I once watched a guy on a white 899 leave the pit lane, first lap and first corner of the sighting laps and spoon it at paddock. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised seeing as some don’t even make it out of the pits before they’ve skipped the thing haha
Back in the Mods & Rockers era I was going down to Brighton with some mates on my Norton 500 Dommie on which the owner before me had welded on footpegs directly to the frame - (which I was going to change at some point but hadn't got around to) when I hit a large diesel slick on a roundabout and went sliding down the road - the aforementioned welded footrests having saved a broken leg!! I was leading the pack so I went upstream & flagged down my mates and we puled the bike onto the verge. One of my mates went off to find a phone box (no mobiles in those days) to phone the law & tell them of the hazard, meanwhile we were trying to flag down all 2 wheeled traffic to warn them. after a while a large group of Mods went by & when we tried to wave them down they went past swearing & giving us the V shouting F***ing Rockers!! - approximately half of them came off on the roundabout & we thought we were in for a bundle!, but the law finally turned up and radioed for the fire brigade to clear the oil slick up - imagine our dismay when they turned the hose on the slick & drove off! They didn't realise it would spread the slick!! This shortly resulted in all the cars going straight across the roundabout the roundabout. We all then pissed off to Brighton laughing with the only damage to my bike being a broken throttle cable which meant I had to pull on the bare wire with my right hand for the rest of the trip and only use the back brake! Wot fun we had!!!
I almost had one this late afternoon/early evening when I took a scenic route on an essential journey and was enjoying a ride around the country roads on the way back on my new to me 1979 DT175 2-stroke. The bike has a number of electrical faults, one of which causes the headlight to dim significantly when the back brake pedal is pressed, so as I was wazzing along flat-out in top gear, ie: about 65mph (though as I was producing more noise and smoke than the Flying Scotsman, it felt a lot faster), I thought it would be a fantastic idea to have a fiddle with the lightning switchgear and wiring to see if I could fix the problem, you know, like you do, one-handed and while moving, at night and in the pouring rain.... ....only to somehow turn all the lights off and plunge myself into almost total pitch blackness with no idea where the road went or whether there were any hazards ahead. In fact here was one - a huge deep puddle, the wash of which went over my feet and frightened the bloody life out of me. Fortunately, nothing was following me so I was able to bring the machine to a halt in as short a distance as the 70s drum brakes and cheap Chinese knobblies would allow, so the only casualty of this ride was my phone, which unfortunately is now faulty due to sitting in a little pool of water in one of my jacket pockets.
Riding my yellow FS1E in 77 in deep snow. One second happily chugging along, next second on my back looking up at a bus drivers face as he locked up trying to stop. He managed. Just. Same bike as I thrashed away after having a road rage incident with a car, didn't see the badly lit roadworks and drove straight into the trench....cue driver pissing himself laughing.
My best mate built himself a Triton back in the late sixties. To which he'd fitted a combined fiberglass seat and mudguard. In his rush to get it on the road he attached the seat to the bike by using an old overcoat belt looped around the seat and subframe rails. Anyway, one day on the Kingsway in Swansea he was showing off his pride and joy to another friend of ours who was a pillion. Half way along the Kingsway there's a set of traffic lights which were on red, so while he was waiting at the lights a sports car pulled up alongside them. The idiot passenger then said to my best mate, which would be faster accelerating, the car or his Triton, my best mate decided to show him. He gave it a fistful of beans and dumped the clutch when the lights turned green, my best mate shot off from the lights up the Kingsway suddenly wondering why his passenger had gone quiet, perhaps because he had been suitably impressed by the acceleration, and also why his seat had suddenly become uncomfortable. Meanwhile back at the lights the pillion was wondering why he was sat on the road with a fibreglass seat and combined mudguard beneath him with a car's number plate inches from the back of his head. The pillion had always had a slight stammer, but after that, it was decidedly worse for a good while, especially when retelling the story.
