This is a  breif history of how the company came into being and some of the people behind the scenes.  I hope you don't find it too long winded.

On September 1978 I bought a 250cc motorcycle which, unbeknown to me, would change my life.  I was seventeen years old and had spent a previous fourteen of them riding on old pushbikes!  I never luckily joined the fizzy or AP50 crowd, and having saved up my summer job money, went on a crusade to purchase a GSX250 or Z200.  I was a sad individual at that time and wanted economy and I reckoned a top speed of 80mph would be more than adequate.

North Wales wasn't known for being a Mecca for used bikes and the thought of going further afield to a young spotty teenager was terrifying. So scouring the local rags I came across a Suzuki 250 advertised for £475 in Colwyn Bay.  I rang the guy up and he agreed to bring it along for me to see.  Being naïve he met me and my, then, girlfriends father whom was loaning some of the money, in the local car park at nightime.  The bike appeared and it wasn't a GSX but a 250X7, a thirsty two-stroke, which was last on my practical list.  However needs must and I wanted "any bike" as quickly as possible.  I was relieved of my £475 and the Suzuki was mine!

Seventeen years old, eight months to go until "A" levels were to be taken, bikes, mates that could get into pubs, girls, ride outs and racing resulted in 3 of the worst grades my form teacher could remember!  Every Polytechnic of the day treated me like a leper, I had intended to go on to further education to continue on from where the sixth form party had stopped.  However the education system seemed to thwart my efforts in this direction.

August 1980 was decision time, no grades, no jobs in Britain, how could I keep the party alive?  It was suggested that six months in Australia might put me straight.  So my Uncle Jim was given the honour of looking after me for his sins for six months.  Jim was a brickie in the Land of Oz and I became a labourer to him, not one of his best though, but the money was good!  We started at six and finished at three and drunk plenty of beer "to keep cool" after work.  After some of the best six months of my life I had to return home, my visa ran out, to a very cold and damp Britain.  Whilst I had been away a small bike shop called Abasport had got bigger and as it was opposite my mums house in Abergele I soon started to help Chris Hawley with the mail order of parts and general show help at Earls Court and various race tracks.  The work was fun, I got to use my bike and also to meet a great deal of people in the industry.  I remember having a stall next to M&P Accessories when they were only fifteen foot big (show stand size).  Life was fun again but Chris's pay wasn't hot and pension rights weren't up for discussion.

The next is truly fate for me.  Next door to Abasport was a fruit and veg' shop, which wasn't doing to well.  I knew the owners and their daughter Elaine (who I'de set my personal sight on) who told me they were going to close the shop.  I was mildly interested but had no money.  The next fateful item, in Rhyl a large shop selling Hondas went bottoms up big style the ensuing auction was to good to miss, so off I went to my "Grandma's" for a capital loan of £200 (the bank laughed and thought I'd be investing in the George & Dragon).  With £200 in my pocket and a bit of shrewd buying managed to get me a lot of workshop equipment and a few damaged bikes.  By this time I had negotiated a rent of £25 per week with Neville from the Tanners yard that owned the fruit and veg shop.  Over Christmas and a few dole cheques a few friends and myself did the shop up.  I acquired a few more scrap bikes and started breaking bikes for spares.  Abasport bought a few bikes from auctions, which I repaired for him and put a twelve-month ticket on and Chris sold them for a massive profit. Now I had premises, (I first started in my grandma's garage, which impressed the neighbours, not!).  I decided to keep breaking bikes which at that time was profitable and the bikes that were too good to break we did up and sold, definitely the way to go I thought.  On my own things were getting a bit harder, hampered by the fact that I could not drive, I didn't even own a van I had to rely on mates to pick up scrap bikes for me and that the work load was greater.  A mate of mine Steve Jones joined in by helping out ½ a day a week the other ½ day he would be testing soil samples!  Steve's dad "Walt" very kindly let us store bikes for breaking at his farm, the shop was only 200sqft (size of a terraced house) and we soon filled it!!  Steve in the mean time was getting fed up with soil testing and Christmas '86 he gave up his full time job and announced when we got back to work on January 2^nd that he would come in full time.  Money was tight but there was no shortage of work and we soon became known for repairs, rebores and race bits along with general parts.  I used to go to the wholesalers in Stockport on Sunday and bring back loads of accessories and batteries to sell; Woods just took off!!

Next problem, the shop was an old terraced house and the joists were (6" x 2" and over 100yrs old) not up to the four tons of motorcycle parts on them, how we got away with it I'll never know!  The building was old and started to crack we knew it was time