I’m Italian and I’m living in UK since November 2007, I’m riding motorbikes since I was 6, I have raced in two Italian Championships and I had lots of bikes.
I have brought here in London my scooter and my bike, but in the past year I’ve used them just few times. In the past year I’ve done less than 500mi with them, it is the lowest mileage per year since I was ten. However I have done thousands of mi driving cars up and down UK.
Then I’ve started questioning why now I’m not riding anymore, whereas in Italy I was using two wheels vehicles 365days per year.
The first obvious reason I’ve found is the weather.
This kind of weather it is not just sad, this weather is simply the denial of motorbikes riding itself!
Obviously when it’s raining the grip is lower than when it’s dry. But then here there is also often ice on the ground that makes impossible to ride. Then again the salt is used to melt the ice and the result is still something that is not the best to ride on. Also the salt generally corrodes all the metal parts, still not good for bikes.
On top of that we have to admit that the road maintenance is not absolutely the best we’ve ever seen. Also to make an asphalt hard enough to resist to rain and different temperatures, the tarmac mixture is quite “strong” and doesn’t give a great grip.
Another thing makes me think that up here there is not a great consideration for motorbikes and bikers, is that on the roads there are often longitudinal metal junctions and metal reflectors between the lanes. One of these things, in combination with a wet surface, is enough to let you crash if you are riding a two wheels vehicle.
Everybody is speaking about “health and safety” and all these things are actually not the safest you can find on a road.
Then apparently it is allowed to drive a car or a van with the tow hook installed even when there is nothing attached to the hook, and you can imagine the consequences for the legs of the biker if a motorbike is crashing against one of those vehicle.
On top of all there are the roads themselves: at least down here in England corners and curvy roads don’t exist at all!
Even the countryside roads are all straight or not really curvy.
Maybe up in Scotland the situation is better (but I bet that the weather is not!).
Then the road circulation.
In the queue nobody is going across the traffic and passing among the cars to skip the queue.
Then let me get this straight, “I’m using a two wheel vehicle, I’m taking the risk because it’s more dangerous than a car, I’m taking the rain because there isn’t a roof and after all that I still have to queue behind the cars?”. Are you making a fool of me?
Everybody seems to be scared to ride. Most of the bikers are using a full leather suit (the coolest one I’ve seen is dated 1995…) even to go to the office in the morning. Then if you are looking at the sliders and the edges of the tyres they are brand-new and untouched!
The best tyre I’ve seen on a sport bike is a model that in Italy we consider as a “grandpa tyre”, just for tourism. The real sport tires are not used at all and if you want to buy one of those it is difficult to find them and the price would be just crazy.
No one to blame for that, it is just because with this weather you cannot use a sport tyre.
Then I was also thinking at the motorbikes races and championships and as far I can see on the motoGP history the last Brit that has won a world Championship is Barry Sheene in 1977 more than thirty years ago! After 1977 no great Brits in MotoGP.
In the World SBK the situation is slightly better with the recent Carl Fogarty, Neil Hodgson and James Toseland.
So I was trying to find out the reasons for that and looking at the MotoGP and WSBK history it is clear that the most prolific Countries for great bikers are Italy, Spain, Australia and USA.
That the reason for that it’s again probably to be found in the typical weather conditions of those countries that together with great and famous curvy roads help to create a real motorbike sport culture.
Then, considering that nowadays a National Championship could easy cost round 70.000 Euros to be competitive, I was wondering how does a Club Racing Series work up by the financial point of view. And I’ve found out that it is just about people or companies giving money or technical support for free. And that’s it!
I don’t know how many generous people live in UK, but £60.000 per season for free it’s a lot of money!
In other Counties generally there are financial possibilities related to the taxes, that make a sponsorship contract something interesting to invest the money of a Company in.
If up here there are not these possibilities, then obviously there is much less money for all the people that want to race with a bike and so a Championship could not be so competitive as in other Countries. So less money, less riders and less competitive Championships.
At the end of the day all these considerations let me think that up here there always be people riding every day and people trying to race, but there will never be the same Sport Motorbikes Culture that you can find in other Countries.
Do not get me wrong, I do not want to upset anyone or say that some Countries are better than others, I am just trying to compare different cultures of different Countries about the same passion.
Whilst I agree with some of your comments, the above is particularly untrue. Plus, I’m not sure that it substantiates your thread title…but then as Pete says, my Italian sucks, too… 
Just remember to do a “V” sign with your fingers but the other way around (yes I know what that means history-wise)