A YouTube account devoted to the hobby of magnet fishing has put together a compilation of all the motorcycles the team has pulled from the canal over the years.
The team starts by trawling the bottom of the canal with very strong magnets, catching larger items with grappling hooks if needed. Once they pull them to the side the team haul them out of the canal and we assume send them to be scrapped.
The mix of bikes they recover is astonishing, with the obvious cheap and cheerful Chinese scooters making up the bulk of the team’s work. They do though also pull 1000cc bikes, quads (one of which looks like it could easily be made to run again), and even a CBR600 from the murky depths.
While the work they do is noble, it does leave a question mark on the legality of the recovery. We aren’t fully sure what happens to the bikes afterward but, if there has been an insurance payout against the bike, technically it belongs to the underwriter, regardless of it’s state of disrepair!
The video is admittedly interesting to watch, as you try and ID the bike before the team brings it ashore. It is though also troubling… As somebody who has had bikes stolen before, I know first-hand (as many of you do) the pain and anguish that goes with a stolen bike. The money paid out for your insurance excess, extra travel arrangements to get to work, and so on. Each one of those bikes comes with all that attached to it, all for just an hours’ worth of riding on the local park.
