You couldn’t make it up

Globalisation has had many consequences, some more desirable than others. It has also allowed any Tom, Dick or Harry to set up shop and try their luck selling electrical products to motorcycle enthusiasts.

This picture shows the crimp quality of a loom kit made somewhere in Southeast Asia, which came with a stand-alone Chinese Lifan engine.

When I was editing Performance Bikes magazine in the 1990s, we used to run stories about how unelected bureaucrats in Strasbourg were trying to approve what you could and couldn’t fit to your motorcycle. At the time I was rather indignant. That was because I could not imagine a world where people made shit like this and sold it to the general public.

Fast forward to 2026 and I understand what they meant.

On the one hand it’s hilarious. On the other this thing is made of raw materials which have been dug out of the ground, refined, processed, and then dragged across the world on a big ship belching carbon into the atmosphere. I’m not convinced it was worth it.

Caveat emptor, as Julius Caesar used to say.