Winter. Unemployment. A 1981 Yamaha RD350 in the garage. Cafe racer set-up. Mildly tuned motor. Topped off by Microns and K & N's. A natural hedonist's tool. 120mph, 20mpg. Fantastic power kick at 6500rpm. Not the best bike to take despatching. Lies, lies and more damn lies got me a job. I was supposed to know my way around Central London. I hid the A-Z in my jacket. Rode like a lunatic to keep my journey times reasonable.
As soon as it rained the road turned greasy. Massive back wheel slides when the power cut in. The brakes were on-off switches. The tyres were Metzelers not far off the carcass. I came off within the hour. Full leathers and slippery road surface ensured my escape. Some desperate kicking put the RD to rights. Later, several times I had to put a boot down to save myself. Battered and bruised at the end of the day. I was threatened with the sack if I didn't work harder.
With new tyres, the next week was reckless, mad. I didn't get the sack, made all of £175. I survived the first month by the skin of my teeth. Fervent A-Z study meant I knew where I was going for most of the time. The trick was to ignore no-entry signs. And cut through pedestrians. Air-horns helped keep my momentum up. Had to ignore madly gesticulating police several times. Aided and abetted by a mud encrusted numberplate.
The RD didn't like the level of neglect and abuse. I was too tired to pay it much attention. Not interested in weekend riding for fun. My backside was too numb. My muscles too abused. An amazing layer of dirt had covered the LC. I quickly decided that it was a protective layer.
The chain was sagging. The brakes seizing on and off. The engine was stuttering at low revs. Needed new plugs every week. A pint of oil went west every day. In theory there was very little maintenance to do. In practice, strokers hard used in town usually turned nasty. The clip-ons and power band made me ride around in a frenzy. Experienced DRs just nodded their heads in pity. But, I got the work done. Making almost £300 a week!
Fitted a huge rack that took up much of the pillion perch. Two giant panniers and a massive top-box. Could carry loads of parcels. In one busy period had fifteen drops to do. Crazy! Speeding all over London trying to do them in an hour. No chance with police road blocks looking for terrorists. At least they didn't care about the state of the machine. Armed police, hard eyed and arrogant manners. What was the world coming to? Always left them on one wheel. To remind them that there was still some fun left on planet Earth.
Five weeks into the game had a serious accident. Probably my own fault. Doing 50mph between two lanes of stalled cages. The front wheel hit a patch of oil. Went away from the bike so fast there was nothing I could do. No room to fall over. Bike bounced off a couple of cars. Until the front end twisted inwards. Threw me right over the bars. Bounced off the wing of a car. Ended wedged between a couple of autos.
Enraged cagers screamed abuse at me as I shook myself upright. I was more concerned with the state of the LC. Bent forks, cracked wheel and smashed clocks. Half a dozen cages were dented. Thank god for insurance. Hell, I hadn't told them I was going despatching. Oh well, I could always change my name and move to Outer Mongolia.
The breaker run. LC's crashed so often I had to settle for a XJ600 front end. £125. What a rip-off. Couldn't afford to be off work for long, might get the sack. At least it had a decent brake that worked progressively in the wet. The higher bars made it feel like a rolling armchair. Luxury. Until I hit the M1 flat out. One pant staining speed wobble later. Figured I was lucky not to have been chucked right out of the saddle.
Eight weeks of despatching meant I had untold riches in the bank. A strange posture, troubled hearing and a fast growing bald spot. And an RD that sounded like a baby’s rattle. Judging by the smoke the piston rings had gone. Again! I was in time to salvage the bores. Got away with just rings and pistons. An 8-10,000 mile chore on a tuned motor.
Put in the third chain since starting despatching. Something to do with the missing cush-drive and a hundred wheelies a day. Soon took its toll on the clutch. Slip beyond 7000 revs and chattering noises. A Sunday morning job with good used components. Sunday afternoon I had the engine into the red. A silly smile on my face, racing with my mates. Motorcycles can be fun even on a cold January afternoon.
By then, I had massive confidence in my despatching abilities. Could match the work rate of veteran DR's. Not their running costs, though. Fuel and oil expenses were killing me. Sometimes I seemed to be filling up the tanks every hour! One time, oil was disappearing even faster than normal. A crack in the oil tank. From the excessive vibes the stroker twin put out.
