Review of 2021

It might not have been the best year it certainly was a step up from 2020 when it felt like the world ground to a halt. After a slow start and the underwhelming weather things did start to feel more normal, events happened and borders opened. Thankfully this Christmas has been a whole lot better than the past one and I hope that if you’re reading this you have had a good one too.

We started the year in a lockdown which ran all the way through till March. The third lock down was definitely felt the hardest, it dragged on through cold wet days and became a test of endurance. It was also the point where you began to sense things had started to fall apart, how many artists, small businesses and independents could endure more then two years slung against the ropes? London felt deserted at times and those that left would return to a very different place.

Despite the circumstances, things were surprisingly busy behind closed doors. Now in the final stages of completing our next collection we were adjusting samples, photographing new garments and looking for opportunities to show it in Europe, America and Japan. I had also settled into lock down life by now and had found enough things to fill my time, there’s always something to fix. French Tom who took on a small workshop in the corner of the yard was busy building a BMW boxer cafe racer and a Honda cb550 brat style.

When things did start to open up again we thought the best way to host an event was to do so at the Silver Building where we could entertain a large crowd safely. A brutalist concrete megalith over looking the Royal Docks, with a fly over providing shelter and space for our 20 ft cinema screen. The first Hang Out event of the new year was the first time for many out of isolation and it was great to catch up with everyone again. We had Rum Cocktails and wheel spins up the slip road, I don’t think anybody watched the film that night.

Since the beginning of the pandemic my mind has been consumed with ideas of how to celebrate coming to the end of it. The trouble is it never seems to end right? Finally I thought the only way is to bet on a window of opportunity and hold your breath. It had taken some time to come up with the concept, there are many motorcycle events out there but I wanted something that uniquely represented BOLT. It felt like everywhere I looked in the motorcycle scene there was some sort of corporate tie in. If anything, a reaction against this, a return to the source, stripped back to the bare bones, simply for the fun of things. And that was the spark which got me thinking about organising the first Lake Run.

The inspiration was the Bass Lake Run of 1965, a ride made famous by its inclusion in Hunter S Thompson’s seminal book “The Hells Angels”. What really struck me about the event was its simplicity, a date was set in a suitably scenic location, the rest just unfolded. Food and drink was provided by regular whips rounds and beer runs, it didn’t need any more organisation then that, its was a party after all.

I decided that any event we did had to be kept simple, and my thinking was to plan it as if it was for ten people but just invite a lot more people. My rationale was that I would just do everything bigger, one bbq became five, an ice box became two giant fridges, and a radio became a hefty sound system. Foolishly I thought it would be easy to find a spot of land for a few hundred bikers to party on but this was the year of the staycation! everyone was camping crazy. A couple of months rolled by and every lead had been exhausted. I was almost out of ideas when a late lead led me to Shelpham lakes, a beautiful secluded lake and ancient woodland hidden in the hills on the south coast. Amazingly they had a free weekend and the farmers were not off put by the idea of over a hundred bikers on their land. I had five weeks to get everything together, it was on.

The idea was to ask everyone to throw £50 in a pot and everything would be provided for over the weekend. Having first thought of the idea I announced it on social media promising, a lavish spread, a phrase that now rang heavy in my head. If we were to have such abundance we needed a good source of alcohol to fuel the weekend, and we needed a lot. I rang around our friends and before long we had bottles of Rum from Sailor Jerry, Whisky from Monkey Shoulder and a mountain of 1200 cans of Piston Head Larger.

Motorcycles gathered at Bolt on the Saturday morning, drank coffees and discussed routes for the ride down. I’d headed down at the break of day and was busy setting things up. Sonny ‘Scully” Evans has played at every party in the last eight years and had brought with him an industrial size sound system rig. The generator was the size of a mini bus, a corrugated metal shack housed the djs and a canopy of old boating sails hung between the trees.

I had seen images of giant bbqs covered with meat in old photos of American motorcycle meet ups and wanted to do the same. It was the week leading up to the event and French Tom and myself set about making two giant drum BBQs. After two days of cutting, welding, sawing and bolt we had turned two drums and a heap of scrap metal in to two fine BBQ’s. We had made it in the nick of time, or so we thought until a few hours later Tom calls me with saying he is sick with metal flu. It was the night before the event and we had nothing to cook with, I knew things were going too smoothly. In the end we rounded up an Armada of BBQ’s including one giant converted wheelbarrow - which turned out to be the star of the show. I had ordered a hundred hay bails placed them at various scenic spots for people to loaf around, and a circle around a fire pit by the lake.

In order to find the place you headed down towards the south coast, through some country lanes until you see a dirt track opposite three giant windmills. After half a mile you emerge through a head to see the lake and the circle of trees on the hill above. It was just after twelve when the first bikes appeared circling the lake. Soon after we had rows of all manor of motorcycles and vintage scooters lined up as riders cracked beers and took in the views. We had lined up bars with bottles, ice and limes, baths filled with cold beer, buckets of marinating meat and a tuck shop of chocolates and crisps. It didn’t take long before people were knocking out jugs of cocktails and all five BBQ’s were churning out wave after wave of meats.

As evening fell, the music got louder and the lights that Sonny had rigged lights throughout the branches of the trees were now refracting through thick layers of smoke. We lit the fire pit, drank, danced and rolled about, and only one person fell in the lake that I heard of. The beauty of the lake run was the people that came along, it was great to see so many close friends all together with the freedom and serenity of such a hidden enclave of nature. We’ll be back with another Lake Run later in the year, slightly bigger but built upon the same principles, Good times, Good people and nothing else.

Overall 2021 was a surprisingly good year for us despite the set backs. Zippo records and the Ecstatic Peace Library, an experimental record store by Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) and Eva, settled into the mix at BOLT. The combination of music and motorcycles attracts a great crowd to the shop, and events like our annual record fair brings something new to the mix. Likewise our hair saloon upstairs went from strength to strength and expanded opening up a second room. They also took on some new specialists and have really cemented their place for cool alternative cuts and colours. We received some great press over the last twelve months, starting with a two spread in Vanity Fair, were we were described as a “modern day Alfred Dunhill”. This was followed by a feature in the Financial Times - how to spend it magazine, where we were the cult shop of the month. other features ranged from motorcycle press to more specialist fashion including Heritage Post and Wonderland.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed and feel hopeful that this year will start to feel a bit more normal, either way we’re be making the best of things.