First love..... a red Fastback.

The Red Fastback


Some women never leave you, and nor do some bikes. The memories that come flooding back when I look at a Norton Commando, are real powerful........ so much that they sometimes shock me.

I saw a Red 750cc Norton Commando Fastback parked up the other day, and I was in a right old nostalgic state...... couldn't leave it, and kept walking back to it. A bright red Fastback .... she was one of my young life’s “Firsts”.

I wanted to take it home sooooo much. Wanted to feel her under me again, wanted to touch her, feel her throbbing between my legs, like only a Norton Commando can. Wanted to run my hands over her polished alloy timing chest… trace the word ‘Norton’ so beautifully cast into the alloy, like I used to do when I was polishing my old Fastback.

I wanted to get on her again, and feel that precious moment again, when I bought mine from Bridge Garage, in Exeter. It too was a red Fastback. A beautiful, gleaming red Fastback, and I fell for her the first time I saw her, crammed amongst all the other second-hand bikes in their showroom;… all looking like abandoned and forgotten souls wanting to be loved again.

I bought her without a second thought.

I was barely twenty, been riding like living was going out of fashion since sixteen, but was still pretty raw to ride a bike like her as she was the biggest, most powerful bike I’d ever ridden.

I rode her away from Bridge Garage, up onto the busy flyover roundabout, stopped her and just sat there tight to the curb with the traffic going by. Her engine was patiently ticking over, heaving and shuddering on the rubber mountings in that lovely Commando "rubbery" way, and it was a moment I’ve never forgotten. She was quietly waiting for me to do what I wanted to her, anyhow, anywhere, any time, any place. Quietly twittering away in that uniquely way those Commandos did through her kicked-up twin peashooter silencers, and seeming to say;

"I’m ready when you are, sonny boy, take your time".

She was so latently mighty, so brutal, and I felt afraid of her but somehow not at the same time. I can remember saying to myself... "What have I bought? What have I done?"... I’d just exchanged a nearly new Bonnie, [650cc Triumph Bonneville], for her, but compared to the Bonnie this thing felt like I'd moved up into the Big Boys league ......... Like , REALLY moved in with them, and I wondered if I was up to it right that moment. I was a nutter and I was good, bloody good, but was I good enough for this? Sitting there on that flyover, I wasn't so sure.

She felt like such a handful She was so tall, splayed my legs so wide, was heavy, solid and just exuded pure badness, the likes of which I'd never felt under me before. She made me want to scowl at the world. She was like the sort of girl you wouldn't want your dear old Mum to see you out with. She was going to do some real BAAAAD stuff with me. She knew it, and so did I. She also seemed to know it was my first time in the big league, and that I was sitting there, unsure of myself and not knowing quite what to do with her. I could sense that she just wanted me to let her clutch out again and ride her, and somehow I just knew she’d show me the way.

I can remember how she felt as I thought to myself, “OK, no way to back out of this thing now,” and gingerly eased the clutch lever out. She just grunted as the revs dropped, I felt her trying to stall, but refusing to at the same time. I automatically gave her a touch more throttle and she grunted softly dug deep and unexpectedly lunged forward. I snatched the clutch in again and slipped it a bit longer the next time.

I rode her through the heavy and slow Exeter traffic, and it was a very steep learning curve. Lots of lunging forward every time I let that clutch right in and a good bit untidy until I got the measure of her gearing. She was so high geared compared to the Bonnie, that you just had to slip the clutch all the time and daren't let your hand off it once it was really in. She would run away with you if you didn’t snatch that clutch in quickly enough when the traffic slowed. She'd run you into the back of the car in front, all too easily. As soon as the clutch bit, she just surged forward grumpily with hardly any revs on. She was saying "If you think THIS is trouble, wait until you really let me loose", just like the Bad Girl she was. I couldn’t wait to get out of town and get some room around us.

Finally, we got out onto the lovely open roads, and in a few miles I was giving her all the beef she could feed on and trying for all I was worth not to wind up throwing her down the road. Sure, I was overcooking it all over the place and had some real near misses, but I just didn't care, in the way you don’t when you’re so young and invincible. I was laughing at her way of being so fast without trying at all.

I remember that the most clearly of all; feeling so damn happy and laughing aloud so much as I rode her non-stop all that hot and glorious sunny afternoon.

