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Sunday 11th September 2005

There have been two more attempts upon my life recently, both on roundabouts.and both by women cagers. I am trying my very best not to develop a prejudice against women drivers, but the fact remains that since I got my bike, women have overwhelmingly been my main assailants. Rationally, I keep telling myself, it must be a coincidence. But the presence of a woman in a hazardous situation has started to make me nervous. Well, nothing new there then!

On Friday, riding back home from Aylesbury in a happy mood, I got caught up into some guy’s private track day. I was minding my own business in the outside lane of the dual carriageway - having just overtaken a rather nippy little jag. I was, I have to admit, doing a fair few knots more than I should have been, when suddenly there is this roar to my right, and I am overtaken by a guy on two wheels doing… it must have been at least 170 mph. And in my own lane! It happened in a moment. All I had time to register was a flash of Kawasaki green and a set of matching leathers streaking past me very close to the central reservation. He came from nowhere and disappeared almost as quickly round a steeply banked bend, off into the twilight. ‘Crazy steamwhistle’, were words that passed forcefully through my head. I’d like to be able to say that they were the first words that passed through my head - but they weren’t. My initial reaction was something more in the nature of : ‘ dodo man! Wow!’

No matter how crazy and inconsiderate that kind of riding might be, there’s something sooooooo beautiful about the sight of a bike cranked over at speed and sweeping round a corner on a fast overtake. A big part of me was wishing that I had the balls to do that – maybe just occasionally. I then reflected that it was exactly at this spot two weeks earlier that I’d seen a police team radar-gunning the traffic. I reflected further that I enjoy having my motorcycle licence and would like to keep it. Moreover, I like my life – and I’d like to keep that too.

Still…

When I got home there was no-one around, so I related the incident to Loki. Loki , if you haven’t picked up on this, is a deceptively charming mass of sleek black-and-white hair that dominates my home and periodically destroys my furniture (and occasionally my CD collection). Most people seem to think that he is a dog, but I have yet to find a proper classification for him. He’s as crazy as they come. But he’s a good listener. So I told him all about the Kawa Boy on the dual carriageway. He listened thoughtfully for a while and then began to make loud (deafeningly and penetratingly loud) barking noises. This means ‘take me for a walk’. It can also mean, ‘I’m hungry. Feed me’. Or (while we’re at it): ‘let me out’; ‘let me in’; ‘be off with you’’; I’m here, I’m here’; ‘stay away from me’; ‘I’ll tear your guts out, you filthy postman person’ and a thousand other incomprehensible things. In fact, Loki barks all the time and needs no excuse whatsoever. He drives me nuts.

When I didn’t immediately search for his lead to take him for a walk, he then had a fit of the zooomies. This is where he runs backwards and forwards through the house at an incredible speed, spinning on the turns and making a noise fit to wake the dead. He sometimes does this in the garden as well, and usually concludes by flinging himself, full pelt, into our tiny pond. Water, weed and frogs go flying everywhere.

Trouble is, despite being a basket case, he is also incredibly cute. He hooks me like a kid: You know the stuff: when you look in at the kids at night and their eyes and faces are so peaceful that you wonder how you could ever have shouted at them. And then you remember that when they wake up the next morning, that look will be replaced instantly with one of extreme calculation. Now that I think about it, Loki also has a lot in common with Kawa Boy as well and all the crazy end of the sportsbike tribe. He just wants to shift as fast as he can on all possible occasions; he makes a lot of noise; is impulse driven; has no respect for anyone or anything; no concern for the law (me); and absolutely no road sense.

Loki is also very clumsy. He is the only dog I know who walks into lamp-posts (and appears not to notice). He is totally insensible to pain – unlike Kawa Boy, probably.

P.S. I think the reason I love him so much is that he is totally crazy and willful, and doesn't give a dodo about 'the rules' or any kind of 'authority'. He represents the repressed Kawa kid in me. Sigh!

Tuesday 13th September 2005

Bloody hell! Choke! Choke!

Talk about crazy, fuck1ng riders!

I was on my way out of London. I'd stopped at a set of traffic lights behind this guy on a Hornet. I was just sitting there looking at all the building work going on around Kings Cross/St Pancras when the Hornet Kid decides to do a burn out. I couldn't believe it. There we were in the thick of the London rush hour traffic and this steamwhistle starts losing rubber. (I know he was a kid because all I could see of him through the smoke was a smooth, skinny, very juvenile looking neck).

I sound my horn and shout at him at the top of my voice, but by this time the lights have changed. His burn out becomes a grid take off and he goes screaming off between two lines of traffic.

It's true! Hornet riders are definitely bad news - almost as deranged as the green Kwakers brigade. (Sorry Sev. I'd like to make an exception for you, but facts is facts, y'know ).

Luverly bike, though!

Wednesday 14th September 2005


It’s only when I go away from home for a while that I realise how much emotional and mental baggage gets stored up in a family house: the kind of stuff that hangs in the air and weighs you down without your even being aware of it. Last week, Di and I took a holiday out in the Gloucestershire countryside and both of us came back feeling like different people. Di looked much better too at the end of it. It was so good to see her looking so bright and light-hearted.

