here is a very pleasant recollection ............ Time Travel: A Biker Mag runs, rallies, broken down bikes all part of my fond memories I like the end bit .....spot on
Great stuff Android. Look at that FS1E. The side panel says SS. I bought one of them in 1976. I paid £60 for it. It was "K" reg (1972) I think. I saved all my paper round money for a year and bought it off my mates big brother. I was only 14. Goose bumps
Yep, I rode round the block twice for my test on a borrowed RD250.... with no indicators or mirrors or insurance My memories of the 50cc bikes are all about getting pissed up in pubs and falling off...magic
Funky that's called puberty when you reach 16 and have a fizzy. Is it me or is this article a touch contrived?
Well it describes my biking youth pretty much (Honda SS50, BSA C15, BSA B50SS) ...we hit Beer in Somerset camping in the disused quarry just up the hill, forgot my sleeping bag so when I went back I had to pick up some rings from the dealer for the KH250 who was out with us. On the way to brit bike rally in Holland stopped outside Hastings while my mate with a 350 Matchless repaired his clutch at 2.30am....we had to catch an early ferry Riding up to the bike show at the alli pally in a frost was so cold could not feel anything below my knees....crazy days.
I am not questioning the validity per se, I grew up with bikes from an early age first on the road in 1985, my dad rode triumphs from 1958 through to retirement, and my older brother had his first road bike in 1978, but is it a case of rose tinted glasses? I can regularly remember being feckin cold, wet, etc and don't quite recall it as being so glamorous . Sleeping without anything at MAG rallies, breaking down numerously just about every trip, being involved in a bigger scene. Maybe I am just a grumpy middle aged ol twat.
but to me that was all part of it and we have learned from all those experiences to become the thoroughly experienced bikers who now know how to dress warm and fix bikes
It was the good with the bad in those days. I can remember riding my DT125 yam to work past the Evening post building in Leeds at 5.30 am and seeing -15 on the tower. I can also remember the summer of '76 riding round in a heatwave, passing my test on a YDS7 with number boards on that I raced on a weekend. That will never happen again (mores the pity). I still look back fondly on the YDS7 days but when it's -15 I'm glad I'm in the Citroen French shitbox with the heater on. Nowt wrong with rose tinted specs! OGR
One important difference between then and now - we started riding younger back then. Nowadays, typically, you buy your house, have your kids, sit at your desk getting bored, then decide to try biking. Back then your very first week's wage went on a moped and that was it, no training, just go. My life was very similar to matey's, progress along the biking pathway, ever-bigger bikes, every one of them a steaming turd, get drunk, fall off, join a club, get wasted, realise they're a bunch of twats and move on. But there is a good reason for the rose-tinted specs, because I had so much fun, so many stories to tell. In the last twenty years I've ridden some awesome bikes, travelled all over Europe, met some wonderful people. But the previous twenty years is where all my memories lay. We did next to fuck all but had so much fun doing it. And the difference is age.
I think a lot of it is about poverty and hope. You're poor, so you acquire what is available, fully not expecting to have any better. I had a CD175 in '81. It wouldn't have occurred to me to hanker seriously after a Ducati or Laverda Jota. They were the bikes of dreams that were unlikely to enter my little world for several years. You wore jeans because you couldn't afford leathers - so you got cold and gravel rash when you fell off. Similarly, I lived in accommodation for some years which was unheated, except for a big wood-burning cast-iron fireplace. Trouble was, the wood was in the cellar down 6 flights of stairs. So every day, you'd have to go and hump this huge sack of heavy wood upstairs. When you woke in the morning, the entire place was freezing. None of that seemed to matter at the time (and it didn't). But as you move to more luxurious accommodation, or get a better bike, it becomes impossible to go backwards and have the same fun. You get used to your comforts and softer. It's just how it is. I think the essential difference these days is that young people sort of expect top of the range everything from the off. This will make them sadder, less-fulfilled people in the long run, I suspect.
Indeed. I feel particularly sorry toward people who get used to money and comfort, but later fall on hard times - maybe due to gambling or alcoholism, or divorce, or maybe just being made redundant. Things we take in our stride at 20 are really tough at 50. I just count my blessings. "Blessings" is a metaphor, by the way.
