruin by doing it the way they do.
Some clients may mistakenly believe that having booked a multi service package tour, they have the legal protections.
It only takes one genuine or malicious complaint from a client for your troubles to start.
I'm not saying not to get into the business of motorcycle touring, but understand what you're getting into, know your liabilities and protect yourself from possible crushing loss.
I did and I suspect that others who were ignorant of the law, didn't but got away with it.
I suppose it all comes down to how risk averse you are.

Being a tour planner for groups of motorcyclists and a tour guide, I've had the great pleasure or repeatedly touring great routes.
Some would have it that this is boring and once a road is rode, then it is time to move onto roads new.
But those of us in the know understand that a breathtaking route will always be so and if it really is that good, you'll always long to do it again. Reversing the direction of travel along a route can sometimes give it a whole new life to it and riding it in adverse weather conditions can replace scenic wonderment and the thrill of high speed cornering, with new challenges.
Overcoming challenges and through your own skill and determination, surviving unscathed gives a buzz, the likes of which you may never have known.
This applies whether you are touring alone, as a couple, or with a group. But sharing the experience with a group also creates a great sense of camaraderie.
The photo is taken in the Swiss Jura mountains in late May. Wild One Tours had travelled the same route at the same time of year previously and the problem then had been the high temperatures. The challenges had been avoiding heat exhaustion and dehydration. The gains had been dry mountain roads enabling fast cornering and magnificent views of the scenery.
This particular tour had from the start been affected by heavy rainfall, causing flash floods and slippery road surfaces. In the days before this photo was taken, we had already had two riders crash and fall off their bikes. All down to them riding too fast for the particular road surfaces they were travelling on, but luckily neither were injured and with team effort they were quickly back to riding on the road.
The morning the photograph was taken, it was actually quite warm and sunny. The mountain roads on our way to Geneva, Switzerland were dry and we were enjoying lively cornering as we made our way to our lunch stop at the shoreline of the city lake.
By the end of lunch as we headed back into the mountains to return to France by a different back roads route. It had clouded over and the sky was becoming dark.
On the lower slopes of the Col de Marchairuz there were the first few drops of rain. So we pulled over and those of us who had them, could don their waterproof oversuits.
Higher up the rain became snow and the snow became a blizzard.
The photo taken is where we pulled over, for me to check that everyone was willing to continue. We hadn't reached the top yet and there was no way of knowing how the conditions were like at the top or on the way down the other side.
So far the snow was melting on the road surface, but had begun to settle at the sides of the road. There was a heavy mountain mist obscuring visibility and this was compounded by the stop during which lifting of visors let damp into our helmets and further obscured vision.
We continued!
The road down from the mountains was exceptionally twisting. The snow falling on the road surface became slush. I knew from the previous year that the road was bordered by sheer drops into deep canyons. Now in the mist, there was no telling what was there.
Before crossing back into France at a minor border crossing we stopped at a small petrol station and courtesy of a roll of absorbant paper we managed to properly clear our visors and specs.
The downhill ride continued well into France.
As it levelled out onto the approach to Pontarlier where we were overnighting, the storm suddenly cleared and for a few minutes we were riding through a winter wonderland of snow covered fields and forest.
On the approach to our hotel it started to rain again.
At the hotel there was a great sense of elation accompanied by excited chatter.
The group member who had checked in first and emptied his pannier and top box contents into his hotel room, without prompting rode off to a nearby supermarket to fill the boxes with bottles of b**r. The rain had let off again and when everyone had cleaned up and put on dry clothing we stood outside the hotel entrance and excitedly relived the days adventure.
When all the b**r had been consumed we walked to a local all you can eat Chinese Buffet restaurant and had what was probably the liveliest over dinner conversation of the tour.
All because of the extremely s**t weather and because everyone had not just survived, but had somehow enjoyed it.