As I am a non-driver and Di has long since had to give up her car, I have to be inventive about managing a holiday like that. I persuaded an old friend to drive Di down while I went on the bike. The bike is essential out in the country where we were staying. There's nothing much for miles around apart from cows and five bar gates. I
need it for shopping, (and sneaking off for half an hour while Di is having a kip) etc.

I’m of the opinion (says he wisely, with his homespun philosopher’s hat perched precariously on the side of his head.) that a bit of a blast every couple of days helps clear the mind, steady the soul and raise the passions. It’s also bloody good fun riding all the way down to Gloucestershire, and a complete hoot on the local A roads there - all fast and twisty with plenty of overtaking opportunities. Mmmmm.

A friend of ours has this second home hidden away among the Costwold Hills. She’s lent it to us a couple of times since Di became ill. It's located on a private estate, a mile or so for the nearest village and about five miles from the nearest town.

She calls the place a cottage, but it is hardly that. The wealthy-looking estate is set in prime parkland and clusters around an old Georgian country house. This is an aspiring rich-man’s ghetto. The car praks are full of Mercs and Alpha Roms. My bike looks completely out of place. Everywhere conformity rules. Every house has ‘regulation’ ornamental ceramic plates tastefully displayed in the windows and curtains with elaborate valences. There was just one house – only one – that wasn’t displaying expensive china in the window – The owners must be Communists – rich ones!!!! ( )

During the Second World War, long before all this development, the government commandeered the estate as an army base and as a camp for Polish prisoners. The army buildings, a ramshackle collection of Nissen huts and other cheaply assembled structures, are still there, screened off from the rich man’s estate by a tall hedge. Nowadays, these old army buildings are occupied by various small companies. I looked round one Sunday, to discover that this cheerfully decaying site is the home of the UK’s sole importers of Royal Enfield motorcycles. The same firm also manufactures ‘Westonian’ sidecars – the last business to make sidecars in the United Kingdom. The company buys in standard Royal Enfield Bullets, made in the factory in Madras, India, strips them down and rebuilds them into several different models, for the British market.

Most of the space inside the building was taken up by a huge showroom. The firm must do the rebuilding work in the kitchen - in the good old British fashion of ‘muck-in’ and ‘make-do’. All around the forecourt there were empty wooden crates with Indian script stencilled all over them
It was weird to see this apparently flourishing company carrying on a vigorous business on this semi-derelict site.

Odder still, I also found out that Blockley, the small sleepy village clustered around its medieval church and lying about a mile away from where we were staying, was for a short time the secret home of Triumph Motorcycles, after the old company went bust at Meriden and before it was set up again at Hinckley.

I had a great ride on the way down to the cottage this time. Between Bicester and Chipping Norton there is a long, unnaturally straight stretch of road. On a quiet Wednesday with little traffic about, it is difficult to avoid having a bit of a blast along it. (Not my fault, officer, honest!) While I was zapping along, the evening came down so suddenly that for an instant I thought something weird had happened. It was quite uncanny. In seconds, the sun had turned into an enormous, blood-red disk. It hung just above the horizon directly in front of me at the end of my road. It’s outlines were blurred by the mist and cloud which, like the darkness, seem to have come out of nowhere.

A few seconds later I was in the middle of a terrific thunderstorm. Sheet lightening flashed across the pitch-black sky. In the fields on either side of me lightening bolts struck the ground every few seconds and made huge cracking noises that hit me like electric shocks. Without any warning, the rain came pelteing down, drenching everything – including my visor – and roared like a hundred bashees in my helmet. The drops were huge. It was A-MAZING.

In all that sudden rain the back tyre felt like it was made of melting butter. If I’d been sensible, I would have slowed down. But I didn’t. I was too high and having too much fun. Thunderstorms blow me away and this was a real mother of one. I banged on the throttle and went for it, tearing the bike through the rain and into the darkness.

I had a good week, but after that everything felt sort of tame.

Wednesday 21st September

I’ll say it again; ‘there are some crazy f*****s about. Monday night I rode down to the end of my street on the way to the club meet. The street is part of a local one-way traffic system and has a narrow chicane at the end of it. I was sitting in the middle of the chicane waiting to turn out into the traffic when this blue Vauxhall comes speeding down the main road and swerves into my street (i.e. the wrong way up the one-way system.) He has no room to enter the street on the road because I’m fully occupying the chicane, so he runs up onto the pavement (= ‘sidewalk’ for those of you across the pond) beside me and comes to a halt with his bodywork about two inches from my hand. He’s managed to squeeze in between me, two bollards and a small rowan tree

The guy in the car looks uncannily like Jasper Carrot, only balder and uglier. He pulls a long gormless face (just like Jasper Carrot, only without the humour). I take this to mean, ‘get out of my way, you stupid *****’. I’m so startled I just point at the one-way sign, shout and stare at him.

This very weird sneering expression then comes over his face – and I mean, weird. He throws the car into gear and shoots on past, so close that I’m sure he’s going to hit me. As he whips by, his car passes within a couple of millimetres of my bike. He rolls off the pavement and back onto the tarmac where the chicane widens and rips off up the road. I have this half-hearted idea of getting his number - ‘cos this guy is a total maniac - but he’s gone before I can even turn my head to look at him. I start wondering what designer drugs there are on the market these days.

