The reason I enquired as to your opinion was solely on the basis that you have much more contact with the various guys connected with the manufacture and sales of the bike. In this instance I would have thought that your opinion was actually likely to be more value than mine as I have contact with any of the foregoing. If I have upset you, which seems likely, I apologise as it was inadvertent although I don't understand why you should be so sensitive!
Hi, I'm not in the least upset; I'm sorry if I gave that impression through rushing a response.
Phil Bull & I have been under strict commercial confidentiality agreements since the first meeting we attended at NMM, as reported at Members' Meetings & AGMs. This means that anything we are told cannot be circulated until cleared. This is standard business practice to avoid misinterpretation or excessive speculation. That tends to happen anyway.
What I try to do is to communicate the potential effects on the BSAOC and our members, resulting from the introduction of a cracking good bike (from early impressions, including the brief rides at Brooklands). A good mate, Mark Fielder, volunteers at Brooklands and facilitated BSAOC in encouraging BSA to be there. Chris Golby & I did the honours for the Club. Brooklands have invited BSAOC along with our own club stand next year, we'll just need some local volunteers to get involved.
Anything to do with the running of the company, the appointment of the distributor or the production and import of bikes is announced by the founders. They are the only people who know everything, so it's best to watch out for anything they put out. Lukas Distribution seem to be releasing their own related announcements.
I get a number of enquiries privately and via various groups, but as a volunteer who still has a more than full time job running my own businesses, I can't deal with them all individually. However, as a significant number were asking questions, like yours and capturing their perception of what was going on, I try to answer with generic answers relating to the bigger picture of manufacturing and industry and trade, that from experience I know will be influencing BSA. Combining our thoughts will help us and others build a better informed picture of how the new BSA project is developing.
Out of interest, how this might work is shown by a number of studies, based on the fairground game of guess how many ball bearings/sweets are in a large glass jar. If you collect a couple of thousand guesses the mathematical average of them all is consistently near the truth! Weird!
Note that I tend to prefer perception to opinion when referring to informed and thoughtful comments like yours. As Club PRO, I fully understand that perception comes from the messages from the organisation and how they are communicated. Opinions are more commonly just founded in prejudice. That's not judgemental, it's just the way it is.
These are exciting and positive times for BSAOC, not only is there the new bike, but The Star confirms what we see elsewhere, that there are a number of bikes and projects being released into the market.
There's no secret that I believe we should encourage every new BSA owner to also acquire a classic BSA, if they don't already have one. There's a whole side of the Club and BSA ownership that delights in fixing bikes, which new vehicles don't offer.
One final point - you won't upset me, I'm too thick-skinned after all the abuse I get from BSAOC whenever I sing You'll Never Walk Alone (YNWA).
Keep smiling, share the joy, we are the Happy People