This was different from the Bonnie. That was fast for it's day, but this girl was REALLY fast, mean as hell and took no prisoners. This was what I'd always wanted for as long as I could remember. I'd always thought it would be somthing like this in all the hours I'd spent as a kid sitting on Dad's old 1952 BSA B31, wearing his leather flying helmet and goggles and dreaming of riding like a God. Now here I was, doing it for real on a top-end bike. She was a Superbike of her day, and I knew nothing was going to be the same again. One of those moments in life, and as sweet, timeless and memorable as making love to a girl for the first time; when everything changes, and an innocence is lost forever.

It was such a perfect time, that first ride on her back and I think it was the first time I ever felt a bike really looking after me. No matter what I did wrong, she seemed to just show me how to get out of it. Like an experienced woman making love to a young boy, she gently showed me the way to please her, and the more I pleased her the better it got. She'd been around the block a few times, and there was a soft power in the way she handled under me. I loved her from those first few miles, and I never, ever, stopped loving her. She made me feel just so proud to be on her back and I rode her all the rest of that day and deep into the dusky moonlit darkness. I just couldn't stop. I laughed a lot that afternoon and I never felt prouder when I finally parked her up, so tired and so happy that I'd found something so very special.

When I went to bed that night, everything felt like it had changed. I was different from who I was when I'd woken that morning. I was finally the Greaser I always wanted to be. Head to toe in creaking black leather, a white silk scarf made from genuine coffin liner and walking so tall. No one was going to mess with me now, I thought, and y'know, no one has ever since.

Anytime I want to, I can conjure up that first hesitant moment when I had paused in wonder, sitting quietly on the flyover there on the cusp of something so new. Listening to her ticking over patiently, blipping the throttle and feeling the huge shudder under me from that lovely big-twin motor spinning itself up.

Seeing that pretty Red Fastback the other day, took my breath away and threw the passing years  aside. Like turning a corner, suddenly seeing a first love again and feeling the trembling, breathless surprise of her,.... and it being the first time you saw her all over again.

© Kevin Udy 23/03/05

Laughing in the rain

My buddy, No Problem Pete called around with his little 400 sporty Honda yesterday. I forget the model, but kinda like a CBR 400, an early R45. A Jap import. Cute little bike, 1985, a bargain buy on eBay.

“Take it for a spin”, he said, so I did. Couldn’t go far, as the alternator wasn’t charging the battery, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to run her up the blacktop and back. Haven’t been out on the bike in a few weeks, for various reasons, not one of them being all that good, but there you are. No matter. Got my lid and gloves and off I went in just my workshop overalls under the black rain clouds and soaking wet roads for a quick blast on this cute little number of a bike.


No, not this one, but one very like it.........



You fit in this little bike, as all good bikes, like you were born as a part of it, like you always were a part of it, like you’ve known it for years and not just been introduced. Everything fits, she feels good under you. Feels like she approves of you right off, and you feel just the same. It’s an instant thing. Like women, some bikes are introduced to you, unexpectedly met or whatever, and there is a polite time when you are more than aware you are strangers, but some, oh boy, some feel like they were always around, like you knew them before. Familiar. Comfortable.

Doesn’t happen all that often, but, bike or chick, when it happens it feels real good. Real special, and you know it’s going to be good from the get go. It’s a bang, crash, wallop love thing, and you can’t wait to get together. Wanna forget all the getting–to-know-you protocols, and get stuck right in.

Know what I mean?

If you don’t, I sure hope you get to knowing before you grow old and die, because you can live years out in a few seconds when you gel like magic. I’ve had moments in life when I’d sacrifice all that was to come for another second of it.

This bike felt like that good. We went off, me and this little gem of a bike. She was old by today’s standards, but even so she felt so damn good. Revved clear to the red line at fourteen thousand without a hesitation and would go past it eagerly given half a chance. So light, so small, so agile. Wet roads, old tyres, but she was as eager to please me as could be.

Hungry for me. I felt suddenly alive within yards, and the years dropped away, like they always do when I go down the road on a good bike. Hell, it happens on any bike really, but on something so cute and special, it really kicks in and the world beyond the bike and the road just vanishes. Like magic I’m not fifty-bloody-seven any more. I’m a young greaser on a motorcycle and once again free of the years that age us. The willing engine revved up and I shifted her through the gears in split-second clutchless changes, with barely a slight off and on flick of the throttle.

