There's a couple of, I assume, late-teens who hurtle around the lanes surrounding my Cheshire village home, presumably heading to or from work or college, each on new-ish L-plated KTM 125s, or "11Kws" in the digital world despite being fossil-fuelled.
One has a loud aftermarket exhaust, the other a VERY loud aftermarket exhaust. Each has other minor mods seemingly aimed at satisfying Gen Z's desire for personalisation.
But they're actually basically the same. And, in fact, every time I see or hear a KTM 125 they're very slightly different, but it takes a bike enthusiast to spot those differences: invisible personalisation.
Half-inch-thick marketing industry reports (if they were printed off, which Gen Z doesn't like for sustainability reasons) can be summed up in few words: Gen Z likes if not expects personalisation, authenticity and sustainability in everything they buy.
My son, who, as a Los Angeles-based video games designer who zips between there and here, is about as on-trend as it gets when it comes to Gen Z: he has deeply personalised everything when it comes to digital stuff. But the birthday and Christmas gifts for which he asks are genuine and authentic tangible products of the '70s, '80s and '90s. Not retro-recreations, but the genuine articles. Most recent an original 1990s football shirt.
My London-based daughter, definitely Gen Z, working in social media for some of the coolest and most authentic environmentally-focussed brands on the planet is my benchmark authority on sustainability. She likes that we as a family don't own brand new cars or motorcycles, that we buy "pre-owned" stuff ranging from gardening equipment, to photographic equipment, to furniture, and sometimes clothing.
If I take on board and absorb their respective benchmarks for personalisation, authenticity and sustainability and apply it to the classic motorcycle market and community, then surely we have, staring us in the face, the opportunity to hook younger generations on genuine classic bikes rather than modern retros adorned with classic names.
I was in a classic motorcycle specialist's workshop the other day. They'd just finished working on a '70s Yamaha RX100 single-cylinder two-stroke, learner-legal with its sub-11Kw motor, still on the hydraulic lift workbench.
The owner was a bloke, like me, who remembers them first time round. The user was his 19-year-old son.
As I approached it from the left I asked dad how he'd persuaded son to use it rather than mythering for a modern retro.
"Follow me," he said.
On the other side was the answer: a period expansion chamber, chromed. It was the only modification - or personalisation - on the machine.
The bike came down off the lift, rolled outside, and dad kicked it into life. You can only imagine the sound if you've heard it in a previous life: sharp, crackly, zingy - and authentic. And different from any 11Kw machine for miles around.
"He likes that nobody else has one, it sounds different to just about anything else on the road, that it's not a same-as-same-as, and that it's very existence means quite a few new bikes haven't generated any carbon during their manufacture.
"But what he really, really likes is that he's the coolest kid in the college car park."
It's time to go back for the future of our bikes.
Go Google "Yamaha RXS 100 Gianelli expansion chamber on YouTube"…