13/08/2026

IN THE BEGINNING:
An 18 year old me got a full time job at Rainhill Psychiatric Hospital. My shifts were 7am to 7pm and there were no buses covering the 10 mile route to and from.work that could get me there in time for the 7am start.
Cycling was an option, but the bicycle I had was old and in it's last legs. I would have to get another.
I hadn't had any driving lessons and therefore was not qualified to drive a car. Doing odd jobs I had saved up enough money to get some driving lessons. On that money I could alternatively get myself a cheap little motorcycle. There was no CBT in 1976 and I could get to and from work independently and unsupervised on one.
This is how I came into motorcycling. Not so much a great desire as a means to an end convenience.
It was a well used Honda C70 that had been kept outside in all weather's.
At first I only went to and from work on it. In the cold, rain, ice and snow of winter I wished I had a car and after a couple of months of regular employment I had earned enough to buy one.
I bought a used Ford Cortina Estate, took driving lessons and passed my test.
With a full car licence and a car, driving that became my prefered way of getting to and from work. Only my plan was to move out of my parents home and I also wanted to save up a bit of money and buy a 'music centre" foe my new accommodation. It was cheaper to use the C70 for work so on every dry day I did that.
Taking the C70 and Ford Cortina with me I moved into hospital staff accommodation at Cleaver Hospital. Heswall. But my workplace was still 8 miles away at Clatterbridge Hospital where after months working on the new state of the art psychiatric unit, I became a student aiming for a Registered Nurse qualification.
Surrounded by young women, I now had a hectic social life, blew all my savings on being a lover and often found I had to make savings by using the cheaper C70 instead of the car for getting around.
I also enjoyed trips out to Snowdonia to do mountaineering and it was cheaper to pack my tent onto the C70 for wild camping than take the car.
I then moved in with an older Biker woman. Honda CJ250, into a Nissen hut shack on Heswall Beach.
While there It was a challenging time of life for me and those challenges included crashing / writing off the C70 and the car within a month of each other.
A 16 mile daily cycle from and back to the beach shack each day in winter and most of that on unlit country roads had me craving for motorised transport. Only now I was living with a biker woman it seemed more cool and affordable to get a proper motorcycle.
The Honda TL 125 fitted in the price range I was looking at. The previous owner had used it for competions and I got a lot of competition kit included in the price.
Riding on the beach and Heswall Dales I taught myself advanced off-road and handling skills.
Although only a 125cc, other bikers seemed to accept it as cool and I was always happy to show off my off road skills to them. I was welcomed into the biker community. It didn't sufficiently impress the older Biker woman I was shacked up with though. So I move back into hospital staff accommodation.
I passed my test on the TL125 and with a full licence I was able to upgrade to a Honda CB 500T.
On this I could travel two up all over the UK and I lost interest in owning another car for a long time.
I had now become an all weather, long distance rider and had learned how to enjoy every mile.
Photos of other bikes in comments.

09/08/2026

THE WILD ONES, FIRST GROUP TOUR IN CONTINENTAL EUROPE:
We weren't a biker gang and we didn't call ourselves the Wild Ones, or any other club name. But like a lot of bikers in the early 80s we cultivated a tough image and truth be told we were actually wild and tough. Even by the conventional biker image standards of the time.
By 1984 I had completely dismantled and rebuilt the Triumph Bonneville twice. It was now all black with high rise bars. It had been tuned with the addition of several more high performance parts and courtesy of a bad shot blasting and stove enameling company, it's life expectancy had been dramatically shortened. I was keeping it going with intensive care.
My marriage had broken down, I was effectively a single parent, I had qualified as a state registered nurse and I had new employment working as a specialist in a Regional Burns and Plastic Surgery unit.
I'd furnished my flat with smart and mostly new furniture and appliances. My lovely new girlfriend had helped me to decorate it. We'd got a larger second-hand colour TV and the only thing that was on my to get list was a telephone.