On a brief stretch of a relatively empty road had a race with a car. The driver decided he wanted to kill me. Until I hit the power band I was easy meat for his bumper. Caught the back of my bike. Sent me wobbling off until I hit the gutter. Both feet down by then. Almighty tremors ran through the bike as it hit the kerb. If it had been heavier, I would have lost it. Instead wrenched my legs and back. The next day, could hardly walk. I crawled on to the RD and did a heroic day's work.
Handling seemed very loose after that. Made screaming between cars difficult. The back end was waggling around six inches either side. By the end of the day the bike was almost impossible to ride. The swinging arm bushes were shot. As were the mono-track bearings. I picked them up from the Yamaha dealer on the way home. Was up to 3.00am doing the job. Everything was corroded in solid.
By the end of January the motor was refusing to run at low revs. After much checking over, seizing carbs were diagnosed. I took them apart, sprayed them with some carb cleaner. Lasted for two days. It made for some interesting rides. 30mph achieved by screaming the engine in first. There was no such thing as gently rumbling through traffic. Laid back riding was impossible. A secondhand set of carbs did exactly the same trick. Yet another set worked fine at low revs. But made the engine cough and splutter come 6500rpm. As I was getting 35mpg I tolerated them for a couple of weeks before bigger jets were fitted. Those in the original carbs had welded themselves in. On LC350's alloy corrosion rules!
Yet another accident at the end of January. The tyres were bare again. Held no resistance to a huge patch of diesel. We slid across a junction in a huge semicircle. The cagers were awake for once. No-one ran me down. Ground down holes in my leather’s elbows and knees. The clothes and skin underneath survived intact. The LC looked a hundred years old but still ran!
Worked poured in after that incident. I was working so hard that the only meals I had were Mars bar snacks and odd doses of Coke. Looking around at the other DR's I could see my future. Bald, obese on excess refined sugar and blotchy skinned. Totally obsessed with motorcycles and sod all else. Gulp! I was only 19, didn't fancy that future at all! But the money was too good to turn down at that stage.
A sombre mood fell over the office after one of the lads was killed. A car had sped across a junction. Hit the bike right on. Didn't stop. Dragged the rider along under the car. Finished him off with the back wheels. He was dead by then so at least spared massive pain. The car was stolen. The kid behind the wheel doing a runner. He was never caught. The police didn't give a damn. We had a whip around for his pregnant wife and two kids. God knows what happened to them.
After that we all tried to ride sedately. Not easy on a tuned RD350. I soon concluded that if my number was up it was up. Might as well enjoy myself before they got me! The death had been entirely the fault of the car thief. Even riding sanely wouldn’t insulate me from the city's madness. February was bleak and miserable. Bad enough to have me flicking through the holiday brochures. Life was supposed to become better as the spring approached. You could have fooled me.
Then something happened that really broke my spirit. I had a delivery in Brixton. A big box to a back street warehouse. I found the place after asking half a dozen indifferent people. The patios they spoke down there only bore a passing resemblance to the Queen's English. I was levering the bungees off the box, hoping no-one would notice the dents. Three big brothers pounced on me. They flashed some knives. Suggested that I hand over the box and all the other parcels. And whatever money I had on me.
They looked evil and indifferent at the same time. The few people passing by appeared to ignore the incident. I did as they asked. Trying not to make any quick movements or antagonise them. I was sure the boss was insured for robbery. Wasn't going to risk my life for him. Bending over to pick up the last parcel, a huge shock ran through my neck. I staggered sideways. The next thing I knew was that they were kicking the shit out of me. Finally sated, the largest hoodlum warned me never to set foot on his turf again.
To add insult to injury, I found they had torn out the HT leads and then kicked the RD over. I found it difficult to walk let alone think about fixing the Yamaha. The police eventually turned up. They were more interested in my documents than apprehending the attackers. Told me by then they would be back in one of the no-go areas. Reckoned I should be thankful not to have been cut. Sure, sure!
By the time I was able to swing a leg over a running RD350 it was March. No chance of getting my old job back - the swings and roundabouts of the capitalist world - brought a sudden end to my taste for despatching. Considering that I had absolutely no experience, was riding at the wrong time of the year on a most unsuitable bike, I reckoned I'd done pretty well. To carry on, though, would've been pushing my luck.
Graham Prentice