Happy Republic Day!

Who killed the British motorcycle industry?

No one, probably. Industries and societies are complex systems and undergo elaborate evolutions, and when something goes wrong it usually is not due to a simple reason. However, we can speculate that it parallels what happened with the British automotive industry. In 1950 52% of world exports of automotive vehicles came from the UK. Today whatever is left of the industry is foreign owned. This video has Jeremy Clarkson's take on the problem.

At Sturgis

It is a bit early to talk about the Sturgis Motorcyle Rally, maybe the largest in the world. But it is never early to point out that at the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum they have a 1948 Royal Enfield Flying Flea.

New prez

Royal Enfield has a new president, Rudratej Singh. He rides a Conti and comes form Unilever. Also, I just learned that former COO Venki Padmanabhan had moved  to another position in Eicher and that Siddhartha Lal had stepped in (and remains) as CEO. So Enfield now has a CEO and two executive leaders, one for the business side and one for the supply side of the operation.

Harry Enfield

Harry Enfield is a comedian in the UK. I guess he's very popular, which motivated this rider to call his Enfield "Harry".