The old magic returned and I let her run free. She was loving it. What she was created for, what we were born to do together. Slipping off the side of the seat into the bends, wary of the old tyres on the wet road, and hugging the bike up real close, we gambolled together down the road as one in the spray we kicked up behind us. Laughing together at the fun of it all, the world stripped away to the simplicity of the moments flashing by second by second.
The only way I know to be a boy again, at least momentarily, free of all the crap the years have heaped onto my once free and wild spirit.
We hit a huge downpour and I was soaked through in seconds, the rain hurting my naked skin under the thin blue overalls. I was laughing out loud and screwing her open wider, making her wail harder, and she was so alive under me, urging me to whip her harder.

"Harder, big boy, harder, and fuck the rain."

It was real hard to turn her around and go home again.

On her back, I was just a boy on a bike, ....... laughing  in the rain.

Just to say 'Hello'..........

Well, the Harley fetched a good price on eBay and was taken away by a good new owner and his Chick on a trailer up to Yorkshire...... same area the Fantic went the week before. Sad to see her go, looking very vulnerable and alone perched on the trailer going down the roads. I hate selling my mo'sickles, and watching them go always brings a lump to the throat and something in the eye.

Still the bloke that bought her was one of the old brigade, and had bought it as a twenty-first present for his son. Lucky, lucky boy! Hope he deserves it.

The day the H-D went, I fired up Hoover, my 1200 Suzuki Bandit, and the little bitch was running on three cylinders again. It's a long story, but I've been plagued bu a mysterious misfire for way longer than I care to admit. It's turned out to be duff NGK Iridium plugs....... the best money can buy, and take it from me, you wouldn't believe the weird symptoms they've given. It's had me tearing my hair out...... well, if I had any I would've anyway.

She was missing on number three, so I took the plug out..... one of four brand new Iridium NGK's which had cured the misfire, and shoved in an old plug that was ok.

Misfire cured.

Quite unbelievable.

I've put in a new set of standard NGK plugs, and so the old warrior is running fine now. I resent the eighty quid I've spent on two sets of faulty Iridium plugs though. It's a lesson I've learnt before........ NEVER take it for granted that plugs are ok, especially just because they're new.

I dragged the 1976 850T3 Moto Guzzi (Italian bike) out and am going to breathe some life in the old girl........ She's been off the road for eight years now, so I'll let you know how it goes.

I'll try and not leave it so long........ I keep breaking the promises to write to my poor old neglected blog here, don't I?

As always....... more effort required. {:oI

Bye for now.........

The beauty of machines long gone,...... and the bikes we first loved.

I was browsing and came across this lot on YouTube..... Marble and Ball Bearing Machines. I love these things.... real clever stuff.

This guy makes them very well........ look at his YouTube 'channel' list of vids (on the right side)

http://www.youtube.com/user/denha#p/u/7/K5MVNnVbWa8

Brilliant!!! balls land right in the exact spot every time. Shows a different return mechanism halfway through. Amazing stuff!!! {:o)
http://www.youtube.com/user/denha#p/u/29/6FLB-FcX0CY

Soooooo neatly made.....
http://www.youtube.com/user/denha#p/u/49/p6R7R33dE84

Real neat elastic band gun..... shows how it's mechanism works, about halfway through.
http://www.youtube.com/user/denha#p/u/26/nkqesLSXe4Q

Those of you who like to fix and 'make' things will especially be able to see the craftsmanship, difficulty and cleverness in making these things. Must be sooooo many prototypes made and much experimentation to get it just right. I'd love to know how he bends the wire so beautifully. No scrapes, no burrs, no kinks.

When I've got my shit together, (should I ever do so), I'm gonna make pointless things like this......just to sit there and watch and listen to it all working away.

Machinery of any kind working away is a pleasure to watch, or rather, these days, machinery that you CAN watch working...... everything now is hidden away from sight, and what machines there are available with a few visibly working parts are pretty ugly.

No brass, copper, and polished steel and alloy gleaming away any more. No oil and fuel minutely weeping from compression joints and housings and flanges. No hot metals gently marinating in the machine's juices seeping out here and there, spread with an oily rag as a watching mechanic wipes it away like a mother tending a child in need of her tender care.

