PERHAPS you should grow out of your teenage passions, but after all these years I still love loud guitar bands and motorbike racing.

For me it started with Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin and the gravel track skills of Peter Collins, Chris Morton and Ivan Mauger – the Aces of Belle Vue from the Hyde Road Stadium.

A musical highlight of growing up was the emergence of the clumsily nicknamed NWOBHM – the so-called new wave of British heavy metal that spawned the likes of Iron Maiden, Diamond Head and the seemingly bikes-obsessed Saxon.

After a weekend spent lolling on the settee in front of a superb double-header of MotoGP from Assen on Saturday and then World Superbikes from Imola on Sunday, I believe that we may be witnessing the NWOBSBH.

This of course is the New Wave of British Superbike Heroes – a phrase I expect to settle into common usage with the same ease of its musical forerunner in the early 1980s.

The evidence was there on show from both the Netherlands and Italy as Britain’s young guns made it obvious they are there ready to mix it with the Spanish and Italian superstars.

At Assen Coventry’s Cal Crutchlow became the first British pole sitter since 2002 and served up his third podium of the season in MotoGP.

A little further down the field is Bradley Smith, who is finding his feet and could be set to emerge in the next couple of seasons, while in Moto2 Gloucester’s Scott Redding is setting the pace and leading this season’s championship by 30 points and, hopefully on his way up the ladder, is Fenay Bridge’s Kyle Smith.

Switching to Imola and sitting on top of the world listings after two wins – the first for Kawasaki at the Italian track and the first win at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari circuit by a Briton since Harold Lines on an Ariel in 1949 – is Huddersfield’s Tom Sykes.

However, the man with the winning grin has a great supporting British cast in World Superbikes as also in the top ten are Welshman Chaz Davies, Northern Ireland’s Jonathan Rea and Kent’s Leon Camier.

And currently riding high at the top of the World Supersport championship is Lincoln’s Simon Lowes.

Now I don’t want to denigrate the achievements of those who have gone before, but surely this has got to be the best showing by British riders on the world stage?

No one can remove the memories of the likes of Barry Sheene, local legend Mick Grant and Ron Haslam fighting it out in ITV World of Sport’s Superbike series.

And they were followed by stars of the nineties and noughties in the likes of Blackburn’s Carl Fogarty, Burnley’s Neil Hodgson, South Yorkshire’s James Toseland, Amersham’s James Haydon and, all too fleetingly, local hero James Whitham.

But I hope that those of you who have managed to stay with me to the chequered flag of this particularly self-indulgent rant, will all agree that British bike fans – to half-inch a cliche – ‘have never had it so good!’