I’ll say it again: There are some crazy f*****s about.

Thursday 22nd September 2005

The Sunday before last there was a club rideout down to Brighton. The idea was to join the mass Ace Café run. I was planning to go with them, but the prospect of a long ride down the A1(M) M25, M23, all boring, boring roads, did not appeal. Still, it was a rideout; somewhere to go. Outside the house, I fired up the bike under acres of featureless, grey cloud. The air was heavy, dank and full of fine drizze. And worst of all, the bike was vibrating badly even at tickover. Not a good start. When it does that, my heart sinks - it feels crippled, like a lame horse, and there’s not a lot of pleasure in riding a lame horse.

On the way to the meet in Stevenage, I rode slowly and without enthusiasm. I just couldn’t get myself fired up about this trip at all. The Ace Café runs are usually great events. Thousands of bikes run down to the coast and people turn out in droves to watch. Elderlies sit outside their cottages in the rural villages and cheer us on, misty-eyed, remembering the Ariels and AJSs they rode as kids. But today, not even great memories of earlier runs dispelled the gloom.

Then, as I approached the A1(M) roundabout something shifted suddenly in my mind, and instead of riding south to join the rideout, I turned north up the A1. I had no idea where I was going, but I felt instantly lighter. And that’s what bikes are supposed to be all about, isn’t it? Just doing your own thing. Going wherever the spirit takes you

Rationally, there was a downside to this decision. If the weather is grey to the South then the chances are that it is even greyer up North, but even that thought did nothing to darken the chink of happiness that had opened up inside my mind.

And the gods were with me! Twenty minutes later the cloud cover began to break and there was a glimpse of sunlight. My spirits soared. Suddenly the bike, too, seemed less vibey, less of a mess. In another half-an-hour the skies were full of fluffy cumulus cloud and the sun was putting on a bit of an effort. I learned later that, down south, it remained overcast all day. Later still, I heard that the last ten miles on the run into Brighton had been a nightmare of congestions and stagnant traffic.

And right now, I was going north.

I must have ridden thirty miles up the A1 before I had any sure idea of where I was heading, or how I was going to get there. But slowly and certainly it dawned on my mind that I was on my way to Lincoln. I hadn’t seen Lincoln for ages. Di and I had driven there fifteen years ago, and after a pleasant afternoon had one of our famous public rows, frightening the pigeons from the castle walls, as I recall. So, lots of happy memories there, then! But I love this city, we both do. It is full of character and history.

Lincoln lies just off the A1, so since I had limited time I decided to stay on it all the way there, look around and then find a more interesting route back. The A1 is far from my favourite road, but unlike the Motorways down to Brighton it has roundabouts and speed cameras on it to keep things interesting

(I feel sorry for you guys over in The States with your lack of roundabouts. American cagers of my acquaintance all seem to hate them with a passion when they come over here, but there’s nothing like a big old deserted roundabout to see what you and your bike can do. Get the bike going round and round, open the throttle bit by bit, lean the bike more and more… Wooo hooo)

The sun was shining hot by the time I approached Lincoln. And I’d been hot on the throttle most of the way up here too. I was feeling great. By this time, I’d been running for about twenty minutes with my fuel warning light on. I was in no mood to stop, but finally I had to admit that I was pushing my luck. Just outside the city I found a petrol station. I rolled onto the forecourt, stuck the nozzle into the tank and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. I stood there waiting for the little numbers to start turning round. Still nothing. OK! one of those! I pulled on the trigger again (the bastrd was very stiff), and this time there was a faint humm from the pump0 and the dials turned – very slowly. A few mls of fuel dribbled into the tank, then a few mls more.

It took nearly ten minutes to get £12.00’s worth of petrol into the bike, and by that time my hand was falling off my wrist with fatigue. I thought of going into the shop and complaining, but by then it had become personal betwen me and the pump. I looked around for a moment and saw that most of the other pumps had ‘Out of Order’ notices on them. I stood there watching the dials creep around, willing them to go move faster. When they got close to showing £15.00 (the price of fuel here now is ridiculous) I looked down to the nozzle, to see fuel spilling all over the bike and flowing out over the forecourt. I said something loudly that my mother would not have approved of. "poo poo"! I had my earplugs in, I have very little sense of smell and, more particularly, the cut-out mechanism on the pump hadn’t worked.

After quickly checking to make sure no idiot was hanging round with a lighted cigarette, I wheeled the bike away from the flood as fast as I could, and let it dry off. Inside, at the checkout I soon found I had a row on my hands with a very belligerent senior member of staff - get this: the guy was insisting that the spilled fuel was my fault and I had to pay for it. In the end he rang his head office, spoke briefly to his manager, put the phone down and settled rapidly for a payment of £12.00. I recounted this story a few days later to fellow biker who used to be a fireman. He told me that operating a pump whose cut-off mechanism was not working is contrary to the Fuel Conservation Act of 19-something-or-other and therefore illegal. Esso Head Office clearly knew that and wanted to settle quickly before they had a court case on their hands.