With parental support for childcare arrangements, I was still getting out on the bike to meet up with friends twice a week and we'd agreed to tour on our bikes to the South of France together in the summer (ish) of 1984.
None of us had much money and we all agreed to ride two up and to share the costs.
With only a couple of weeks to go, my lovely girlfriend announced that she hadn't saved up enough money and therefore wouldn't be riding pillion.
A stranger who I met in a biker pub who knew my girlfriend asked could he come in her place and needing the financial support, I quickly agreed.
So it was that I set off from Liverpool with a long blonde haired man on pillion instead of a long blonde haired woman.
There were three, two up bikes leaving Liverpool. My Triumph Bonneville and two Norton Commandos. We were meeting up with another couple riding a Honda 900F at London.
We'd barely cleared Liverpool on the M62 when the rear tyre on my bike disintegrated.
The bike crashed and we went on a long slide onto the hard shoulder. There was considerable damage to the bike and the road surface had ripped open my denim jeans and caused a painful gravel rash to my thigh. Fortunately my pillion passenger, Goog wasn't injured.
My friends stayed with the bike and supervised the RAC recovery back to my flat.
I had an ambulance ride to hospital and was treated for my injury. Fortunately I was not kept in and managed to get a couple of hours sleep at home before the start of a busy day.
I took the remnants of the rear tyre and the whole of the front tyre to the supplier. The tyre walls were mysteriously cracked and although the supplier who had supplied the tyres only a few months before didn't admit liability, he gave me a good deal on new tyres.
I then trawled dealerships for parts to make repairs. What parts weren't in stock, I managed to borrow from friends and with everything fitted, within 24 hours of the crash we were rolling again.
Still only three bikes with pillion passengers and motorway all the way to London. But there is something magical about riding in a group with friends.
Ken, Sue and a crowd of their courier biker friends met us at at the London Gateway roundabout at the bottom.of the M1. The police were present and getting twitchy about this big biker gathering on a major roundabout and were appealing through loudspeakers for us to move on.
We moved on to a small apartment somewhere in London, where there was a wild but short-lived party. There was barely enough floor, sofa and chair space for us all to get a couple of hours rest and then in the small hours the couriers gave us a tour through central London, passing Buckingham Palace and through the Blackwall tunnel where we parted company and 8 of us on 4 bikes made the rest of our way to Dover.
By mid afternoon we were all exhausted and turned off the main road to set up camp at the French coastal town of St. Valery.
We popped into town to collect food and copious amounts of b**r from the shops. But after eating I could only manage a couple of bottles before collapsing exhausted on the grass by my tent.
In the morning we were all nicely rested and headed towards Paris.
We then turned off the main road to circle around Paris and were determined to take the back roads all the way to the South and using the Bison Fute scenic route map I'd picked up in 1981.
We didn't see a lot of other bikes on our route and our presence seemed to draw a lot of attention from the locals.
I was at the rear of the group as we descended from the Jura mountains towards Geneva. The bikes ahead were taking turns to overtake a large slow moving truck. As Steve and Tony who were in front of me took their turn and were alongside the truck, their rear tyre began to rapidly deflate.
They got to within inches of the trailer wheels, but somehow Steve managed to keep the bike upright and when the road levelled out, to pull over onto a grass verge.
Steve knew his bike and we had a good collection of tools and puncture repair kits with us, so we were soon on the road again.
Crossing the border into Geneva, Switzerland, the border police didn't like the look of us. We were ordered to pull over and surrender our passports for examination.
They detained us there for a couple of hours until a police drugs dog had been walked around us and the bikes. Must have been a crap sniffer dog, because it didn't detect the cannabis Goog had stuffed into the fingers of his gloves and we were all allowed to continue.
The traffic in Geneva was heavy and the road signs were difficult to follow, so we returned to France and headed towards Annecy via another border post.
We were now entering the Alps and a memorable stop was at the bridges, Ponts de la Caille north of Annecy.
