Social Cub day out
Bikes are for riding – and when they’re as accessible and fun as a Honda step-thru, your helmet doesn’t leave your head
Seven or eight bikes in various states of dilapidation have passed through my hands in as many recent years. They’ve included a bent 1957 Mobylette AV33 that hadn’t seen daylight in four decades, a Suzuki GT200 X5 that consumed more gearbox lubricant than two-stroke oil, and an MZ TS250/1 featuring the irremovable odour of rotting cabbage. They all deposited fluids on the shed floor and were varyingly vexing. However, they crucially each also supplied rich riding amusement – and so I used them all whenever possible.
None of this recent old nonsense received as much use as my 1973 Honda C50 is getting, though. It might not be covering massive miles, but when it comes to frequency of use it’s the most popular machine of the last decade.
Previously belonging to my father-in-law Tony, the Honda had sat in his garage since 1983, yet readily pop-pop-popped into life last year after a thorough service. And it’s barely rested since. Replacing a two-stroke French moped which required extensive peddling, hours of warming and ran on premix, the grab-and-use nature of the C50 is ideal for errands. My boys call it Rhonda and think it’s ace – firstly because it was grandpa’s, and secondly because the nicely weathered top-box means we can use it for dashing to school or Scouts. And, most influentially, the Honda makes the current Mrs Armitage get rather sentimental.
As a nipper, Jane would walk back from school as slowly as possible. This was so she could loiter at the end of the street as Tony bobbled home from work and grab a sneaky lift. It was the first two-wheeler she went on, and as such its resurrection has caused a new-found interest in two-up shenanigans. With this epic summer we’re having, it’s fabulous. We go to see friends (who laugh), thrum to the pub to collect a growler of ale (quite a lot), and even nip for lunch at the eatery just a few hundred yards up our lane (barely passing pushbike speed, so enjoying breeze up the leg of my shorts).
The hill out of our village is properly steep and rather noisy in first gear, but doesn’t stop our pillion expeditions; if there’s a short journey to be made, the question is now whether we take the car instead of the C50 – not the other way round. Every home should have one.
If your journey across Leicestershire’s lanes is delayed by two grinning fools on a bobbing red Cub, then I apologise…