The old part of Lincoln with its narrow cobbled streets, its castle and its magnificent cathedral is beautiful. I parked the bike near the railway station close to a lovely old BSA Rocket, slogged up Steep Hill (the name of the street) and headed for the cathedral. I just love Lincoln Cathedral, one of the greatest buildings ever made. Like many gothic churches it is full of pre-Christian images and carvings, including the Green Man, a pagan nature spirit whose origins are lost in the mists of time.

I wandered about for ages among the columns enjoying the clash of cultures. Me, a twentieth-century atheist in my leathers enjoying all this medieval piety. But I reckon medieval piety was pretty rough-hewn and down-to-earth – like the characters from Chaucer. Chaucer would have written a biker into the Canterbury Tales if he’d had the slightest notion of what one was. I tried to imagine the cathedral stonemasons from nearly a thousand years ago, carving these elaborate stone decorations and totally outrageous figures in their freezing cold sheds when the witnter weather was too inclement for outdoor construction work. There is so much energy in their work, so much fun and imagination that it must have put a huge grin on their faces as they worked.

After about two hours of wandering around the town, I headed for a tea room close to the castle. Now this was the real McCoy, a proper English tea room which served 30 different kinds of tea in little cups whose handles are so small you have to pinch them between your fingers to keep them from spilling all over the place. The tiny tea-room was full of Brummie tourists and several naughty-looking little old ladies who giggled together in a corner. Half way through my tea and Lincolnshire sausage sarnie, I was approached by a waitress asking if I needed more water for a top-up. Now where do you get that these days? Sod the consumer culture. Who wants 500 different kinds of pizza available for delivery to your door at 6.00am in the morning? I think I’m in serious danger of becoming a traditionalist - God forbid!

I hung around in the tea room (I just love the tweeness of these places) and was late leaving the city. I’d forgotten to bring my glasses and couldn’t see the road map well enough to plan a decent route home. I’d have to go straight back along the A1. On the way down the hill I did a double take. Buzzing up it at five miles an hour was a small Honda motorcycle. It was painted speed-camera yellow and ridden by a guy wearing some sort of formal uniform and an outsize yellow reflective tabard. A sign on the bike announced ‘mobile CCTV unit’. I gagged. The world is getting pretty surreal these days.

It turned out to be a good ride and day out. I missed the company of other bikers on the way back down the A1, but enjoyed riding at my own pace and not having to concern myself with what other people were doing. I’ve spent so much time riding with the club recently that I’d forgotten what a pleasure that is.

Friday 23rd September 2005

Hey! Who’s the boy racer now!

The BMF’s Tail Ender has come and gone for another year. (For those who might not know, the 'Tail Ender', run by the British motorcycle Federation, is the last big motorcycle show of the year) It’s the usual kind of event: loads of trade stalls, bike clubs from round the country looking for membership, rock concerts, beer tents and motorcycle arena events. But it is very popular and has a real buzz to it. It’s the perfect opportunity to spend all that cash you were saving up to put in a new boiler for the house - and create six months bad-will between you and your wife. Unfortunately, this year, spending serious money wasn’t an option for me. I had to do this one on the cheap. I'll say that again: I had to do this one on the cheap; I had to do this one on the cheap.

It was a nightmare organising friends and agency workers into providing three days of 24 hour care for Di, so that I could camp out at the showground for the whole of the weekend (from Friday 16th to Sunday 18th Sept). I felt riddled with guilt at leaving her for such a length of time, even though she wanted me to do it (she knows how tired and stressed I am). But when it comes down to it, I can handle a little guilt, and come Friday, I was gagging to go. The basic idea in my mind was to do something I hadn’t done for maybe fifteen years – to get totally wasted.

As usual, there were always more last minute jobs to do at home than I’d bargained on, and I was late setting off. By the time I’d ridden the fifty miles up the A1 to the Peterborough showground, the club's marquee was up and most of the guys were gathering to go off to the evening concert. Luckily, even things like getting organised to go to a concert is a long-drawn-out business for a club that prides itself on its ultra-laid back attitude to everfything, so I had time to put up my own tent before we set off.

The bands were mostly good, but I wasn’t in the mood. Usually, I’ll bop around to anything, but Di’s illness was weighing heavily on me. As I started to relax, the whole bloody miserable situation started to hit me. I had a couple of lagers to try and loosen up, but they didn’t help much.

That night, the temperature fell close to freezing, Summer (or what has passed for a summer here this year), had finally given up trying. I’ve got a good tent and sleeping gear that has seen me through a lot worse weather than this, so I was fine but some of the others looked the worse for wear next morning. Over breakfast in the marquee, we were joined by a very amiable American Satanist who wanted to talk about the virtues of CBR600s. Whether he thought there was any connection between the bike and his religion I’m not certain , but he was a nice guy and hung round with us on and off for the rest of the show.

The next day was a slow round of eating, wandering about the showground and talking to visitors at the stall. In the evening, we went off to the big marquee early (6.15 pm) to listen to more bands. I was feeling a lot brighter, the music was pretty good and I started to unwind. Apart from a couple of short breaks to buy beer and a Chinese, I danced for six hours non-stop and got myself thoroughly pissed. All the stress of the last months came peeling off. A couple of hours into the evening, some teenagers started a mosh pit right next to us, jumping up and down to the music and barging into one another. Inevitably, they started barging into us as well, so we started barging back. I think I got rid of several year’s pent up aggression in a single night. It was a huge laugh. Best night I’ve had for years.

