About the Author

Hi!

I’m Paul Berryman, I’d like to thank you for visiting my blog.

Last year it was my flighty notion that building a Katana to race at Spa in under 12 months was both a good idea and perfectly possible.

Obviously this blog documents whether or not such a thing is possible to achieve (it’s looking good at the moment, but it hasn’t always been clear that it would work out!) I’ve tried to detail the project in terms of the people, the parts, the progress, the problems and the possibilities, I really hope you take something enjoyable or useful out of reading it.

Sharing the journey to make this bike happen has already created many lovely associations with fantastic people. I’m sure there are many more waiting to happen.

Not unusually for visitors to this blog, I’m addicted to bikes, and particularly racing bikes.

I started racing in 1990 after one too many people told me my riding was “very good, but inappropriate for the road”.  I raced on and off through too many crashes and not enough good luck until 1999.

I’ve kept the fire alight since coming back from an 11 year lay off in 2010 by racing in Endurance and Modern Classic stuff (the Visorvision SRAD being an absolute weapon in the Hottrax Modern Classic Superbike class)

So, come the visit to the Spa Bikers Classic last year, I was ready to receive the message that “this needs to be your next racing adventure”.

When I’m not involved in trying to get this Katana ready, my life is still inextricably linked to motorcycles.

In 2004 I invented what I still think it’s possible to reasonably claim is the best Visor cleaner in the world! The V2 Sponge.

Making that product, and needing to bring it to market meant I needed a company, so I started Visorvision, and quickly added 2 other products to our inventory which still form the heart of a business based on providing the best visor care you can buy. Our other 2 products are Fogtech and Raincoat, from the immensely clever and affable Gene Menzies over at Motosolutions in California.

Visorvision probably appears to be bigger than it is, but aside from me, it has no full time employees. It’s honestly quite hard competing against many bigger companies, with more marketing clout and better market presence. That said, in the 9 years we’ve been going we’ve learnt how to do that pretty well, and spending money on advertising in newspaper and magazines has gradually dropped down the pecking order. We’re now spending that money on building classic racing motorcycles and allowing the publicity from them to do the same job as old ways of marketing. Much more fun, much more engagement from customers if we get it right too!

I also instruct for the Ron Haslam race school at Donington, which helps to keep me not only riding, but thinking about corners. I’ve probably learnt more about corners from having to teach them than I have by riding them. Being paid to ride Superbikes around one of the greatest tracks in the World is obviously great, but actually the best part of the job is lighting the little fires inside of people that never knew they had a flame to light!

Outside of bikes, pretty much all of my passions revolve around simple things, painting, drawing, cooking, photography, walking Renzo Berryman (my ever present big-eared dog) and searching for inner peace through yoga and meditation practice. Yup, I’m happy to report that inside the flaming haired petrol head is a very well established inner hippy! The 2 things don’t always go together well, but there’s an incredible overlap in many ways, deeper than I can explore here. Let’s just say any one of the 2000 visits a year I make to the Craner Curves, often at 100mph plus, can be as calm a place as a Yoga mat on an Indian beach – I’m still working on why that happens, all I can report is that it does!

So, thats me, and until I find a way to devote my life to creating a durable and sustainable world peace, I’m probably going to race motorcycles – thanks for supporting the project with your patronage of this blog, and feel free to indulge yourself with any of our market leading visor care products to assist the coffers in doing more of the same!

Safe riding to you!

Paul Berryman