Motorbike garage battles on after pub fire and Covid-19

To say 2020 was a troublesome year for the team at Crawley Custom Classic Motorcycle Engineers would be an understatement.

A blaze at the pub where Bob Common lived left him finding a new place to call home.

However, the bikers have not let events phase them and continue to offer their ‘unique’ services to customers across the county.

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Conrad Weiskrantz, who helps out at the garage, said: “The garage had big things happen pretty much all at once – Covid and the lockdown, the move and then the pub burning down.

“This all happened within a couple of months.

“The first lockdown had quite a few effects as parts became harder to find and coming out of Europe hasn’t helped with that.

“It’s made life more difficult with then not being allowed close contact with people, which then slowed business down.”

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The garage then went through the process of moving bases at the Crawley Mill Industrial Estate.

Then came the blaze at the Crawley Inn, which required crews from six county fire stations to tackle.

“The next thing we know the phone goes and it’s the fire service telling Bob to get round to the pub,” said Mr Weiskrantz.

“It’s a great shame as it might not reopen now.

“But the workshop started to recover from September and October and things stabilised, although the new lockdowns don’t help obviously.”

A motorbike workshop in Witney has managed to carry on despite a fire and the Covid-19 pandemic. Picture by Ed Nix

Mr Weiskrantz said the garage offers something few places in the county can.

“The workshop specialises in Harley Davidsons, British bikes and some Japanese ones as well,” he said.

“In Oxfordshire, there isn’t really much more out there – the main dealers won’t touch the bikes – and the knowledge the guys have got here is very good.

“They’re quite unique for Oxfordshire, there aren’t too many places left as it’s quite specialist.”

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Garage boss Andy Sullivan-Webb said: “It’s been a worrying year with Bob and the pub fire too, we were quite connected with the pub with it being a bikers’ pub.

“We haven’t had the number of customers we usually would – we’ve had jobs obviously and support from the Government grants.

“But we’ve got some new plans ahead for this year, we’re going to have more of a parts department so people can buy parts and we’re looking at getting someone younger in as someone to pass on our skills and knowledge to.

“There isn’t too many places like us left and we get customers coming in saying they can’t find places like us, so we’ve got a bit of a niche there.

“We try to keep the place like it was in the 60s – that’s when motorbikes were at their height and we like customers to have that feeling.”