Small Bike Logistics Firm Left Thousands Out of Pocket by Superbike Factory Collapse

A motorcycle transport firm has revealed the impact of Superbike Factory's collapse on its business, leaving it with unpaid invoices and a significant hole in its summer workload.

The Bike Bus, a family-run logistics company, was moving up to 30 bikes a week for Superbike Factory before its collapse. This included transporting machines between its various sites and delivering motorcycles to customers around the country.

The company's owner, Jacqui, explained that The Bike Bus relies heavily on cash flow, with payments coming in and going out as they are received. However, with Superbike Factory's collapse, this cash flow has been severely disrupted.

"We got an absolute shed load of work," Jacqui said. "We're a small family firm. We've got four vans, and we were regularly doing about 30 bikes a week for them."

The work involved collecting motorcycles from Superbike Factory's various locations, including Bradford, Crawley, Bristol, Donington, and Macclesfield, before transporting them around the UK. A large proportion of the bikes were heading north into Scotland, although they also carried out deliveries in the opposite direction.

The Bike Bus had to deal with unreliable information supplied with some jobs, which led to them being asked to collect motorcycles or deliver them to customers only to discover that the original arrangement had changed.

"The arrangements were quite hit and miss," Jacqui said. "They would often send us details of a job that no longer existed, or customers had been waiting for what turned out to be about three months."

This put The Bike Bus drivers in the awkward position of dealing directly with customers who were already frustrated about waiting for their motorcycles. However, according to Jacqui, their conversations with the affected customers often helped calm things down.

The more serious problem came in the final weeks before Superbike Factory's collapse, with payments becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. Jacqui said that it got steadily harder to get through to anyone in the accounts department.

"Things got very difficult with payments, and I would frequently chase them daily," she said. "No one would answer the phone, no one would talk to me. I couldn't speak to anybody in accounts."

The Bike Bus had one main contact at Superbike Factory, but that person was unable to provide any clear explanation for why payments were not being made.

The consequences of the collapse have extended beyond the unpaid invoices, with The Bike Bus having to look for additional work elsewhere to help plug the gap. The company has also had to stump up the wages and fuel costs for an additional driver it employed specifically to cope with the volume of work coming directly from Superbike Factory.

"So his wages and fuel and everything else, we've had to stump up out of our own pocket," Jacqui said.

The Bike Bus had little warning that the relationship was about to come to an end, with Jacqui saying that the company had sent Superbike Factory a letter before action after becoming increasingly concerned about the outstanding payments.

"the next day, the news [of the administration] was announced," she said.

The Bike Bus has since contacted the administrators, KR8 Advisory, and completed the forms it was sent. However, Jacqui said she had received no further correspondence.

"We filled them in, sent them back. Heard absolutely nothing at all."

The Bike Bus's experience offers another glimpse of the network of businesses that depended on Superbike Factory functioning normally. The company's owner, Jacqui, feels somewhat removed from the wider customer crisis, despite being another casualty of the collapse.

"The customers are in a right load of trouble, you know, no bike, no money. It's a really horrible situation," she said. "But I've not heard of any other transport companies, and I'm sure there will be some, that are in our situation."

**Table of Unpaid Invoices and Additional Driver Costs**

| Item | Amount | | --- | --- | | Unpaid invoices | Thousands of pounds | | Additional driver's wages and fuel costs | |