Cole is a lifelong passionate motorcycle enthusiast, writer, adventurer and TV presenter of two long running TV series: World’s Greatest Motorcycle Rides (Travel Channel Worldwide) and The Motorbike Show (ITV4). Cole’s Great Great Uncle was Gladstone the Prime Minister but it was another Gladstone who left an indelible and everlasting impression on him at the tender age of twelve. His name was Unc
le Dick “Red Beard” Gladstone. Born in 1898 he was a true British eccentric who lived in Cole’s home city of Liverpool in a rambling abode where he fettled and rode the best of British motorcycles. An eclectic mix of Brough Superiors, Triumphs and BSA’s jostled for position with dusty, abandoned 18th century furniture in Red Beard’s musty and mystical garage. When Cole wandered round said garage as a boy he knew the feelings that it inspired would constitute a key part of his life at some point and so now it shall! So the company is called Gladstone Motorcycles, the logo is an interpretation of Cole’s side of the Gladstone families’ Crest. Gladstone Motorcycles will build the most exquisite, bespoke, limited runs of the quintessential British handmade motorcycles combining Gladstone’s relationships with the most famous British engine and frame manufacture with Gladstone’s vision for what dictates the perfect incarnation of two wheeled individualism. The legacy Uncle Dick instigated in Cole he now strives to share with a global community of like minded, kindred spirits or as Cole proudly describes them: “Discerning Hooligans”.