No characteristic smells of those old machines. I cut my teeth, like all us Old Greasers, on old British bikes, and they were all pretty much the same. By the time yoofs like me got our deadly-keen hands on them, they had been through many hands before us, grading ever downwards from experienced hands when they were proud and shiny-new bikes, through those less able, to finally find themselves at the mercy of us youngsters. Keen as mustard, but knowing Sweet Bugger-All.

When we had our first bike, we yoofs of sixteen and younger, were not yet learned in the battle-hardened skills of Old Greasers, so essential to keep these bikes reliable and running as they should. Those poor bikes; the likes of the 175cc BSA Bantams, 250cc BSA C15's, 200cc Tiger Cubs and the like, they gave themselves up to us as cheap and worn out shadows of their new selves. Like old whores long since bereft of any traces of pride, they stood before us tired and jaded, having no choice but to turn tricks for us as we eagerly clutched at them and made clumsy love to them all.

Mine..... she was a 250cc Ariel Golden Arrow Sports, but with a shameful past. She had killed her previous lover.

He was riding it around a field, with no helmet as we all did back then, especially in fields and the like. His father heard the bike go quiet and after a while when it didn't restart he walked over to the field to find to find his son dead. He'd come off it and hit a tree and was lying beside the bike. The bike was undamaged and stayed there leaned against the hedge in shame to die itself, until one day my father took it away for me.

I was fifteen when I first had my eager hands on her and I loved that bike the way you love the first girl you adore. Every bit as much. My every waking moment was filled with thoughts and pure lust for her. I'd wanted her for years. I worked on her and made all my mistakes on her, both in working on her and riding her flat-out everywhere I went.

She taught me well, did that bike, like an older woman would nurture a youth in his clumsy loving of her. She kept me alive no matter how I abused both her and my luck. I rode absolutely flat-out on her everywhere until we both suddenly found ourselves with our luck clean run out one sunny morning. In a split second my life was changed forever. Riding back alone from Damar Bay to Wadebridge, in Cornwall where I lived, we suddenly found ourselves at the wrong place at the wrong time ......... and her second young lover was very nearly killed.

I was hit head-on by a green Mini Van which was overtaking on a blind corner. We were both doing around 60 to 70mph, and so it was a closing speed and an impact of around 120 to 140mph. I never even saw the colour of the car. I was smashed to bits, and made it to the hospital, so the surgeon told my poor Mother, with less than fifteen minutes to spare, and that it was a job to keep me alive.

My beloved Ariel Arrow died that day. Twisted and broken, no one ever rode her again. Never.

It wasn't her fault. Neither was it her fault when her other lover died. He made the mistake, not her. I didn't make a mistake, it was just fate choosing us to hang on the scales of chance with Death in the other pan.

Bikes, they never make the mistakes, they just struggle to keep us all alive and get us home again, despite our wildness and mistakes. So many since that old Ariel Arrow have looked after me and kept me safe, and I've loved every single one of them in return. Hoover most of them all.

God, ............that lot was upsetting to write. Always is. Some things never leave you, do they? God, I was so young. But for nothing, not the slimmest measurable thing, was I nearly dead at sixteen.

Then I did it all again at eighteen. Never once did I not want to ride again as soon as I could get a half-healed leg over a bike. Bikes and women...... you can't keep me from climbing back on before even the dust has settled. What else is there in life? Nothing. Good luck to you if you think there is.

Where was I, before I rolled along that old overgrown and rarely visited track?

Yes, ...... the beauty of machines and the way those old first bikes let us practise on them so we could learn to take care of later loves better. Ride them way better too. We learnt real fast. We were all so young and wild back in those days, and there was no choice but to learn the lessons quickly, those of us lucky enough to survive out on the roads to ride again the next day. Yup, that's pretty much no exaggeration, not for the wildest of us anyway. There was a saying, not unique to us I guess, but very apt nonetheless......

"There are only two kinds of Greaser; .......the Quick and the Dead".

