Riding Life
During Reg Eyre’s earlier riding life he clocked up many miles on green lanes – but maybe not so many in recent years. Recent events presented an unusual opportunity for him to try his hand at old skills…
Many years ago, we moved away from the London area and began our life in Gloucestershire. Here I learned about and rode on green lanes. My first ventures out were on machines I owned at the time such, as an Ariel WD machine. This 1942 W/NG 350 was fairly heavy but the seat was low, so that too much sliding about could be corrected by sticking out one or both legs. The local VMCC Cotswold section included sections of green lanes to be ridden in their road trials and I began to discover new places to ride.
After a while, I got the urge to ride more suitable machines, so a 1950 Ariel 500 VH was acquired with more suitable tyres. This proved to be a mistake since the machine was too heavy and over-powered for use on slippery surfaces. It was difficult to restart if and when it could be picked up after dropping it. Perhaps a more suitable machine would be a 250cc two-stroke? So a Rotax-powered CCM joined the fleet. This proved useful when offroad but it had a habit of shaking the rubbermounted carburettor off its manifold. This was partially solved by making a carburettor steady attached to the frame.
The two-stroke Rotax was then exchanged for an MT500 ex-wd machine, which was fitted with the 500 ohc Rotax four-stroke engine. This was much taller but the footrest positioning and suspension travel were such that I could easily stand up on the footrests. From there I could admire the manner in which the whole machine would bounce around while I floated above all the movement.
The only time it caught me out was when I descended into a mud hole near Cirencester and the motor just stopped when we were in the middle of deep mud. I tried to kickstart the MT several times, but it gave no indication of wanting to fire up. After a bit of helmet scratching, I decided to check the fuel in the tank, which was very low. I then lowered the bike onto its side so that fuel could spill over to the fuel tap side of the tank, whereupon it started and I quickly made for the first petrol station in town.
A local member of the VMCC pestered me to sell the MT to him and he used it in long distance enduro style events to which it appeared to be most suitable. Around then, Gloucestershire downgraded most of its bridleways to restricted byways for the use of walkers, horse riders and bicycle riders. My ‘parish’ was left with only seven green lanes, which could all be ridden in a morning or afternoon session.
I then saw an advert for a good looking Ariel 500 which had been built for touring with the Ariel Owners MCC. Since I was mainly going to use this for going to meetings, I bought it. Some people reckoned it was an HT model or even a competition machine – I never made any claims for it except to say that it had been built by an enthusiast in
Southampton for long distance touring. It was fun owning a machine that gathered a crowd wherever it was parked. I did replace the foam-covered board seat for a single sprung saddle, but the riding position, for me, was not suitable for long journeys since I was sat upright in the full blast of the wind.
For about ten years, I only rode on green lanes as part of road trials events. That was fine when using old vintage machines, but my veteran, belt-drive 1914 Invicta and 1913 Sunbeam could only be used on these lanes that were mud free and relatively smooth.
Then we moved to Wiltshire, surrounded by many green lanes. In February 2020 I came across an advert for an XT250 Yamaha, three years old and only £3000 so I bought it. Of course, we all know what happened in March 2020 so I only managed 86 road kilometres for the next year for essential journeys. I did take the Serow to a local gravelled car park, and found the fuel injection system
was totally different to the older machines’ carburettors.
This new-fangled, computer controlled system has an immediate action on the rear wheel and can easily cause a slide. By contrast, the W/NG Ariel sends a signal down the throttle wire to the carburettor. The
slide gently rises to send a mist-laden fuel mixture along the induction tract before anything remarkable really happens – hence the rider has more time to control the beast.
I mentioned to Trf-riding neighbours that I now owned a Serow and would be looking for a riding pal once lockdown was lifted. One of them offered me a ride around his paddock. When I got there, we rode around his garden and into the paddock and I rapidly realised that my replacement knee was giving way every time I tried to stand up on the footrests. I explained that it was a long time since I had ridden a modern machine off-road. He demonstrated some of the techniques that he had learned and practised, such as travelling slowly and stepping off the bike on the left and then the right, and walking alongside the bike on a closed throttle. That makes passage through gateways a lot easier than dismounting, putting the bike on its stand, opening the gate, walking back to the bike, restarting it, riding through the gateway, putting the bike back on its stand, closing the gate before progressing after the gate. I was impressed but knew that I would be doing the latter!
We then practised riding around the paddock, including riding up and down a mound of earth. All was well until I got to the top on one occasion, pulled in the clutch and fell off as the bike reversed down the slope. I felt a real fool! Because I did not have both wheels on the top of the mound and was still on the slope, the action of pulling in the clutch caused the bike to roll backwards down the slope. Lesson learned – make sure both wheels are on the level before stopping!
Am I kidding myself about trail riding again? I realise that I have much to re-learn about machine control, but I think that riding off-road gives the rider more options while riding on the road. So the Serow stays while I re-learn what I thought I had not forgotten…