Once a biker, always a biker... at any age!

A RECENT ‘On This Day’ item about Mods and Rockers brought back happy memories of my early days as a motorcyclist.

From the 1950s onwards, motorcycles and scooters were far cheaper than cars, a modest motorbike to commute on costing around £100 new, while a modest car would have been nearer £400. The difference increased by heavy tax on new cars.

Many people bought a bike merely as cheap and convenient transport, then realised that there is an enjoyment to be had while riding along on two wheels, often described as feeling as free as a bird.

Adding to the pleasure was that there were transport cafes along all main roads catering to lorry drivers and often open 24/7. If a rider saw a motorbike parked at a café he, or occasionally she, would also stop, knowing that another biker was a friend.

Many transport cafes became known as biker meeting places, riders becoming known collectively as coffee bar cowboys. We were never known as public bar cowboys or similar because bikers have always understood the dangers of alcohol and riding. Today the transport cafes have gone, while a few which became well known as biker haunts continue today, notably the Ace Cafe in North London.

Many of the young riders from those days became car drivers on marrying and having a family, only to return to biking when the children grew up. Then they progressed from being the despised coffee bar cowboys, or Rockers, to being equally despised Born Again Bikers, as we became known around the mid-80s.

We were thought to be the cause of accidents because we couldn’t handle the modern, high powered machines. This is fortunately not true, as many of us went on to become riding instructors, particularly when Compulsory

Basic Training was introduced for provisional motorcycle licence holders.

Mike Baker St Austell, Cornwall