On Sunday, I took a stroll over to the Bandit and SV Owners Club with a friend (a SV650 rider) and buttonholed ‘John’ who worked for Banditmania. I told him my woes about the SV thou and he agreed that something sounded not right. It was reassuring to find someone who didn't think I was imagining the whole thing. Better still, he recommended a Suzuki dealer in Leicester who, he said, knew the model backwards and would give me no bullshit on the matter. Eighty miles seems a long way to travel to have a dealer look at a bike, but as I'd lost most of the pleasure in riding it recently and begun to think of trading it in for something else, I didn't care.

As the day wore on I was tempted (against my better judgement, of course) into buying a few small items: a new pair of winter gloves (£18.00), some gas canisters for my camping stove (£5.00), a cheapo watch (£5.00), but mostly I was spending purely emotional cash longing after a pair of Beowulf oval, street-legal, titanium, coloured cans with removable baffles. They were out of my price range right now but one day, I thought. One day… This was not just a whim (you understand!). These cans would look very nice on the back of my SV. It’s a silver, fully-faired bike but I’ve put a dark blue screen on the front and a dark blue tank protector on the tank, and if it didn't cost over a hundred quid I would have put a dark blue cowl on the pillion seat. In fact, if I had endless cash I might even go for a proper paint job.

So for months, I’ve been thinking my baby needs something blue and horizontal at the back to balance the colour scheme. OK what, on a bike, is horizontal(ish) and goes on the back? Well cans of course. You see how the logic of this works? trusting after a pair of Beowulf, oval, street-legal, titanium, coloured cans with removable baffles has nothing to do with a juvenile desire to get more performance or a sexier note or a smoother ride out of my good old workaday bike. Of course not! This is a matter of mature aesthetics. And let’s face it, these blue (fading into red and gold – sigh!) titanium cans are just something else. Real eye-candy. Bling!!!!.

That afternoon I happened on a conversation between two of the other guys who, by a remarkable coincidence, were discussing their long-held intention to put Beowulf cans on their CBR600s. This naturally grabbed my interest and once I’d joined in, it didn’t take long for us to persuade ourselves that we should try to do a special deal with the stall holder for four of the sexy little buggers (one for each of their CBR600s and two for my SV). We also realised that if we did manage to swing a deal. it would be a crying shame not to go for it - well, wouldn't it? My rather rigid budgeting arrangements suddenly seemed a little excessive and my thinking processes took on a more healthy flexibility.

God I’m weak! I resist temptation like the Titanic resists icebergs!

We got the cans for a real knock-down price. Mine were bolt-ons so I didn’t bother to wait to get them home. I had them on in half an hour at the tent (with help from about sixteen other guys from the club, at least four socket sets and more advisors than Tony Blair!). The cans looked Beau-ti-ful on the back of the SV - even nicer than I’d imagined. When the time came to fire her up the other guys stood or sat around looking even more excited than I was. (There’s an article in MCN this week on research that claims that biking keeps your brain young!) I got on, revved her up and went instantly weak at the knees. When I looked round half of the club were rolling round in the grass laughing. These cans are street-legal? What a note! Big and smooth and meaty - pie and chips! And gravy too. The boy racer in my soul leapt out of his tightly sealed box and made cat calls up and down my spine. What a bargain! These are cans to die for! They magnified and deepened that beautiful, big bore V-twin thunder into a smmoooooth and throaty rumble!

All aftermarket can salesmen I have ever met claim that there is no need to rejet or remap the bike once their new cans have been fitted. Well experience shows this just ain’t so, and on the way home that evening, she farted fire all the way down the A1: pop and splutter. So, that now means a session with SDC (a local motorcycle tuning firm that races modified SV650s) on the Yoshi box, or, if my inner bank manager can be persuaded to go on a six day drunk, on the Power Commander.

Earlier today (Friday)

Yes!!!!!!!!! (punches air with great enthusiasm) Yes! Yes! Yes!

Thank you, Nigel; thank you, Chris.

And thankyou, John from Banditmania for putting me in touch with these guys

Earlier today I rode up to Leicester, to get one last opinion on the SV’s vibes. my final hope. (This would be the sixth attempt to sort this problem.) I'd risen at 5.45 am and hared up the M1, hoping to get to Leicester by 9.00 am. I couldn't find my road map, as usual, and had to rely on a computer auto route. The instructions on how to get to the M1 from my road were crap, so I hoped they would be better when I got to Leicester.

I didn't do too badly, but got lost about a mile and a half from the shop and had to ring them for directions.

Chris, the engineer, came out and had a look at the bike where I’d parked it on the forecourt.
‘Vibes?’ he said.
‘Yeah.’
‘Intermittent?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Worse on the left?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Specially when leaned over on the left?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Any trouble with the clutch?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Clutch basket!

(Joyful open-mouthed silence)

‘We see it all the time' he said, 'They're always going on the SV. Hang on.’ And Chris takes the key and fires her up.
‘Yep. Look. Clutch basket.’