Motorcycle publications were by now just beginning to feature motorcycle touring and they all touted the Route Napoleon through the Alps as the best biker road in France, so we made our way over to the foot of that just South of Grenoble
The campsite I had stayed on on in 1981was closed for staff holidays, so we stated to climb into the mountains and along a narrow mountain track to a signposted campsite.
When we arrived it was starting to rain, so we hastily erected our tents and settled in before the rain came down heavier.
It rained all night and in the morning we were surrounded by mist shrouded mountain.
There was no campsite shop but the campsite owner helped us out with a bit of milk, so we could make ourselves hot drinks before we hit the road.
For the first time on the tour so far, we broke out our wet weather gear. An odd assortment of road workers and fishermen's jackets and pants. Some of it not very waterproof at all.
Having skipped a proper breakfast, a timely arrival before the 1.30pm deadline for lunch at Sisteron was a must. Again we parked opposite the spectacular Rocher de Baume cliffs.
Later in the day we stopped for another refreshments break at the scenic town of Castellane.
We pushed on to the coast and I know from photographs I have not shared here, that night was falling before we got to Les Tournels campsite and they wouldn't let us on.
We tried further down the coast at the other campsite I had stayed at previously, but that was full.
We travelled further inland and at the end of the road we fell upon the magnificent Do**he de Quietude campsite and they let us pitch there.
Here we stayed until ready to head back home. The campsite boasted a great swimming pool complex and a lively bar restaurant.
There were young single British women there who were holidaying in a family mobile home and enjoyed joining in with our noisy and boisterous antics. Which included some of us dressing up for a drag act at the bar.
At first, the ex French Foreign Legion campsite security, guard, Kurt, thought we were a bit troublesome. But he seemed to change his mind during the drag act when he downgraded us to being a handful.
We met two other British biker lads who had travelled there on a Laverda Jota. They joined in the fun and became part of the group for the ride back home.
Also a compared to us, oldish British bloke who'd taken a pretty young woman there on the back of his brick BMW bike.
I've always been a bit creeped out by old wealthy blokes hooking up with pretty young women, so although she was pleasant, I wasn't too sure about him. They both joined in the fun and games though.
This is the other thing about touring with a group of friends. You take your own entertainment with you.
In addition to the coastal town of Agay there were the more upmarket towns of St Raphael and Frejus just a little further up from the coast and accessed more directly by a backroad. They have a lively scene both day and night.
Because the beaches are topless and naturist we thought it best that the married couples go off on their own while we single blokes went into town and hung out together in the day and the whole group met up again in the evening.
I spent a night on the beach with some pretty back packer ladies and found myself getting told off by the rest of the group, because these wild women could have stabbed and robbed me.
This despite Goog having gone up a dimly lit side road to buy some cannabis from a dealer the night before and a drunken plan to set off some fireworks we had bought near the gate of a nearby French Marines camp and guarded by armed soldiers.
Riding through the Alps the Primary chain tensioner on my bike had snapped and needed replacement before going home. In the UK the part cost about £3 and for safety I really needed to change it before going home.
I had a list of Triumph dealers and saw there was one in Cannes. It was a common part to fail and I felt there was a good chance they would have one in stock.
Steve offered to follow behind me and run me back to the campsite if I needed that.
It was a roasting hot sunny day and I recklessly decided to wear just shorts and canvas shoes, with my helmet strapped to the seat behind me.
It was compulsory wear of helmets for all bikes over 250cc in France at the time. But most Japanese 250cc bikes were no smaller than the Bonneville and riding without a helmet on seemed popular with the riders of all manner of bikes along the coastal road at the time.
On the beautiful Corniche D'Or coastal road, there were girls leaning out of open top cars to hug and kiss me when I pulled up alongside them at traffic lights in the little towns we passed through.
I imagined that I might have been mistaken for solme sort of celebrity, with big and bearded Steve as some sort of body guard following close behind me. Steve was sun sensitive, so he was wearing his trademark jeans and checked full sleeve shirt regardless of the heat.
