The eighties in bike culture was a story of Japanese dominance and technical innovation. European brands suffered greatly from the explosion in popularity of fast, reliable and colourful machines coming out of the far east, which were rooted in high tech engineering.

The cheapness and accessibility of Japanese machines meant a whole new generation in Europe and America was able to get on their bikes – and the proliferation and broadening of choice made biking a much more colourful proposition than it had been in previous decades.

For the first time in the eighties, buying into bike culture wasn’t about just being a generic, leather clad ‘biker’. It was about being the sort of biker you wanted to be.