And that was that. Except, I kept thinking, if this guy knows what he is talking about, why didn't the other Suzuki dealers spot it. Most dealerships today are seriously crap with mechanics who hardly know what they are doing. They just do 'supermarket maintenance,' often using inexperienced youngsters to do their routine work.

The downside of the clutch basket issue was that Chris didn’t have one in stock. Worse still, Suzuki UK were in the process of moving their base this week and would be closed until next Tuesday. Just my luck!

That all meant I would have to come back up to Leicester the following week. I didn't want to take another day's Annual Leave from work. I didn't have much of it left and what I did have I wanted to spend with Di. But Nigel sorted it out. He suggested that I take the SV back up next Thursday evening after work. A friend of theirs who lives in the flat above the showroom would open up the shop after hours and stow the bike away for me. Chris would do the work on Friday and I could collect Saturday. Now, that’s real service for you. When you are a two-man outfit and run informally you can do things like that.

And if I had any reservations about their honesty, they quickly put them to rest

‘It will be easier for you to get your local dealer to order the part in and fix it for you nearer home.' Chris said. 'Are you sure you want to bring it all the way back up here?’

You betcha!

And I asked him to service it as well. And if he does a good job, I'll take it there in future.

OK. We’ll have to see if they are as good as they sound. But these two, Nige and Chris, came across as two of life’s genuine nice guys. Friendly. Easy to talk to. No bullshit. Just as John billed them at the Tail Ender. Not like bike dealers at all. Anyone in the Mids needing their Suzuki serviced? (Suzuki is the only marque they do.) I'll let you know the outcome, but so far I'd give them a strong recommendation.

Before going home I took a trip round the corner to a greasy spoon cafe for breakfast. Now, greasy spoons don't come like this any more. There are not many left in the south, except in some parts of London. This was a classic: it had a bare wooden floor; bare, chipped-formica tables; no curtains, a battered pinball machine and a juke box in one corner and a few tatty posters on the walls. A few lorry drivers were sitting at a table drinking huge mugs of tea.

I had a huge mug of tea too, and double eggs, bacon and sausage, all swimming in enough grease to lubricate my brain for the journey home and for several weekends to come. I love these places. As someone who worked for years as a nutritionist I should be horrified. But there is something about this sort of traditional working-class nosh that is older, deeper and more ingrained in my consciousness than all the sophisticated learning I absorbed later. It's real comfort food and bound up with my early identity.

Even the heavy rain that suddenly came down as I rode back to Hertforshire couldn’t dampen my spirits.

Instead of taking the M1 all the way (the M1 gets more and more crowded and more and more unpleasant every year) I left it as soon as I could, turned off onto the A14, which cuts across the country to the A1, then came down the A1 for home. I’ve never used the A14 before. It’s a good road, not exciting, but great if you just want to get somewhere quickly without much strain. It passes through a very rural part of the UK and there are not many petrol stations or places to stop on thbe way.

Not long after I turned on to it, I came up behind a guy riding a blue Beemer, and I tagged along behind him. I hadn't meant to at first, but after riding together for ten minutes, I began to enjoy the company and stayed on his exhuast. He rode at a steady 75-85 mph, judged the traffic well, and rode very thoughtfully and respectfully. I realised just how much I've been missing riding with someone like that. Most of the club members are semi-nutters. And as I've said before, I enjoy riding fast, but I don't want to do it all the time, or even most of the time. I stayed with him all the way down the A14, and we waved goodbye when I turned off onto the A1.

That is one of the great things about biking. I don’t even know what this guy looked like, or his name or where he was from. We didn’t exchange a single word. But for nearly an hour we rode together and there was a relationship. I got to know his riding style and his habits: he waved me slow when he spotted a police radar trap. It was companionalble and left me feeling a little lonely on the road after we parted. I just love everything about riding bikes.

Wednesday 28th September 2005

A couple of weeks ago I put up a bike poster in front of my desk (Sad, I know, at my age, but it's a great image, really dynamic.) It shows some guy flinging a custom 2002 Fireblade around like he'd been doing it forever. Something to aspire to, then - maybe I'll achieve that kind of confidence by the time I'm 90

The guy in the poster is using two fingers on the clutch. I tried this a couple of years ago on the Hyosung, but kept getting my other fingers jammed, and I gave it up as a bad job. I've always thought it was worth having another go - it looks so focused and precise. I kept noticing those two fingers in the poster and on Monday, I thought I'd give it a go. On the Suzuki, it works brilliantly. The SV's lever is adjusted so that I can fully disengage the clutch without making marks across the back of the three fingers still on the grip [EDIT: i guess that should be two fingers No wonder I fumbled this at first!!!]. It's true. It works. I'm amazed at how much more clutch control it gives me and at how it takes some of the strain off my hand when riding in traffic.

Good to learn something new.

Pleased!

I love reading your blogs, you write very well. It sounds like your going through some tough times, though. It sounds like your bike in one of the few things keeping you sane, good luck.

On a less serious note, I really want to visit the UK someday. I read UK biking magazines and am very jealous, the sport biking culture seems much richer over there. I also had a couple of friends from England, but they moved away to UAE- they were the nicest people I have met. Maybe someday Ill vacation over there and rent a bike.

Tuesday 4th September 2005

Thanks Swatter.