Cannes is a big city and the street name for the Triumph dealer wasn't on a tourist street map I had popped into a tourist information shop for. I'd put my helmet on for riding in the city and was able to ask a police officer who showed me roughly where the dealership was on my tourist map.
When we found the dealership, it was tiny and they didn't have the part in stock. They could order one, but I would be back in the UK before it arrived.
Plan B was ro get the bike recovered to a repair centre and hire a car, all of which was covered on my insurance and without any upfront costs to me.
If the bike was fixed before we were due to return to the UK, all well and good and if not Goog and I would have to return in the car.
While awaiting for the bike to be recovered to a repair centre, I got a lift into Frejus town to collect a rental car. The only car they'd give me was a tiny 1 litre engined Talbot Samba.
As I got back to campsite I saw that my bike had been thrown on its side on top of an old tractor tyre on the back of a flatback truck and was being driven away. The guys back at the campsite who were supposed to supervise collection, said the recovery blokes didn't speak English and just did it quickly.
It was difficult to keep up with the bikes while driving back through the Alps in the Talbot Samba. The repair centre said they had decided to just ship the Bonneville back to my address in the UK.
When we stopped at Castellane for refreshments we had attracted the attention of two Gendarmes.
They wanted to know why a French registered car was driving around with a group of UK registered bikes. A heavy set Gendarme lit a fat cigar and started to provocatively blow smoke into my face. He asked to see the rental documents. Bearing in mind our conversation was all in French and I was struggling to explain myself, it was quite a scary situation. It was because I was the only person trying to communicate with him that he had singled me out and I had a feeling that if I snapped with him it wouldn't end well.
He argued that the rental agreement didn't permit me to carry passengers. I read out in French the section where it said I could carry no more than three passengers, but he insisted none.
I told the group to go on without me, I would meet up with them again either at Sisteron, or at the campsite in Grenoble in the evening. I told Goog to walk to the edge of town and wait for me inside the supermarket there.
I would grab a coffee in a café and hopefully they would get fed up intimidating me and just go away.
I slowly sipped my coffee with the Gendarmes waiting outside in their car. Then I slowly drove to the supermarket, parked on the car park and went inside. The Gendarmes followed me and waited outside, while Goog and I hid behind the shelves, peeking out at them.
After about 20 minutes they drove off, but in the direction of Sisteron. Where we were going.
We both thought it was likely they would be waiting for us up the road, so after a quick consultation with a map, we decided to drive back the way we had come for a bit and take a long detour on minor roads to Grenoble.
This meant that we bypassed Sisteron, but after all this time it would be unlikely that the group waited for us there.
In escaping the clutches of the nasty Gendarmes we were not to see the rest of the group until we were back in the UK.
The group had waited at Sisteron and had eventually booked onto a campsite there.
We got to the arranged meet at the campsite in Grenoble and there was none of the group there.
Mobile phones and Internet did not exist in 1984 and we had no means of communication with them.
In the morning we decided to bolt for home as quickly as we could.
On the motorway coming up to the Paris Perephique ring road, we came into queuing traffic behind an accident. Until the road was cleared nobody was going anywhere. This should have been clear to all, but the French drivers were beeping their horns to express annoyance.
Rather than creep just a few yards forward I decided to leave a bit of space in front. The car behind us nudged up to our back bumper and started to push us forward. Still angry over the Gendarmes incident, I saw red. The insurance for our little car included full collision damage indemnity. So I selected reverse, let the handbrake off and pushed back with all the power the little engine could muster.
Goog was thrilled with the terrified expression on the other car drivers face and told me when the back of his car was just short of the front of the car behind him, so I could let off the push back.
By nightfall we had made Abbeyville and rather than camp we booked into a hotel.
By the time we got to the port, the engine had blown and the car was trailing smoke.
The drop off point staff were sympathetic because they couldn't see the sense in us having been given such a small engined car for such a long journey.
