RAMBLINGS OF A CHOPPER PILOT I'VE HAD BETTER DAYS!

PART 1

IN MY EARLIER BIKING LIFE, BEFORE MOBILES, WHEN PARTIES WERE PARTIES, AND ‘ELF N’ SAFETY WASN’T BORN, THE PROMISE OF GOING TO A SUMMER RALLY FOR THE ENTIRE WEEKEND WAS A RECIPE FOR SUREFIRE FUN. MY

enthusiasm to travel in most weathers to pitch a tent miles from home, and drench myself in beer, bikes and bands was part of what I did. Even a bad day’s camping was better than a good day in the office and, in any case, it was a welcome change from corporate bollocks.

I hadn’t experienced too much in the way of British bikes, and had unintentionally gravitated toward odd Japanese bikes; one of which was a total tart’s handbag of a lowrider – a Honda CB750 F1. It was a lightly crash-damaged affair, bought cheap off some hippie geezer in Lowestoft who wanted to fund a holiday to Thailand, and there were various shiny bits that needed sorting (and the sissy-bar needed straightening). I was later to find other horrors that lurked unseen, but that is a whole other story!

Apparently I was the eighth owner... I wonder why? It was a radical-looking machine in gold metallic azure blue with a good rake, and modest ape-hangers, and its exhausts were awesomely loud straight-thru 4-into-2 slash cuts. At one point when starting up in a petrol station, they actually incinerated the laces on one of my boots.

The bike had a blue diamond-stitched split-level chopper seat that a pillion friend said was like riding with a pencil up yer ‘arris, but the crowning glory was the Mustang tank with a Pageant Paint naked girl straddling a winged green dragon, God, I wish I’d kept that tank – it was a true work of art. More to the point, though, the bike handled like a wheelbarrow full of sand, but who cares? It looked good back then, and’d won the odd prize.

The Magna Carta was a weekend event held on some farm in Upminster, Essex. For me it was a couple of hours bimbling out of the sticks, travelling mostly south on the A12. The forecast was looking good so I planned to make an early start. I was totally Lewis Leathered-up from head to toe, with tent in rucksack, and I looked like a gangly Darth Vader with a parachute. It was effing warm, and the breeze barely helped, as I joined in with the holiday traffic perambulating down the hill into Yoxford, and my only brain cell went AWOL for a split second – the car in front had stopped and, stupidly, I yanked on the front anchor (double disc XS1100 wheel), and learnt fast that choppers aren’t designed for emergency stops. The front wheel danced sideways, and my seat shot out from under me, and

I slid down the road on my arse, propped up on my right forearm in a slightly reclined sitting position courtesy of the rucksack on my back. As many people’ll tell you, in an accident you kind o’ watch it all in slow motion – the bike rotates in front of me in a Catherine Wheel of sparks, and expensive grindyscrapy noises, there’s the scuffing sound of tyres from the vehicles stopping behind and, finally, all comes to a hushed standstill with a pungent whiff of tyre smoke wafting past. I glanced round at the car radiator grill about a foot from my right ear and realised that, thankfully, I wasn’t on the day’s roadkill menu.

I levered myself up from the hot Tarmac, using the car bumper, and dusted myself off. The concerned driver opened his door and asked if I was okay? I assured him I was (I think!), and I offered a very, very heartfelt apology, saying a big thank you to him for his timely braking, then turned around and, feeling like a right prize prat, strode towards my sad heap of metal.

On the way I picked up the scuffed seat, and my stainless steel air-filter box, and then prized the bike off the road, and replaced the seat, tucking the airbox into the front of my jacket. I straddled the seat and, with paddling legs, started to get some forward motion going, and free-wheeled my broken steed down to the cottage at the bottom of the hill, and pushed it up the side of their gravel drive. I briefly explained my predicament to the kind homeowner, and asked if I could use their phone to call the RAC.

The RAC guy, to my surprise, turned up very promptly in less than twenty minutes, and me and machine were duly dropped off at home a half-hour later and, luckily, wifey was out shopping, so I took the opportunity to park the damaged side of the bike next to the hedge so she wouldn’t suspect anything’s amiss. I went into the kitchen to examine my wounds – most of the issues seemed to be shallow skin chafes and burns on my forearm, thigh and ‘arris, so I squirted on some stinky medicated spray, and positioned a few plasters over the red bits, and got back to the task in hand of going rallying – it was still only 10am, and the day was still young. I opened the garage and wheeled out my little red Honda RS250 single. That’ll get me there, so off I blatted to restart my journey in a haze of medication.

To be continued…