Guy “Guido” Allen
I’ve been writing/talking about motorcycles through magazines, video and radio (AMCN, Radio Rider and Motorcycle Trader, among others) and on the web since 1984 and have accidentally become a collector. Or just plain greedy.
At the time of writing (September 2020) there are twenty-ish bikes in the shed, across lots of brands and eras from 1947 and up.
Being a glutton for financial punishment, I’ve also flown light aircraft across a couple of decades and have had the honour of running Unique Cars magazine in print and digital forms. So of course there are a bunch of tintops bending the wallet, as well.
I’m the publisher of AllMoto, which has existed as a name since the late eighties and has emerged as a digital publication a couple of times over the last few decades. The first iteration was as a weekly e-zine through the mid-to-late 1990s.
In case you were wondering about the creature in the AllMoto logo, it’s a lemming riding a motorcycle. That’s thanks to a long-term association with the Lemmings Motorcycle Club, which luxuriates in the motto Death before Courtesy. It’s a long story…
The latest version of AllMoto has the Motorcycle Investor tag attached. My thinking there was to separate it from the usual news-new-models-reviews cycle which is already amply covered by very capable people.
We all invest financially and emotionally in motorcycles, though more often than not they are an indulgence rather than a stake in our financial future. (That of course doesn’t stop us from defending the purchase as an investment, dear…)
Today’s AllMoto is a mix of collector views and features. Much of it talks about auctions and values, good buys, motorcycles that have passed through the shed, along with the occasional new or used bike review, or something that looks like it’s interesting. Sometimes you’ll cop the odd observation about this riding life.
My motorcycle tastes are broad. One of the bikes I enjoy most is the humble Suzuki TS185ER, which we bought a couple of decades ago for our kids. However I have a soft spot for and own big and powerful sports tourers (Blackbird and Hayabusa), while also sheltering some more traditional classics (T160 and MkIII Commando), a full-house cruiser (Kings Mountain Indian), the odd sports bike (FZR1000, Ducati 916), adventure tourer (R100GS PD) and a bunch of other stuff.
At the moment in AllMoto I’m mixing fresh work with stories from a very deep well of material I’ve been lucky enough to see published across the years. I hope you enjoy it.
Pic by Ben Galli
