I've been despatching in London for just over five years. A quick way to ruin a motorcycle, in this case a venerable Kawasaki GT550. Actually, most of the damage was done when falling off and most of the falling off was in the initial 5000 miles. Call me stupid if you like (and a lot of people do), but it took me that long to work out that the Japlops were crap in the wet and the wild slides were not necessarily normal fare for middleweight Japanese fours.
The habits of despatch riders take some describing, a lot of it as much mythology as reality, but the GT550 fits in well with the general reign of neglect, abuse and, er, madness. With shaft drive, gaitered suspension and a robust motor it's possible to get away with riding the bike into the ground over tens of thousands of miles.
The slightly bland nature doesn't help, either, as it's easy to hold the machine in utter contempt until it gets under the skin after the first 50,000 miles when it's usually too late to revive the old dear. Not that it stops running, or anything, just that it becomes so rotted and faded that there's no way to revive the sheen (of what is often merely a year old bike).
One fellow DR has achieved an enviable 296,650 miles, not out, on a basically stock GT550. The engine rattles and knocks like an old BSA single, the gearchange occasionally makes a noise like a machine gun going off and the handling is vague, to say the least, but it still grumbles into life every day and gets the job done. At the other end of the spectrum, some hoodlum blew up an engine in 32000 miles, a combination of mad wheelies everywhere and never changing the engine oil let alone the filter; a piece destructive testing that even the UMG would be proud of!
Engine bars are natural GT550 accessories, especially on OE rubber, saving the crankshaft from being written off on too many occasions on my own machines. They're also useful for taking narrow gaps between cages, the GT being a compact machine but not a particularly narrow one. Volvos are considered fair game amongst my crowd, though nothing more than a glancing blow can be indulged as they are quite tough cars, as likely to rip off the engine bars as they are to unfurl their own body panels. The density of the traffic and the layer of crud over the back end makes it impossible for cagers to wreak revenge.
All part of a DR's mad day out. The worst thing that ever happened to me was a big red bus that decided to ignore my right of way and a red traffic light. I pride myself on quick reflexes but God I'm not and there was no way I could transform Newton's law of action and reaction. By scraping past the bus I threw the bike in front of a totally shocked (senseless and reactionless) lady driver who found the softest impact area with unerring accuracy - my leg! Scream? You could say that!
I still walk with a limp and was supposed to be off work for a year but I moonlighted for nine months of that, a partially plaster encased hero. The bus driver was never traced and my own insurance company was not too amused at the revelation that I'd been despatch riding. I had no choice but to work, what with the mortgage, family and pile of money owing on the GT.
There didn't seem any way that I could've avoided the accident in retrospect, even if I'd been riding within the speed limits and not been trying to make up time. There is nothing you can do when the Grim Reaper makes an appearance, you just have to go with the flow and make the best of it. A minor consolation was that my leg, having absorbed the worst of the impact, saved the GT from any serious damage, just the usual bent ancillaries - you have to do something very wild to bend the frame, although I know one guy who walked away from a banana shaped GT. Ran, actually, as he didn't have any legal documents and there was nothing left worth salvaging.
The most hilarious moment was when the bottom yokes started to crack up! One moment I was speeding along in my usual inimitable style, the next thing I knew the front end was jabbering all over the place. I had the presence of mind to use the back brake and gearbox to lose speed. By the time I was down to 10mph, the front forks were almost horizontal and the engine was churning up the tarmac. That I didn't fall off shows what a lucky little bugger I am. Damage wasn't too great, just a new set of yokes. Well, the chassis had done 197,450 miles at that point and was on its third engine!
The crowd of pedestrians who formed to view the radically elongated Kawasaki, were at a loss for words, as were the two van loads of cops who descended on the scene full of fear of yet another terrorist incident. They at least helped me pull the stricken GT up on to the pavement, which allowed the cagers to get back to whatever they do when not playing on their horns. I got a mate to give me a ride to the nearest breaker where the necessary bits were acquired.
The GT was also quite adept at throwing off the back the larger parcels. Losing a parcel when working as a DR is likely to send one's controller into a frenzy of abuse and threats, although as I see it, any client stupid enough to expect a van sized parcel to be delivered on a motorcycle, over London's pot-holed roads, in one piece gets exactly what he deserves. This is not, though, a point of view to venture when receiving a dressing down that would put the average British army sergeant major to shame. You either take it, burst into tears or tell them to f..k off.
The latter wasn't recommended a couple of years back when there was an excess of DR's and a scarcity of work, even these days good companies are the exception rather than the rule. My third mirror helps, angled so that I can sneak a view of what's affixed out back and I've even attached an umbilical cord between myself and the parcel.
Not a perfect solution, as one box that was heavy enough to be full of gold bullion, fell off and tried to pull me off the bike with it until the bungee cord stretched beyond its point of elasticity (yes, I did go to school once upon a time), the end of the cord coming back at about 200mph and taking a great big furrow out of my favourite crash helmet. At least I was able to retrieve the box and apologize to the pedestrian who was screaming as if the flight of box into his person had broken his leg! I cleared off before he was able to stagger upright and demand retribution! Nothing like being a good citizen and this was nothing like being a.....
Which reminds me of the time I came out of a building after making a delivery to find a couple of kids trying to prise open the panniers and top box. I screamed something at them as I rushed down the steps, being old fashioned enough to believe in the sanctity of property and that a bunch of kids should be terrified of a large, leather covered person waving his hands about. The nearest kid turned around and gave me a punch in the kidneys that dropped me dead. Only a troupe of OAP's descending on the hooligans made them hop away, full of merriment and audacity. I sort of crawled my way up the GT and back into the world of the living, whilst the ancients waved their walking sticks and grumbled about the modern world - I tended to agree with them at that moment.
It's a big enough hassle just staying alert for eight to ten hours in the saddle every day without that kind of trauma. One of the advantages of keeping a bike for a long time is that the riding position can be set up to suit oneself perfectly, which along with a comfy seat that I modified myself, means it's usually not quite purgatory. I know some people who find despatching so punishing that they have no interest in motorcycling over the weekends but I've got one of the first CBR600's for kicks; it's the kind of machine that ignites passion in even the most worn out motorcyclist.
Very few DR's end up dead or, worse still, as vegetables, although almost every one has at least one serious accident - some call it character building but I reckon you only get so much luck in life and somewhere along the line the markers are called in. I'm not complaining, it's a pretty neat crack and never boring.
K.L.