Read @broke story reminded me of the time I had my old mini 1275gt that had bucket seats in it. This was in the 80’s again, I had gone to visit a then boyfriend at Caerleon and on my way back home the bucket seat snapped and I ended up falling forwards. Luckily I wasn’t far from home. It was a hard drive hanging on to the steering wheel and keeping upright but I did it no idea how
Left my mates flat at around 1-2am... Started up the 1999 Fireblade and the road looped around past the front of his 2nd floor flat. I instantly started a rolling burnout, absolutely pinging it off the limiter in 1st and then 2nd. I’d never done this before (as in pissed off the whole street) and I knew at the time, I would have literally woken up 50+ families as it was flats on both sides, so the noise was just ridiculous. I was laughing in my helmet until my throttle cable snapped and the bike just went to idle and sat there...... I then had to ask to push it to his garage and walk 30 minutes home, whilst the neighbours were shouting a couple of insults at me.... Oh to be 19 again....
Many years ago I tried to do a burnout to show off to a girl I worked with when I was leaving at the end of the day and my bike was parked just outside the window of her office. Unfortunately I made a complete hash of it by keeping too much weight on the rear tyre so it just kept jerking the front wheel forwards by a few inches and compressing the forks, all the while producing a hellish racket but absolutely no tyre smoke. But worse was to come, because the front brake stuck on, meaning that I couldn't even ride away in order to hide my shame but had to rather sheepishly come back inside.
Mini stories.... A friend of mine was getting amorous in the passenger seat with his flame, she was in the seat facing forwards with her feet on the windscreen. I the final glorious moments she pushed a bit too hard and the windscreen popped out. Apparently it was a cold drive home. How we laughed as we refitted it with using the old string technique
Not two wheels I know but similar to Miss DB. My father had a two door Mk1 Escort which had what I thought snazzy folding sliding front seats. Anyway on very rare occasions my father allowed me to borrow it. On one of these rare occasions I was travelling along the road when I saw my mates gathered at the side of the road, I thought I know, I'll toot the horn to attract their attention and floor it just to impress them. Said horn was tooted, accelerator buried in the floor, car shoots forward seat shoots backward and collapses and I'm lying on the back seat with feet in the air nowhere near the brakes and hands nowhere near the steering wheel. I crapped myself, but eventually managed to bring the car to a stop without hitting anything. My mates were suitably impressed when my fathers car passed them driverless and tooting its horn. Don't think they stopped laughing for a month Driving home afterwards was an adventure, with the back of the seat broken the seat part wouldn't lock in position so every time I touched the throttle the seat would shoot backwards once more. As has been mentioned earlier, oh to be 19 again.
I was a Late starter, had a job and a car before I got my first bike. 1985 I bought a new CB100. Despite riding pushbikes all my youth I wasn't a natural on a motorbike so I got a couple of hours instruction from a mate on the local disused airfield before hitting the roads. Riding home from work one day a lad who worked at our place rode up alongside me on his CX500 as I was cautiously thrupenny-bitting my way round a corner and shouted "You're Supposed to Fuckin' Lean!" Cornering became much easier after that lesson! Until the great day arrived when the running in mileage was achieved and an increase in speed meant arriving at the 90 degree corner at the end of the 1 mile straight out of the village considerably quicker than my brain could compute and we ended up laid in the bushes. luckily missing the ditch and trees. Went back home sheepishly and straightened the footpeg, glued the top back on the speedo and added another lesson to my experience.
not entirely true.... 17 years old, new owner of rd 125 twin, fizzy needs a new home. A n other spotty oik comes to buy it, £100 of crisp notes change hands (it was a bit rough) and I’m a happy bunny. Said buyer then struggled to start the fizzy and in my keenness to see the back of it I offer to bump start it. Normally, no issue, a few yards, drop the clutch and ring ding ding... not this time... it wouldn’t bloody catch so I was just about to give up when the bastard thing sprang into life... and the throttle stuck wide open... tried to grab the clutch but it had gained sufficient forward velocity and momentum to drag me across the parking area and launch itself and me head long into a brick wall, with me landing on top of it while it lay on its side revving itself to oblivion... Things I learnt that day... ...lubricate throttle and clutch cables... ...don’t offer to start someone else’s bike, even if you’ve just sold it to them... ...petrol taps can draw blood and leave scars... ...fizzy frames bend when interfaced with solid objects... ...giving the oik his £100 back wasn’t fun.... in hindsight I should have stashed it in the back of Dad’s garage, it would be worth a lot more now.