We were given another insurance arranged rental car to drive home from Dover and by early evening our tour was over.
I still had one day of leave left. In the morning I drove to get the £3 part I needed to fix the bike, before I took the rental car to the Liverpool Airport drop off point.
Late afternoon, I unexpectedly took delivery of my bike which had been shipped back from France pronto.
It had been damaged from rough treatment in transport and it transpired that this was an unrecoverable loss. It took me only about 45 minutes to fit the part, so at least I had transport with which to get to and from work the next day.
Once again the tour was a great adventure, warts and all. But I knew the next time I toured, it would not be on a Triumph Bonneville.

08/08/2026

AGAINST ALL ODDS:
Motorcycle touring in Continental Europe ought to have been out if the question!
Our son was born in July 1980 and we had moved into a nice modern ground floor flat in Suburban, Liverpool, 16 miles by the shortest route to our place of work at Clatterbridge Hospital in the Wirral. For transport we had only the one motorcycle, a Honda CB 500T.
We had been living off the low incomes of student nurses. Mobile phones and personal computers didn't exist.
All of our furniture and carpeting was hand me downs. In the living room there was only an old valve operated black and white TV for which we had a cheap monochrome TV license. We couldn't afford to have a telephone installed.
Rather than sit at home watching the television it was socially important for bikers to go out a couple of times a week to meet up with other bikers. This was usually at a biker friendly pub or at each others homes. My parents lived nearby and were willing babysitters.
I had previously performance tuned the bike. It had successfully improved the performance of the bike but inadvertently hastened the demise of the engine and clutch. Fortunately I was happy to give efforts to service and maintain the bike. But after a top end rebuild during which I replaced the camchain and a bent valve, the bike had lost a lot of power and I knew that before long it would need replacing.
When walking past the local chip shop I admired a new Triumph Bonneville T140E Executive which was kitted up for touring and dreamed that was the bike I would love to have.
After a few months the bike disappeared from that location. But a a few weeks later I found it again in the display window of Horsemans Motorcycle dealership in Liverpool city centre.
I didn't know at the time but Horsemans were experiencing terminal financial difficulties. They were desperate for turnover and a casual enquiry about the Triumph resulted me riding home on it, minus the Honda and all our savings to buy some decent furniture and appliances for our home.
Fortunately my wife accepted that the Honda had been on its last legs and with the top box, panniers and a tank bag we could now go out to buy a whole weeks family shopping.
So now we had a touring Motorcycle. But after a few weeks it broke down. Horsemans was closing down so the RAC recovery truck took it to Triumph dealership Bridge Motorcycles in Crosby. They diagnosed a faulty electronic ignition and changed it as a warranty repair.
Now instead of saving up again for new furniture and appliances we decided to save up for a motorcycle touring holiday to the South of France.
We had the bike, my parents agreed to look after our son, we managed to wangle three weeks leave from work and we cut down to just one night out per week.
With just a few days to go before we set off the bike broke down again and it was returned to Bridge Motorcycles for yet another replacement electronic ignition and a pre tour service.
We already had a tent, sleeping bags and full camp kitchen and on the last day of June we were rolling towards Dover at the start of our great adventure.
Challenges came before we'd even arrived at Dover. The bike started to stutter and loose power as though it was going to stall. I pulled over and gave it my best shot at fault finding, but was unsuccessful. We pushed on as best we could to Dover. On the A2 we were driving past fields where crops were being sprayed. DDT was used as a pesticide back then and by the time we arrived we were both having allergic reactions to whatever the spray was. My eyes were watering and my wife's face swelled up.
At the time it was normal to buy your tickets at the port. From the ticket office we were hurried onto a ferry that was leaving immediately for Boulogne.
Looking at the reactions of people observing my wife's swollen face and tears, I thought that they were thinking I was responsible and were giving me the evils.
From here I'll continue the story in the photo captions.