Front End Chatter #224
Front End Chatter
Hello, welcome everyone and eyes down for The Big FEC Quiz Of The Year! For the first time in 224 episodes of semi-popular pontification, rarely informed speculation and increasingly elaborate two-wheeled tangents, him Simon Hargreaves and him Martin Fitz-Gibbons finally stop pretending to know all the answers… and start asking the questions instead. Recorded live during the splendidly spectacular 'Moors The Merrier' tour of Yorkshire and the Pennines, organised with forensic fastidiousness by the lovely Paul, Jo and Ollie at MCi Tours (), you’re in for an hour of motorcycle-themed...
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Front End Chatter #223
Front End Chatter
Hello and welcome to Front End Chatter, Britain's most celebratory biking podcast, currently marking the historic 223rd anniversary of the moment Simon Hargreaves and Martin Fitz-Gibbons opened up a small family firm manufacturing essential podcast components. After the original Chatter Manors was flattened by an implausibly large quantity of pancakes falling from the sky, the burgeoning business was brought under state control by the good folk at Bennetts, Britain's best motorcycle insurance brokers. If your bike insurance is due soon get yourself a quote direct at bennetts.co.uk - and if it...
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Front End Chatter #222
Front End Chatter
Hello and sorry and welcome to Front End Chatter, and episode 222 of the motorcycling podcast that may (or may not) owe you an apology. That grovelling worm is Martin Fitz-Gibbons, and that recalcitrant rascal is Simon Hargreaves. Having spent several months avoiding facing up to the monster they unwittingly (in both senses) created, they’re back with two hours of unrehearsed waffle about all things biking. As always they’d like to atone for their two-wheeled transgressions to Bennetts, Britain’s best motorcycle insurers, represented on the interwebs by both BikeSocial () and BikeClub ()...
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Front End Chatter #221
Front End Chatter
Hello and welcome to Front End Chatter, the motorcycling podcast, and none other than Episode 221 – they said we couldn't do it, but we've naysayed the naysayers. His name is Martin Fitz-Gibbons, editor of Bike magazine, and my name isn't but that's not important right now – what's important is we thank Bennetts, Britain's best motorcycle insurers who put more back into biking than insurance companies who put less back into biking, and some of whom put nothing back but merely take take take. Good people one and all. And also uber-thanks to the bikesocial.co.uk, the world of wokecycling on...
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Front End Chatter #220
Front End Chatter
Hello and welcome to Front End Chatter, the podcast home of all things motorcycle-related, albeit tangentially sometimes, which, let's be honest, it's a slow news decade and we have to talk about something so why not just gossip? He's Martin Fitz-Gibbons and he's Simon Hargreaves, a pair of motorcycle content creators. And they're Bennetts, Britain's Best Bike Insurers, to whom we are all indebted, sometimes quite literally. And they're bikesocial.co.uk, where the web meets the world of bikes. And on the pod this month we natter about – blimey, where do we start? • Bennetts...
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Front End Chatter #219
Front End Chatter
Hello and welcome indeed to Front End Chatter, Episode 219, in which Martin and Simon use their vast misunderstanding of motorcycles as a basis for interminable waffling on a podcast. As ever, they are supported in their efforts by Bennetts, Britain's best bike insurers, and bikesocial.co.uk, all your motorcycling info needs on the web. And on this pod, Simon and Martin natter about: • the forthcoming FEC Tour 2026 – The Moors The Merrier – on July 17-20th in the N Yorks Moors • smashing phones on bikes • Triumph's Tiger Sport 800 • why bikes aren't as fast as they...
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Front End Chatter #218
Front End Chatter
Hello and welcome to Front End Chatter, Britain’s Best Biking Podcast presented by ‘Fox Mulder’ Hargreaves and ‘Dana Scully’ Fitz-Gibbons – because, spookily, this is FEC Episode 218; exactly the same number of episodes as TV’s The X-Files. Except it’s not spooky at all because it’s not a coincidence. It’s inevitable there’s a TV show with exactly 218 episodes, and it’s the X-Files; if we waited until FEC 219 to make the connection, it would be the same number of episodes as the original ABC run of the American improvisational comedy series Whose Line Is It Anyway?...