There was another Fizzy related incident.... I was bumbling along through a big navy housing estate (you know flat out, 45 mph everywhere...) and a big US car caught my eye so I have a good gawp over my shoulder as I go by (it was a Ford Edsel no less). for reasons I forget I had my mates very nice race gloves on. Why is this important I hear you ask... well in my desire to see this huge land yacht, I failed to notice the kerb curving in towards my front wheel, by the time I realised I’m passed the point of recovery, the front wheel grips the kerb and pitched my headlong over the handlebar towards the grass. This is where I think, while airborne, “bugger, not my gloves”... so I put my hands behind me and hit the grass head first. No damage done but it was revving it’s head off so I had a quick look to make sure no one had seen then rode off with grass stuck in my visor. happy days! Ped
I’ve been lucky enough to have been ragging around on bikes since my dad made me a cut down bsa dandy frame with a bantam engine in it when I was 8, so obviously I just could not wait to be sixteen and get my first ever road bike! Well moped!! So 2 days after my birthday I’m the proud owner of a mint garelli tiger cross! Game on!! Fast forward 2 weeks and I’m flat out on it going down one of the longer roads in Hereford where in those days you could!(DB will know Edgar street) so halfway down there’s a slip road for cars that want to turn right! It’s the middle of summer so obviously I’ve got t shirt jeans and trainers on!! There were a group of rather lovely wee lasses walking along so of course my eyes took an involuntary wander towards them, as I moved my head forward there was a car literally 10feet in front of me!! She’d gone to go and stalled (cortina) I could see the panic in her face for a split second as she was frantically trying to start it! Needless to say I just froze and hit her full whack! I’ve never really known how the next bit happened but I obviously hit either a side window or screen and that was me unconscious! When I came to the only thing I was wearing was the waistband of my underpants and one sock and trainer the bike was in a hundred bits but the gear leaver had gone through my ankle and the exhaust had landed on my thigh burning a massive hole in it! To this day I’ve never seen a more destroyed bike! It was totally unrecognisable as a bike!! The ONLY think at that moment that bothered me was the massive crowd that had gathered and desperately trying to cover my dignity! I still have a hole in my thigh and an inch of garelli gear lever in my ankle to this day!
First bike was an NSU Quickly, which we used to rag up and down the gravelled track next to my parents house. The exhaust was held into the barrel with a screwed collar which unknown to me was gradually unscrewing. Eventually it came off, and the exhaust dropped down, pivoting on the rear mount. Said pipe then dug in and the bike pitch poled so I landed on my head (obviously no helmet). Staggered home with a massive split in my head only to get a major bollocking for damaging my jeans.
Early 80s now and entering a nice series of bends on my bevel. Too much watching Kenny Roberts, so I wondered if I could get my knee down. Answer was yes, but as knee sliders hadnt been invented at that point there goes another pair of jeans and most of my knee cap. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
I was so proud when I got the first bike which I didn’t have to pedal. It was a Lambretta Cento 100. It was back in the late 60’s, I was 16. One day as I was riding to meet my mates I passed some local rough types who started shouting at me. I returned their jeers with the traditional one finger salute. With that they started to chase after me. I wasn’t the least bit scared, I had 100 cc between my legs. So I slowed down and waited for them to get really close to me before twisting the throttle full open. In my head I was going to disappear out of view like the Starship Enterprise going into warp drive. I would look in one of my many rear view mirrors and see them helplessly standing in the road shaking their fists at me. Instead there was a phut sound and I very very very slowly started to increase speed. Not quick enough though. They grabbed my shoulder and started to pull me off my steed. It was only because they were so knackered from chasing me that I managed to stay on and escape. Not before I got one clout to the head though to which the white wooly hat I was wearing offered little protection.
The Ford Edsel. Now that is a rare car nowadays. Ford’s attempt to link a luxury brand to the blue oval. Named after Henry’s son, they made it so expensive & so ugly, almost no one bought it. A rare Ford failure!
