WHO IS TEAPOT ONE?
Bruce Smart, otherwise known as TeapotOne is ex cop and motovlogger. We have gotten to know Bruce over the years and have become friends.
He’s a self-proclaimed ‘biker-holic’ and made the decision to live out his dream of riding his motorbike around the world after losing his mum in 2008.
WHAT DOES HE DO?
He originally began his journey and rode a superbike 74,000 miles around the world, solo. He smashed through 54 countries in 442 days and had a great time on the way. Once he completed his mammoth trip, he set his sights on spreading a ‘Live Your Life’ mantra, producing weekly videos usually centered around bikes and packing as much into your life as possible.
THE TEAPOTONE NAME
TeapotOne was the callsign in the Met Police’s mobile tea wagon that was brought out for large-scale public demonstrations. As Bruce was a serving police officer in the Met and taking a break from his career to travel, he says “it just seemed the right name”.
HOW HE STARTED HIS JOURNEY
Teapot says that he always liked the idea of motorbikes, and his interest was first peaked when he was a young lad, and his dad’s mate came round with a Suzuki. Although he was interested in bikes his parents did stress the danger of them, so bikes weren’t a reality until his late 20’s. Long Way Round is what Bruce says rekindled his desire for travel and bikes.
It wasn’t until 2008 after losing his mum that he really put the wheels in motion. He says that he was watching Long Way Round with her, moaning about how easy it was for Ewan McGregor to swan off on his travels, etc. His mum replied with words of encouragement, telling him to “Look after those you love, but live your life.” And since then, he’s been taking that mantra very seriously.
He says that moment changed his life and inspired him to book his DAS. Once he’d passed his test, he picked up his GSX-R600 and rode to the hospice his mum was staying in to tell her the great news. From then she made him promise he’d take his trip around the world. Sadly, not long after she lost her battle, but TeaPot kept his promise and began his incredible journey.
THE JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD
It took a whopping three years to plan and prepare for the journey. A link to his Youtube series of his trip can be found here.
On 1st October 2012 he finally set off on his Suzuki GSX-R1000. A journey that took him 18 months and 100,000 miles to travel through over 80 countries.
His journey did have some problems however, while driving through the Sahara Desert in Mauritania he suddenly dropped three feet off the side of a tarmac road, travelling at 90mph. He did luckily land upright, but his subframe snapped and needed some repair work. Several breaks and subframes later he finally got a heavy-duty one made from aluminium to suit his journey.
FUTURE PLANS
Bruce’s plans for the future include making more quality content, staying on two wheels in any weather and taking a few trips abroad with his brainchild ‘Chicken strips’ European motorcycle tours.
TEAPOTONE VISITS WANCHOR
The video can be found here.
So, Bruce came to visit us and had a little look around our offices and our shop floor. He got to see the wonderful world of garage security and tested out a few of our products. He had a look over our garage and shed security barriers before finally getting his hands on the WAnchor ground anchor.
“The WAnchor (Apex Pro) ground anchor, this is why I’m here”. We let Bruce loose in our shop floor with a battery-operated grinder and a mains powered one too. While using the battery powered one, Bruce said of our WAnchor “it’s a tough bugger”.
For those who don’t know, our WAnchor is a high security ground anchor that is diamond rated through Sold Secure.
“A diamond rating means a five-minute grinder attack and a five-minute wrecking bar attack. It’s the highest test that Sold Secure offer, for any kind of product.”
Our in-house testing does pass the Sold Secure testing though, by quite some difference. Bruce had a whack at the WAnchor and had a solid 6 minutes of grinding time with no luck at breaking through.
ATTACK TESTING THE WANCHOR
Next, we attacked the WAnchor with a wrecking bar and couldn’t get it to bust. In fact, after 6 minutes and 15 seconds, and two wrecking bars, the concrete lifted. The WAnchor stayed intact, however.
“We attack our products in the same way a thief would. We try and think like thieves.”
After attacking the WAnchor, we got back to chatting with Bruce about what else we have coming up in future. “We’ve got a lot of products in development as well. We’re constantly innovating and trying to challenge what the norm is within security.”
To finish, Bruce stressed that all important mantra of ours of layering your motorbike security products.
“There’s not really one specific single item which is going to be 100% fool proof… it’s all about layering.”
We’d like to say a big thank you to Bruce for coming down, we had a wicked time and love all the support. If you’re not already a fan of his, get onto his Youtube and have a listen to his podcast. He’s producing loads of quality content and we love to support a fellow biker with such a brilliant message.
Big up TeaPotOne!