I was Quick. (And, yes, a good bit lucky too)

K.xxx {:o)

The wonder of British Plod.........and the IOM Plod's money-crop on Mad Sunday. :o)

Hi Y’all,
Thursday, and another day of my weeks holiday grinds into life, and with some hope of it being a sunny day too. Here I am, reporting in at the writing station, and I must say it’s getting to be the first thing I want to do of a morning………. to write. that bodes well for November's Nanowrimo. :o)

Mostly it’s emails, mostly to prospective New Chicks. Spurred into productivity, I admit, by my having hit a rich and glinting seam over the last couple of months, it’s golden reflections illuminating the digging and hacking away in the candlelit gloom of Kevin’s Mine of Hope and Comfort Sometimes too, I’ve recently been hitting the blog with some thoughts, random and rambling though they may usually be. Occasionally I’ve written stuff no one will ever read. That’ll be the real Wild Stuff then. The stuff no one would most likely understand. The stuff Plod would love to read.

‘Plod’, being a quaint and old-fashioned term for out great police force, and I actually mean that. The last police force in the world you can tell to fuck off, and not get shot for the indiscretion.

Mind you, it’s been a long time since I expressed such an imaginative course of action for our enforcement officers, the last time being way back in ’98 for leaving a thirty-limit on the Isle of Man, at double the limit I must admit, but, in my feeble defence, just before being outside the limit. They had, quite accidentally I’m sure, set the speed trap up thirty feet inside the limit and with the Goforit, or Golf Lima Foxtrot de-restriction black-stripe-on-white plainly in sight. I was quite upset at what I saw as an unfair and dastardly reaping of a abundant crop, there being some 35,000 of we bikers over there for the TT races, and a fair percentage of us being Adrenaline Freaks on a rush of speed.

(Golf Lima Foxtrot??…… There was hell-up amongst the Politically Correct weenies (small ‘w’) a few years ago, when it was disclosed that it was a common police radio instruction amongst traffic cops when chasing speeders…….. and it stands for, if you haven’t worked it out, Go Like Fuck.)

Let me point out that the spot they picked, quite accidentally I now realise after the calming of the years, was at the bottom of a downhill left-handed sweep and in deep and high hedges in the countryside. The last of the village buildings had been passed, and it was "Whoopy-doo" time with the scent of the speed-unlimited roads opening up again.

On the Isle of Man, there are no speed limits outside of the villages and towns. Let me tell you, it is an Adrenalin Freak’s Paradise.

They pulled me over, and, being a man with a strong sense of what is Just and Fair, I was a bit upset at their apparent cunning. Actually, ..........I was fucking livid, and then some. I suggested, quite graphically, that they might explore the pleasures of inserting the hair dryer up their ass (hand-held speed gun), and that they’d missed their vocation by not seeking employment with the IOM Tourist Board. Throwing the skid-lid across the road (I kid you not. I was bleddy mad as hell), I doubted the authenticity of their parentage, and offered to wipe my bottom with the speeding ticket.

Why was I so upset about such a thing? Well, see, there were a few reasons. Being whacked out on antidepressants that weren’t working, being over there with no chick, and it having been the wettest TT in living memory all added up to my being mentally right down on the floor. It was also the third time I’d been so sneakily ‘had over’ by the cunning IOM Plod in the last three visits to the Island of Speed, and on every occasion it had cost in excess of £160 in fines. That’s each time, so we’re talking about £500 in total (each being in excess of £160), and I do freely admit I was in considerable excess of the limit, before you point it out. :o)

You see, not unsurprisingly I guess these days, they set these traps up all over the place, and one copper over there told me that on Mad Sunday they gather something like 200 of we poor unsuspecting, safety-conscious, Speed Freaks an hour over the whole island. When you go to pay the fine, you just pay the fine, no licence, insurance, or proof of identity is asked for………. Just pay here, (sir), and sign here, (sir), and thank you for your cooperation in the matter, (sir). :o)


And, whaddya mean you’ve never heard of Mad Sunday??? Where y’all been all your lives??? :o)

Briefly, Mad Sunday is a long-standing tradition of mayhem and an open day for we nutters. It’s one mental day, where the mountain Course of the Isle of Man TT circuit of public roads used for the racing are opened up to one way traffic, and so becoming a race-track as it is on race days. Then let loose to all who dare to ‘ride the mountain’ on Mad Sunday. Many don’t dare, and with good reason. Safety is not a word that goes with the day. It’s the single reason I go over there, and quite secondary to watching the fantastic racing, which makes mainstream track races look like a kindergarten tea party.


