About Matt's Cool Cats

Who We Are

Matt's Cool Cats is a motorcycle touring group based in the UK, founded by a handful of mates who shared one simple belief: that the best way to see a place is from the saddle of a bike, with good company beside you. What started a decade ago as a loosely organised weekend blast through the Peak District has grown into something none of us really planned — a proper touring family, with ten years of roads ridden, borders crossed, breakdowns survived, and memories made that we'd struggle to replicate any other way.

The group takes its name from our founder Matt, whose enthusiasm for two wheels is matched only by his enthusiasm for a post-ride pint and an unnecessarily detailed debrief of every corner he took that day. Matt's vision was always to keep things informal but well-organised — no club membership cards, no strict rules, just a group of people who love motorcycles and love exploring. That ethos has stuck, even as the group has grown.

Today we're a mixed bunch. Some of us ride big adventure tourers loaded with luggage and GPS units; others prefer the simplicity of a naked bike and a tank bag. We've got riders in their twenties and riders who've been at it since before some of us were born. What unites us isn't the type of bike or the brand on the tank — it's the attitude. Turn up on time, look out for each other on the road, and always stop if someone pulls over.

How We Ride

We typically run two to three organised trips a year. A spring warm-up, usually somewhere in the UK — Scotland, Wales, or the Lake District tend to feature heavily — followed by a longer European tour in the summer. Over the years we've ridden through France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and the Austrian Alps, and we've barely scratched the surface of what's out there. We've crossed on ferries at midnight, navigated mountain passes in low cloud, got hopelessly lost in rural Brittany, and found restaurants so good we've gone back the following year specifically to eat there again.

Our trips are planned properly. Routes are researched and shared in advance, accommodation is booked as a group, and we use Tripsdock to manage registrations, payments, and all the logistics that used to live in a spreadsheet that only Matt could understand. We ride in smaller sub-groups on the road — typically four to six bikes — so no one gets left behind and the pace stays sensible. We're not a fast group and we're not trying to be. We ride to see things, not to cover distance for its own sake.

We do operate a minimum participant policy on European trips to make the group booking economics work, and we're always upfront about that. If a trip doesn't reach the minimum, it doesn't go — simple as that, and we'd rather cancel early than have people lose money. It hasn't happened often.

The Last Ten Years

Ten years is a long time to be doing anything together, and looking back at the trip history on this site is a strange and wonderful thing. There are photos from the very first European run — a week in Normandy that was plagued by rain and a ferry delay that cost us half a day — and photos from last year's Pyrenees trip where the weather was perfect for six days straight and everyone agreed it was the best riding any of us had ever done.

We've had the full range of experiences. A clutch cable snapped in the middle of rural Spain — we nursed the bike to the next town and somehow found a mechanic who had the part. One rider dropped their bike on a gravel car park within twenty minutes of leaving the ferry terminal (they shall remain nameless, but they know who they are). We've had wrong turns that accidentally led somewhere brilliant, and planned routes that turned out to be mostly motorway and were quietly abandoned by lunchtime.

We've also lost a couple of members over the years — life gets in the way, people move, circumstances change — and gained new ones through friends of friends, chance encounters at bike nights, and a few people who found us through this website and were brave enough to come on a trip with a bunch of strangers. Most of those people are still with us. That's something we're proud of.

Joining Us

We're not a closed group, but we're not recruiting either. If you're interested in joining a trip, the best starting point is registering your interest on any of the current open trips — that puts you on our radar and gives us a chance to have a chat before committing to anything. We ask that you've got reasonable touring experience, that your bike is mechanically sound and properly insured for European travel, and that you're happy riding with a group that prioritises enjoyment over pace.

We don't do exclusivity or snobbery about bikes. We've had riders on everything from a Royal Enfield Himalayan to a BMW K1600GT, and both were equally welcome. What matters is that you're a considerate rider and decent company at dinner.

If you've got questions that aren't answered in our FAQ, there's a Contact Organiser option on each trip page — though we'd ask you to check the FAQ first, because Matt gets a lot of emails and his typing speed is, charitably, a work in progress.

Finally

Ten years ago, a group of mates went for a ride. They got a bit lost, found a good pub, argued about the best route home, and decided to do it again. That's still more or less what we are. We've just got better at the logistics.

If any of that sounds like your kind of riding, we'd love to have you along.

Matt's Cool Cats — riding since 2015.