History

Bob Heath was born in Walsall England in 1948.

His very first motorcycle was a Honda CB72 which he purchased whilst working as motorcycle mechanic for Bob Joyner & son Motorcycles in Birmingham.

He began his racing career on his privately owned BSA 654cc Lightening clubman and went on to work on the  assembly lines at  the BSA factory in Small Heath Birmingham. His success on his privateer BSA didn’t go un-noticed at BSA and a BSA factory ride was offered to him in 1969. With the factory BSA ride also came the offer to work for BSA in the competition shop where he would help prepare the BSA works race bikes until 1972 when the factory closed.

Bob had many successes with the BSA factory race team including a third place finish at the Isle of Man TT races in 1971 on a BSA Rocket 3 in the 750cc production race.

During his time at the BSA competition shop the agent for BELL Helmets gave all the BSA team members a  free open face Bell Helmet to use. This was at the beginning of the modern day helmet revolution/evolution in the UK.

When Bell later introduced their first full face helmet the BELL STAR 1 Bob started to produce his own replacement visors as he found genuine replacementparts difficult to obtain.

He began to get enquiries within the race paddock from his fellow riders for his replacement visors and decided to produce visors to sell to help with his own racing expenses.

Working from the small lock up garage at the flat where he lived in Perry Barr Birmingham a production line developed as demand for his high quality visors grew.

In 1973 it became a legal requirement to wear a Government approved safety helmet whilst riding a motorcycle in the UK (The Motor Cycle Crash Helmet Act). At this time more and more new Helmet brands came to the market - brands such as AGV, Belstaff,  Boeri, Centurion, Everoak, Griffin, Kangol, King, Shoei and Stadium were manufacturing helmets to meet the new regulations.

Bob quickly expanded his range of replacement visors to include these brands thus becoming the number one specialist replacement visor company in the UK.