Have a look…….. have a taste…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRmNZlEXjQ0

Anyway………. the bottom line is, that our police force really is the best in the world. Mad and wild as I was, those two coppers just politely pointed out that maybe I might consider the pleasures of being arrested if I didn’t calm myself (sir). They just completed the paperwork, explaining that should I use it for the purpose I’d suggested, that more paper would not be provided to complete such an undertaking.

No gun was involved at any point, no handcuffs deemed as necessary, and no sudden appearance of any overwhelming ‘backup’ either.

Then they watched, as I cleared the thirty-limit sign a few yards away, and nailed the bike to 140 down the road away from them.

God bless them all. :o)

K.x :o)

Serving time......... and learning to walk first

Sunday, and the sun is shining. The day stretches before me, and what will I do with it? Something good…….. something useful, or will I ‘waste’ it like I seem to do so many these days. I dunno. Maybe I’ll take the Harley for a gallop. (I use the word ‘gallop’ very loosely……… in much the same way you would with a tractor.) :o)

Too nice a day not to I guess, but the trouble is I just don’t have the inspiration to point it anywhere in particular these days. A woman would help, one who likes to ride pillion on these machines. I’ve known four who loved it……….. two for years, and two for a shorter time, but it made all the difference. Doing things on your own all the time sure leaves the paint of life looking faded and dull.

Still no sign of Lomax. I dreamt he came back last night. I was in the lounge (in the dream), and he came out of one of the polythene shopping bags he used to play with as a kitten, and that still lie on the floor. He was thin, bedraggled, could hardly stand, and was beside himself to see me. It felt so good to have him rubbing up against me, butting heads, feel his warm little body on my chest, and hear his purr. I knew it was a dream as I was dreaming it, and tried to keep with it, but woke before I wanted to. I woke up pretty upset

God, I miss that little chap. He was quite something, and really got under my skin. I guess it’s the result of living alone, having very, very few friends to do things with, and especially no woman.

One minute women were no problem, the next it’s all over, and I’m reduced to loving a little pussy cat. How’d that ever happen without me noticing the shift?

Some hard biker, eh?

Some Sad Old Greaser, more like.

One thing’s for sure-certain……….. no woman’s going to want to rub up against me, unless I get my Shit Together a good bit better than this. Mind you, at fifty-four-and-a-bleddy-half they don’t want to know, Shit Together or not. It’s real hard to get my head around the fact that the party’s over. Sooner I do that, the better, but I guess it takes a while to make the transitions through the stages of your life. Hell, I never made the jump to ‘adult’, let alone ‘old’. Maybe that’s the whole problem. The friends my age all seem to be just fine with gracefully accepting the counsel of the years, ………..but not me, ……….oh no, ……….I gotta do it the hard way.

Always have, and always will. (Sigh)

I took the Harley into town to feed my magazine habit, and then followed a couple of newby bikers on sports bikes out of town. God it’s frightening to see them trying to run before they can walk, it really is. Even more so, because there are soooooo many of them. For pity’s sake, pass your test, and don’t buy something that’s always going to be trying to get away from you. Get a modestly performing bike, and when you can throw that about and are bored with it’s limitations, then get something a bit hotter, and work your way up. That way you won’t always be way ’behind’ a bike that’s always getting away from you, and leading you into situations you can’t handle. Being afraid of what you’re riding, for more than a short time, is a real bad thing. You’ll also do it more like the rest of us did in the old days. Oh yes we did………. Most of us were young and broke, and anyway, the quickest and fastest (There is a difference!) thing you could get back then was like a bicycle compared to what is so easily available nowadays.

Why does no-one want to serve any apprenticeship in anything these days???? The trouble with bikes, running before you can walk is a killer. Worse still, wifey/ partner/ girlfriend/ whoever, so often believes all the bullshit from her big brave man, gets matching leathers and helmet, and faithfully climbs on the back. Oh dear.

