Mental telepathy
As a racer at the cutting edge of his profession, Edgar Jessop was always striving for the ultimate package that would give him the vital advantage over his competition.
Of course, his physical stamina was beyond question, based on a strict training regime of sexual conquest, a diet supplemented by rare botanicals found only in hand-crafted gins of the world, and more sex. Not for nothing was he known amongst his contemporaries as the Spagforth Stud or the Great British Bonker, his powers of endurance known to be of herculean potency. But athletic prowess is useless in the field of motorcycle competition without a competitive machine – a feat of engineering honed to razor sharp perfection, which most Spagforth products were decidedly not.
Edgar felt that regardless of outright power, a trait usually notable for its absence in the Giggleswick-produced machines, certain aspects of the motorcycle’s performance could be streamlined to shave precious fractions of seconds in the course of a race. One of these elements was the act of gear changing, which Edgar regarded as a clumsy and time-consuming procedure. He felt that eliminating or streamlining the process of de-clutching, shifting the gear lever or pedal by either hand or foot, and re-engaging the clutch could provide a substantial gain, and with the aid of his brother Lucien, hit upon a revolutionary development.
Lucien Jessop did not officially exist, being an MI5 agent specialising in brainwashing and other forms of laundry. Lucien felt that the entire physical gear changing process could be replaced by thought transference whereby the rider’s brain directly controlled the transmission. Using stolen materials developed for the disastrous British Jupiter expedition, Lucien developed a ‘think pad’ which was embedded into the seat of the motorcycle, and activated by electro-neuro impulses transmitted through the rider’s hair, which had been liberally doused with a secretly produced hair gel that he called Spagcreme. While the mental transference process was proven to work under controlled conditions, Edgar could never master the unique inverted riding position required to maintain constant contact with the think pad. Despite hours of practice and constant refinements, he failed to come to grips with the technique, and the program was abandoned. He decided instead to persevere with the antiquated Spagforth transmission and to further hone his physical condition by substantially increasing the main components of his fitness regime.