Leading London motorcycle training firm launches new trail-riding experience

I’m flying through the air horizontally - ‘doing a Superman’ my instructor later tells my fellow riders - wondering what I did wrong. And whether it will hurt when I land.

We’re in the wilds of Wiltshire to discover why a leading London motorcycle training firm specialising in road-riding is now teaching all-comers how to handle the rough stuff too, after setting up camp on the edge of Salisbury Plain, with its miles of hidden byways.

The new venture is in response to soaring demand for tuition on adventure-style motorcycles, in line with runaway sales of the high-riding, knobbly-tyred bikes themselves.

With growing numbers of riders wanting to know what the machines are really capable of, Phoenix Motorcycle Training set up Phoenix Trails - and is now seeing streams of riders heading from the capital to its new base in Codford.