Gives me a nice ass to look at whilst I’m lining up for the optimally demoralising overtaking manoeuvre though. Sometimes, though, she looks so good I’m happy to plod along behind for a good few miles. Sometimes it’s kinda restful and therapeutic to ease up for a bit. :o)

I once advised a couple I met in a big dealership looking at bikes, and just day dreaming. It was mostly wifey actually……. Hubby came along to hear the advice, way too late to steer her away from listening to the Old Greaser, and he was quietly bloody furious. I had started to chat to her, as she was wandering about on her own, and she, on the other hand, was very interested in what someone with thirty-odd years in the saddle had to say. They had big plans to take their two kids around Europe on the back of their brand new two big Triumph Tiger bikes. (Big trail bikes, but tall and ungainly, and plenty fast enough to get you into trouble at the same time) They had passed their tests together two months ago, after some sort of quick access training, and certainly hadn’t been riding long at all. It was obvious hubby had convinced her all would be well.

Yeah, right.

I said, ok, great idea, ………….but definitely not with the kids on the back. Told them they weren’t anything like good enough yet, and there was a fair to even chance they’d live to regret it. They had money, looked very confident and successful, him in particular, and boy did he hate being told he wasn’t good at something, especially from what he obviously regarded as a low-life. Why do men in particular have soooooo much trouble hearing they’re not up to something, especially when it should be bloody obvious???? Their ego has killed a whole lot of them.

I believe in starting at the bottom and working your way upwards in life. Our generation was brought up that way, so it’s no surprise that I look at life that way. Ok, I’m not saying I don’t ever try to run before I can walk, because that’s one of my faults in life……… overreaching myself. BUT, because I was brought up to respect my elders, which goes hand in hand to respecting those who know more than me, whether older or younger, I will take advice, and criticism, and try and learn from it. It’s the fastest way I know of being able to run. I also know there are no short cuts around time too, and sometimes you just have to serve the apprenticeship.

An example………….

I took up scuba diving back in about ’85 or so, did the diving course here in Taunton, and soon got the basic Sport Diver qualification. Right after qualifying as safe to dive, I was encouraged,……… pushed actually, along with Alan, another ‘newby’ diver I used to buddy up with a lot, to go straight on to taking the Dive Leader qualification. It meant you would be qualified to organise, and take responsibility for, a group of qualified divers on a dive of any sort, anywhere,……. beach, boat, wreck or whatever.

I pretty much refused at first, because as far as I was concerned, I had only about a year’s experience, and no way was I good enough for others to put, effectively, their lives in my hands. I did it in the end, but purely to snub a couple of real wankers who only had six months more experience than Alan and I following in the training group behind them. They swaggered around, and bullshitted like they were Jacques Cousteau. Worse, actually…….. I doubt he swaggered and bullshitted around a whole lot. He wouldn’t feel the need to do that, for sure-certain. They always got right up my nose.

Anyway, Alan and I both did the course, and, because I wanted to beat these two twats, for once in my life I really swotted up on it all. I passed the examination with something like 98%.

Blimey!!!!

Waaaaay better than Le Wankeurs, which was the whole point of the exercise. Alan got a slightly lower mark, but easily beat them too……… they had only just scraped through, and were both a good bit quieter afterwards when we were around. Although Alan got a lower mark, he was actually a better diver than me, if only at the very least because he was a whole lot fitter than I ever was.

The purpose of telling you this isn’t to illustrate how brilliant I am, but, by saying that I never used the qualification to lead any dives, nor ‘lorded’ it over anyone else, that I believe in being time-served, and doing the miles so to speak, before walking the walk.

You only look stoopid when you try to walk the walk too early, and you rarely fool those who can.

As my dear old daddy used to say, quite often to me when I was trying to fool him with my youthful I-Know-It-All blab……….

“You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

How true.

K.

On Lomax, Harleys, and simple joys of mo'sickles :o)

Lomax was much more lively when I came home from work this afternoon, than when I left him curled up on his fleece on the bed early this morning. He hasn't left my side for a moment since having his 'little procedure'

He’s been playing here with The Rat, his favourite toy which Suzy made for him for Christmas, from the remnants of the big fake-fur cushion she also made for him. He sinks into it (the cushion), and is a picture of ultimate luxuriant relaxation when he’s sleeping on it. I'd swap places with him in a heartbeat. He really has a great life! :o)

I took the Harley into town to give it a bit of exercise after work.......... well, not exercise worthy of the name, but more a stirring of her bones so she doesn't get all arthritic. :o)

Harleys and winter just don't mix.............. the crappiest finish of any modern bikes. (This is a year 2000 1200 Sportster Sport.......... and, yes, I know it's not a 'real' Harley!)

Quality, my ass!

