One of the biggest motorcycle content creators on YouTube has revealed he spent years out of the saddle to appease the woman who went on to become his wife.
Andy Randle, better known by the online persona TheMissendenFlyer, has amassed more than 280,000 subscribers since he started documenting his two-wheeled adventures. But many didn’t realise he’d have been riding a lot sooner had it not been for his long-term partner Carol.
‘Mrs Flyer’ put her foot down on him getting a bike not long after she’d met the former freelance project manager. As a result, he pressed a much longer than anticipated pause on his passion; although that wait eventually came to an unexpected conclusion.
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“I had a girlfriend who banned me from riding bikes; she said ‘it’s me or the bikes’,” he joked on motorcycle podcast Full Chat.
“I was in love so I said ‘ok then’. Then I married her, what an error! I got to 30 and I said: ‘I’m 30 now, I’m going to get myself a motorcycle’ and she was like ‘it’s bikes or me’. I was only 10 years in so I thought ‘ok then, you can stick around’. Move on another 10 years and I said: “I’m 40 now, a proper grown up, I’m going to get a motorcycle.’ She said: ‘It’s me or a bike’ and I said ‘well you’re off then’.
“She’s still with me, 17 years later, and she now rides bikes herself. What’s that all about?”
Mr Flyer is currently recovering from a shoulder operation and plans to return to uploading videos in the spring. He started publishing on YouTube in 2008, began making motorbike content seriously in 2014 and made it his full-time job in 2017.
“I pinch myself about how lucky or fortunate I’ve been,” the resident of Great Missenden in Buckhamshire added during the episode.
“This whole YouTube thing was a hobby that came good. I was a lover of motorbikes, and anything that moves under its own steam really, I was also a keen photographer. Come about 2008 I think, these things called GoPros came out and I thought I was doing activities that I’d like to film for my mum and dad and friends to see, and there’s this thing that’s been around for a couple of years called YouTube – maybe I’ll get one of these cameras and learn how to do video editing because I was a bit of a computer nerd.
“I was a bit of a show-off generally, I was kind of a failed radio presenter, so it all came together and I thought this was exactly for me. It seemed very easy to me because all of the elements you needed to do for YouTube I was doing for fun anyway. I uploaded a few skiing and flying videos and then I did a bike one and loads of people started commenting so I thought I’ll ditch the skiing and flying and just do the biking.”
- Full Chat is powered by Bikesure, the UK’s largest motorcycle insurance broker