Yeah, come over to the UK. If you like twisties, we have some of Europe's best biking roads (and some of its worst). We also have something that few ordinary tourists will see - some of the greatest and the most varied scenery you will find anywhere in the world. That's a great thing about visiting the UK on a bike. You won't get siphoned into the usual tourist spots: London, Stratford and all that crap. Get out into the country - try Wales, try the Derbyshire Dales or the Lake District, try the West Country. Definitely try Scotland. If you ever do come over, give us a shout!

All the best.


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Aaaaaaargh! Nearly. Very nearly.

For almost two years I have piloted my bikes twice daily in and out of my narrow alleyway, round the sharp right angled turn at the end - avoiding my neighbour's accumulating pile of domestic equipment (old washing machines, lawn mowers etc) - through two narrow gateways and finally onto what is the nearest thing I have to a hard standing: a muddy area of crazy paving and slimy brick. And I have done all this, month after month, without mishap and generally without anxiety (only very occasionally has there been a sharp intake of breath as I came near to losing my balance and dropping one of my babies.)

That is, till yesterday.

Yesterday, I came so close to dropping the SV that for one sickening moment I saw the heavens opening up before me and the god of bikers raining down brimstone upon my head.

And it was all the fault of a gastropod.

OK, here's the tale.

My relationship with gastropods (slugs) goes back many years - over thirty, if I am honest - to the time when I was a delirious twenty year old creaming himself on his first bike. And that first serious sluggy encounter will always be bound up with my memories of my very first two wheel holiday, when I still didn’t have a licence and only had a very rough and ready understanding of how to ride.

The bike was a mess when I first bought it, but I was primed and ready for it: one look, and it had sent my hormones reeling. They say you never forget your first sexual encounter. To my shame, I have to admit that I have (almost) forgotten mine. But I shall never forget my first bike. For three glorious years, it was my pride and joy: a BSA Gold Star, an object so beautiful in my eyes, that for at least a term, I completely forgot about food and sex and college studies. The BSA was a huge liberation, the beginning of my real, adult life, as I saw it then (and come to think of it, I probably still see it that way now).

My mother was terrified of bikes. Whenever she closed her eyes she saw huge snorting, 250cc monsters with fire-breathing cans carrying away her only son into the arms of his maker. She was a dramatic woman and a remorseless one. While I lived at home, there was no way that I would ever own a bike. But though I burned away my teenage years in endless frustration, I dreamed of the day, seemingly years away, when the gates of heaven would open and I would become a proper biker.

At that time, our next-door-neighbours had three teenage sons, all of whom rode bikes. The boys used to come home late at night from the pub and rev up their machines in the alleyway between our houses while my sober family were tucked up comfortably in their beds. It drove my father nuts. I used listen to him raging in the bedroom next door. He was a mild mannered man in the general course of life, but when something got to him he would curse like a demon. For my part, on those evenings, as I snuggled down further under the covers listening to that beautiful, meaty roar reverberating in the alleyway below and to my father ranting apoplectically on the other side of the bedroom wall, I knew then, with absolute certainty, that one day, when I grew up, I would own the noisiest, sexiest bike on the planet.

At the age of twenty, in my second year of college, up north in Kingston upon Hull, a fellow student who had blown his grant offered me an old BSA Goldie for a knockdown price. There was no terrified mother or ranting father lurking in the background now; nothing to stop me fulfilling my dreams. Unlike the guy selling the bike (who, I seem to remember, was always covered in oil and grime) I knew nothing at all about motorcycles (actually, I still don’t: I just like to ride them) and, never being very wise in the face of an obsession, I said ‘yes’ immediately. For two weeks I rode this beautiful, oily, vibrating heap round the back streets of Hull, working out what the controls did, how to make it go round corners and falling off.

Fortunately, another friend came to my aid and gave me some basic lessons in how to keep the shiny side up - and (thank you, Steve!) how to overcome some near-suicidal tendencies. He’d been a mechanic by trade and did some work on it for me. He turned a near wreck into something great to look at and lovely to ride and didn’t want a penny for doing it. He just loved working on bikes. When I wasn’t out riding, I practically lived round his house talking about engines and clutches and timings and taking it all in. And it was there that I met Hugh.

Hugh’s great ambition in life was to be a champion shoplifter. His fascination with this art was tempered by his socialistic principles, which only permitted him to lift items from big retailers. But that, as they say, is another story. In other ways, Hugh was a fresh-faced twenty year old, as innocent and naïve as I was and, like me, he spent his time putting effort into pretending he wasn't. Let’s face it, he had to be to naïve to agree to ride pillion behind me on a five hundred mile trip down to Exmoor. He’d seen me ride, for god’s sake. At the time I took this trusting attitude for an act of friendship. In fact, it was probably pure idiocy on his part

That autumn the weather was brilliant, we shared a love for rough camping and we were both bored with everything about university life, so one afternoon, sitting in the Student’s Union ‘Buttery Bar’, we decided to bunk off lectures for a week and disappear down to Devon - on the bike.

It was a great holiday. One of the best I have ever had. The sense of freedom was tremendous. Every night, we split our sides laughing. We fell off the bike three times and didn’t give a "poo poo". And it was on that trip that I learned to ride.

