Mid Life Cycles owner Michael Catchpole, 61, combined a career in the Australian mining industry with working as a journalist, before heading up the country’s Institute of Mining Engineers and Geoscientists.
As a sideline away from the stresses of that he founded Mid Life Cycles (good name!) in 2010 together with a friend, initially more as a hobby than anything. This saw the duo restoring Classic bikes in their spare time, as well as starting to build Custom bikes in a business established in Cremorne, the same inner city suburb of Melbourne that it’s located in today.
Four years ago Mid Life moved into a more professional mode with a full time manager and a mechanic, and started to build up the workshop business, before establishing a Royal Enfield dealership in July 2016.
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“I was looking to support a larger workshop operation by retailing a brand that sat well with our Classic bikes restoration and Custom building businesses,” says Catchpole.
“We looked at several, but then Royal Enfield came to us at just the right time, and we chose them. We haven’t looked back since.”
Working with a local architect and Royal Enfield HQ in India, as well as the company’s dynamic local distributors Urban Moto Imports, Catchpole created what has now become a paradigm for future RE stores worldwide, located just a few doors down the same street in which Mid Life was previously operating.
The spacious 550m² dealership includes 350m² of display space to present the Indian firm’s growing range of bikes and aftermarket accessories, including clothing.
Royal Enfield CEO Siddhartha Lal visited it before its opening in December last year and gave it his personal approval, and the public seemingly did so too, with 60 new bikes sold in the firm’s nine-month start-up period, including eight of RE’s new Himalayan adventure bikes in the first two weeks after going on sale.
