The tumbleweed is blowing through Stratford upon

[Alun]

On the way to the office this morning I thought I'd pop into Knotts Motorcycles for a wander only to find that the administrators/liquidators had beat me to it. With Ride MX going bump last year and now Knotts, the motorcycle industry now has no representation in Stratford upon Avon.

There were a few suppliers standing outside Knotts hoping to gain entry to reclaim their products when the administrators turn up, though none of them harboured much hope of that. The general consensus amongst these suppliers was that there's more to come, they are expecting a lot of motorcycle dealers to hoist the white flag in 2011. There was also mention that one of the biggest dealers in the UK was in a precarious state – they did mention who it was but I'd better not say on here.

Anyway, what a shame, Knotties has been around for ever, when I moved from Wales up to the Midlands I bought my first 'English' bike off them.

[CRAIGREVO]

A lot of it is down to the internet. Ride mx is still running they just haven't got a shop any more.
As for Knots that's a shocker as its always busy in there. :blink:
But again its an internet world, if you can find your new bike £300 cheaper somewhere else at the click of a button, why wouldn't you?

[Alun]

A lot of it is down to the internet. Ride mx is still running they just haven't got a shop any more.
As for Knots that's a shocker as its always busy in there. :blink:
But again its an internet world, if you can find your new bike £300 cheaper somewhere else at the click of a button, why wouldn't you?

I know the ex owner of Ride MX and he's defo not running the business. I suspect the mailing list/mail order part of the business was sold on by the liquidators.

[Cobra]

Portsmouth Honda and Worthing Honda (formely Littlehampton) have recently folded. I'm a bike instructor and our industry is dead, worse than normal for this time of year. My feeling is the new test is making a bigger than expected negative impact on biking.

[appleby]

I think Knott's has been in trouble since Digby closed the Redditch shop a few years back - But what a shocker!

Bought a few bikes of them in the past, including a Suzuki GP100 that I picked up on my 17th birthday! :woohoo:

[Magnum]

Its very Sad, both Digby at Knotts and Paul at RideMX in a matter of months, they were good businesses with good people, I don't think it will be the last sadly, the car industry is not great,but the bike industry isn't just bad, its precarious at best. Soon we will be buying our bikes mail order from amazon.co.uk !!!

[herman]

Dock gate 20 in Southampton,the Harley folk closed down at christmas,have no info as to why but I thought they were part of infinity who are/were a big group?

[minkyhead]

cobras spot ..im in the same game
its the new test thats killing it from the roots up

40 thousand fewer tests taken in 2010 ... thats hooking on towards a 50 percent drop

the dsa are running scared .. and have have to review it to a single test hopfully late this year ...
40 thousand less in the market place is a huge ongoing chunk of business

under the present ecanomic climate ..they must be crapping themselves ..

as 40 odd percent less candidates means 40 odd percent less people required

on my old fashioned maths anyway ....

put this in the right sequence ... ass self in shot

serves em right grr

[sprintst3000]

Hi dont know what you know but I have a new bike on order with them and they have my deposit and my current bike!!
Did you get the name of the reciever

[Alun]

Hi dont know what you know but I have a new bike on order with them and they have my deposit and my current bike!!
Did you get the name of the reciever

What a bummer, sorry to hear that.

No, I didn't get the name of the receiver/liquidators, I'll check in the morning and see if there's a notice on the door. I'd also keep a look out on their website, they usually post up something on there - it's pulled off line right now.

Did you pay the deposit by credit card? If so you'll defo get your money back of the card company.