But I need to get back to the subject of slugs.

On the second or third day of the holiday, as a warm afternoon turned into a chilly, overcast evening, we rolled into the tiny village of Exton. For reasons that will soon become abundantly clear, I don't remember much about Exton, except that the village was tucked away in a valley in the middle of the moors. We were, of course, looking for a pub. There was only one, as I recall. I forget what it was called, but it was a real Devonshire country pub with a bare scrubbed floor covered in sawdust, minimal decoration, and a handful of suspicious locals sitting at the tables. Behind the counter and dominating the bar room where two enormous vats. We strode up to the bar manfully, projecting more confidence than we felt and asked the landlord if he had any local cider. I swear the whole pub went silent. The barman looked at us quizzically for a long moment and then asked if we wanted sweet or dry.

We ordered a pint each. An absolutely still and unfrothy golden liquid was drawn from one of the two huge vats into two pint tankards and placed before our glowing, innocent faces. We took them to a table and sat down. And it was there, on that suddenly chilly evening, that we discovered the nuclear potency of real Devonshire home brewed scrumpy. It was a rite of passage. The cider was thick and oily with bits of apple floating in it. I was unused to strong alcohol. One mouthful and it went screaming straight to my head. By the time I’d downed half a pint, a state of blissfull happiness had overcome me and the bar room had started to move about all on its own. Hugh was looking ridiculously sombre.

An hour later we staggered out of the pub, and onto the bike. How far we got, or how we managed it I cannot tell, but at some point we found ourselves riding across a bare field and then lying in a dry ditch. We were apparently all right, a bruise or two here or there, perhaps, I can’t remember. All I do remember is finding that serious look on Hugh’s face incredibly funny. And after that, nothing. Hugh, I and the bike spent the night in the ditch where we lay.

And it was sometime early the next morning that, awakened by a light drizzle, I opened a pair of bleary eyes and watched, for the first time, the extraordinary mating ritual of the common slug.

Now, bear with me on this one.

Until that moment, like most people, I had never thought of slugs as anything other than revolting, squishy things that ate your garden produce. This moment was to change all that - for ever. I’ve seen mating slugs dozens of times since, in gardens and campsites and in the hedgerows, and it is always the same. It is just simply one of the most erotic things the natural world has to offer.

It happens like this.

A mating pair travel slowly, nose to tail, across the ground towards the nearest vertical surface; a tree or a wall or something similar. Normally slugs are shy creatures that shrink from touch or strong light. But in this state of arousal they are absolutely heedless of all danger. They climb together, up the vertical surface, let's say a wall, until about two feet from the ground they separate and take up positions eighteen inches apart. This all takes place with a grace and slow potency that is totally unsluglike. Their mating ritual then begins in earnest. The two slugs begin to circle round and around, all the time looking at one another.

(If, on a wet night you witness this, forget about what you are doing and stop to watch. But bring your sandwiches, because it doesn’t happen very fast.)

For twenty minutes the pair continue to circle, gradually - very gradually - getting closer and closer to each other until eventually their bodies meet. That moment of contact is amazing. They continue to circle but now their bodies twist together also. And just when you think they must surely fall from the wall, they drop – but they don’t fall. One of them has spun a thick, silvery thread. Together they hang from this thread, their bodies twisting together in an amazing embrace: and always, their coupling is slow, rhythmical, mesmerising .

After ten minutes of this tender foreplay, their sexual organs appear. Slugs are hermaphrodites so there is no differentiation of sex and their organs are all identical. These organs emerge from their necks (or what would be their necks if they had any) and at first they appear as luminous blue rods - in total contrast to the dull colours of their bodies. But gradually the rods unfurl into two beautiful glowing fans. And as their bodies continue to twist slowly round each other, these fans are laid together, like clasping hands, and they too twist and turn together.

Then suddenly and without warning, it's all over: the fans refurl, the rods disappear back into their bodies, one of the slugs drops off to the ground and the other makes its way back down the wall. And that's it. They then go off in their separate ways to find something to eat or to get squished underfoot. The whole ritual has taken nearly an hour. Imagine spending a whole hour in extreme sexual excitement, 'cos I swear they are in fun all that time. The slug which drops off back to the ground is so totally gone that it never seems to harm itself, even though it sometimes makes a very painful slapping sound as it hits the deck.

And since that day, lying in the ditch in the middle of Exmoor, I’ve never been able to kill a slug.

Last night, in all the rain, as I was wheeling my bike back up the alleyway, I saw a pair of slugs, nose to tail crossing my path and heading for a wall. I waited respectfully for about three minutes to let them pass, then carried on. It was just as I turned the corner onto the hard standing that suddenly I had to shift my foot to prevent myself from treading on another of the little buggers half hidden under a leaf. I lost my balance and the bike nearly went down. It leaned to at least to 60 degrees before I caught it back. Something extreme happened. I don't know what. I don’t know where I found the strength to keep it from falling. Maybe, it was the strength of a lifelong obsession. Whatever it was, it came from deep inside. Bikes are just as sexy as slugs after all though not as resilient when they fall. So, I guess there was just no way I could let it fall. Was there?

Wow, Dude.

Slugs, eh? Uuumm, wow.

Dam.