‘Sport’, my ass too! :o)

It does have a certain hard–to-define 'flavour' though, which is missing from more modern designs, and it’s amazing how content I am to be plodding along on it. Very different to riding the 1200 bandit I’ve also got……….. no way could I ever ride her,(‘Hoover’) anything like as slowly. I guess that's down to the Harley’s old-fashioned long-stroke engine….. it just lopes along with a lazy beat, and in no hurry at all. You just fall into step with it somehow. Bit like the Enfield Bullet I've got (Indian made), which I absolutely love, much to my surprise.

The Harley and the Enfield Bullet, to a less practical extent (As in covering distances at any speed above sixty mph), both have only the sun-in-your-eyes-wind-in-your-hair (Yup, I take the lid off for a few miles sometimes, if plod isn't about!)pleasures going for them. Start to try and make any serious offerings to the God of Speed, and it all comes apart. Literally as well as metaphorically.

They are somehow a purer form of motorcycling. Man and machine, on a more equal footing, where the machinery can be seen, understood, easier to be a part of, and which don’t ever become better than you are.

I guess these bikes take me back to my roots; back when I started out on a long road of riding some thirty-eight years ago now, progressing onto ever more sophisticated bikes as the years passed, which somehow lose their flavour in proportion to their gains in reliability and performance. It's a grossly unfair rule of thumb in life, but the better they get the less charismatic they become, somehow.

It’s a real hard thing to quantify, but in worshiping the God of Speed to the levels of today’s once unheard of heights, the simple pleasure of just simply rolling along an empty road in the sun lose their hold.

Just letting a big engine propel you along at it's natural long-legged gait, to the tune of a simple couple of cylinders banging and throbbing away, as the bike rides itself down familiar roads in the sun; it diminishes the faster you go, until all that's left is a kind of feverish adrenalin rush that leaves you exhausted at the end of the ride. It's addictive, and like any addiction, it's hard to return to the early levels of that addiction. The God of Speed demands a very heavy price, and I have paid dearly in blood, and broken bones, thankfully when I was young enough to heal quickly.

It's all been kinda worth it though, because, boy, have I had some fun along the way on every one of those thirty-eight years. I have loved every bike I ever had, and spent countless hours making them better than they ever were out of the factory, pulling more performance from their big hearts, making their handling far sweeter. bonding with them all, my girls.

You forget the pain, the punishments from the law, the hours fixing the broken machines, and retain the effects of the good times. The thousands of hours in the saddle, and not only in the sun; the bad weather has it's perverse pleasures too, akin to winning a battle against all the odds, and believe me, some trips have been that rough. I've had ice form on my beard, snot freeze solid in it (great innit??) and all over the front of my Belstaffs (Those wax cotton 'waterproofs'), ridden in rain so hard the roads were like a river, and it pounded your arms through the clothes. Freezing fog, deep snow, sleet, the lot. Pure sheet ice is the only thing you can't really ride on. Not for long anyway.

The good times though............. so many of them I long ago lost count.

Deserted roads late on moonlit nights, hurrying back from Cornwall to Somerset, or to the rising sun on a summer morning before anyone is up are priceless. It's the 'alone-on-the-road' thing that have captured the hearts and souls of many before me, and those to follow me too I expect.

The sunny days, riding with a girl I love on the back though, have been the very, very best. Riding to a beach together, and then riding home again sunburned-hot, and just in t-shirts and jeans, with her familiar form pressed against my back, arms wrapped around me, and her smiling face over my shoulder, chasing our shadow skipping along the black-top ahead of us as the sun is setting behind us...........

Nothing beats that. Nothing.

It never did, and it never will.

Early open-cockpit pilots talked of reaching out and touching the face of God.

I kinda know just what they mean.

Do you?

OK, that's it,

Y’all go careful out there. :o)))
K.

P.S.

Note the almost non-existent Chicken Strip on the back tyre........... on a standard Harley!

Have a look at the size of it on most 'brave boys' sports bikes.

(A Chicken-strip is the unscuffed bit on the side of the tyre, because the rider is too chicken to lay the bike over far enough to get rid of it.)

The size of it shows those who can't walk the talk. ;o)

Mind you, the older I get (54-and-bleddy-counting!!!), the harder it is to keep that precious and hard earned 'edge' of many years honing. (sigh)

K.