EVER notice that some parts of the country seem to have a higher concentration of bikes than others? Does your area have a raging motorcycling culture or is it a barren wasteland of four-wheeled monotony?
It turns out that bikes aren’t spread as evenly around the country as you might expect but it's not all concentrated in London, either. Some areas have disproportionately large motorcycle populations, whether it’s because they’re inner-cities where scooters are popular or rural landscapes with perfect motorcycling roads. There are also areas which are popular and we can't quite work out why. Maybe you can help.
For this top ten we’re naming the ten postcode areas with the highest motorcycle populations from a total of 3,064 postcode districts. Obviously the square-mile size of each postcode differs but then so does the population density.
Based on DfT data, these are the ten postcodes with the highest number of registered motorcycles, starting at number ten..
10. PR9
1,799 motorcycles and scooters
IF you were expecting the most populous motorcycle postcodes to simply reflect the most highly-populated parts of the country (ie, they’d all be in London) then this one might come as a surprise. In case PR9 isn’t familiar, it’s in the area of Southport, just south of Blackpool, and it’s got a seriously high proportion of bikes, with 1799 registered there compared to 19,727 cars. That ratio, nearly 1 in 10, is far higher than the national average. As to why? Frankly, we’re stumped. Presumably you Southport inhabitants just love two wheels or maybe the weather's always better up there?
9: LE9
1,804 motorcycles and scooters
WE might not be able to pinpoint Southport’s popularity with bikers (or is it the other way around) but LE9 makes sense, as it’s home to Mallory Park and within a stone’s throw of the Triumph factory in Hinckley. While the overall bike number is high, the bike-to-car ratio isn’t as impressive as PR9, since while there are only five more motorcycles in LE9, the area is home to more than 10,000 extra cars, with a total of 30,532. So secretly, you love your cars here too. Encourage your neighbout to get on two wheels!
8: LE12
1,836 motorcycles and scooters
DESPITE its proximity to a race track and Britain’s main bike factory, LE9 isn’t Leicestershire’s leading bike area. In fact it’s only third in the county. Second goes to LE12, a mainly rural area surrounding Loughborough. Again it can’t match PR9’s bike-to-car ratio, or even that of LE9, with some 33,714 cars for just 1836 bikes. It’s a big area, though, and one with some pretty decent biking roads, which probably explains why so many riders live there.
7: NW10
1,867 motorcycles and scooters
YOU couldn’t find a part of the UK that was far more different to LE12’s rural setting than our next contender, London’s NW10 postcode. Sitting in the London Borough of Brent and backing on to Wembley, NW10 might seem like just another part of London, but its bike population is high at 1867. While admitting we haven’t done any counting, we’d guess that scooters make up a big chunk here, and the bike-to-car ratio is pretty impressive since there are only 25,014 cars in the same few square miles.