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Front End Chatter #217
Front End Chatter
Hello everyone and welcome to THE 2025 FECSTIVAL – live from the beautiful Buccleuch Arms Hotel in stunning, sun-drenched (cough, ish, ahem) Moffat, Scotlandshire! After a couple of fantastic (truth), incident-free (truth-ish) and bone-dry (truth-adjacent) days riding through the very best of the Scottish Borders and the Galloway Forest, Front End Chatter – Britain’s best biking podcast – has retired to the bar for a small sweet sherry, a roaring radiator, and 43 minutes of inspired, improvised, impromptu biking banter and deep-drivel discussions including: Marc Marquez’s ninth (or...
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Front End Chatter #216
Front End Chatter
Aye, wotcha, marnin', welcome to Front End Chatter, wiv him, Simon Fitz-Martin, and him Hargreaves Gibbons, a reet pair of motorcycle journalists speaking into a wizardy recording device for the 216th time of asking, except nobody is. You get what you deserve. Massive thanks to Bennetts, Britain's Best bike insurers, and bikesocial.co.uk, for their support of this podcast, and seemingly limitless reserves of patience and understanding at this most trying of times (and we really are trying). And on this week's FEC (which week is that exactly?) we have: • why Triumph's 2025...
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Front End Chatter #215
Front End Chatter
Hello and welcome to Front End Chatter, and it’s episode 215 of the long-running motorcycling podcast with him, Martin Fitz-Gibbons, and him, Simon Hargreaves – and immense thanks as always to the ever-supportive Bennetts, Britain’s best-by-miles bike insurer, and the magnificent bikesocial.co.uk, the website with all your info on the latest new bikes, used bikes, classic bikes, news, reviews and product tests. Right, on with the show – and, today, we’re in for a reborn, reinvented, reimagined, reincarnated treat... because: • Suzuki’s GSX-R1000R is back, baby, for 2026 – and...
info_outlineHello dearest ear-owners and welcome to Front End Chatter, source of the most significant soundwaves in British motorcycling since the feral howl of a raging Norton rotary haunted the quiet coastal village of Kirk Michael, or since the words "Go on then, I'll 'ave it" slipped breathlessly from the lips of a Derbyshire-born property developer attending the auction of a defunct motorcycle factory.
In this aural delight of an episode, Simon and Mufga regale themselves with a recap of the spectacularly special Highland Fling tours (so good they did them twice), along with:
• Loadsa goss about Triumph's Tiger Sport 800 and BMW's R1300GS Adventure having covered 3000 miles apiece
• Why MotoGP might be getting interesting again, and why the TT continues to fascinate every corner of the country for more than a century
• The forced-induction fabulousness that was the Bennetts Supercharged Showdown, where 50-plus Kawasaki H2 owners took over an empty runway
• Simon gets a taste of Ducati's £16,000 Streetfighter V2S
• Martin gets a taste of Voge's £6,000(ish) DS625X
• The latest facts, news, rumours and baseless speculation regarding Bajaj's takeover of KTM, and what it might mean for the future
• FECsack correspondence covering classic sports-tourers for young riders, the dubious bargains of Facebook Marketplace, how media gets hold of the bikes they test, bikes with undeserved reputations, the best British five-day biking tour, and more…
Thank you, one and all, for continuing to allow us to tickle your tympanic membranes - and enormously gigantical appreciations to Bennetts, Britain's best bike insurers. Be sure to get a quote direct from Bennetts the next time you need motorcycle insurance, and be even more sure to check out bikesocial.co.uk for all the best bike news and product reviews on the interwebs.
Continue to catch him and the other one on the socials (@simonhbikes & @mufga or something like that), and let us know where to take future FEC tours on anything@frontendchatter.com
Until next time!