Some days are good, and some days are bad. Some days are almost artistic, a blur of motion, of speed through the chaos of traffic, a continuous flow of pick-ups and drops. The money piles up rapidly. Other days are hell. The jobs are all over the shop, the bike takes on an unerring instinct for the side of cars, and wrong turnings or forced survival manoeuvres take me way out of my way. The money sucks, the rain pours down and the cold freezes parts that my blood can no longer reach.
That just about sums up despatching in the UK. I've been doing it, on and off, for about nine years, which included a period a couple of years ago when we were really scrapping the bottom of the barrel for work. I've gone through loads of motorcycles. The most fondly remembered, the RS250 Honda - I owned three of the things and would have bought a new one had they still made them.
Back then you could still get the odd low miler in reasonable condition. The engine would last for 25 to 30,000 miles before the whole thing was ready for the scrap-heap - its biggest downside was built-in obsolescence. But apart from that, in its size, performance and frugality it was perfectly designed for despatching in Central London.
Time and time again, I found myself nipping through tiny gaps at incredible velocities, leaving things like CX500's and GT550's stranded, like whales in a fishpond. Okay, it ran out of power at 80mph but that kind of speed was, anyway, impossible in London - not if you wanted to live a long time and avoid having helicopters full of cops on your tail.
When good RS's became rare - and if you need reliable DR transport the last thing you need is a bad one - I moved on to VT500's. Compared to the little Honda thumper it was a bit of a wheelbarrow, with awkward handling and a limited turning circle, despite being a narrow vee-twin and not weighing much more than 400lbs. The good thing about VT's was that they could run to 50,000 miles in total neglect mode, and do twice that with just a little bit of tender loving care.
Fuel was always poor, mind, around 40mpg when subjected to the usual DR abuse and the front end was a bit of a disaster area after 25000 miles, with everything seizing up (a GT550 front end can be bodged on to good effect). But a couple of weeks hard hustling got me used to the odd handling and I went through a couple of these bikes over the years.
Every time Honda make a good DR bike they end up discontinuing it, and again good VT's are somewhat rare. I didn't like the Revere, something about its excessive chassis just didn't gel with me but, again, the VT inspired engine is very tough indeed. I was almost won over by the rugged GT550 but they are well over-the-top for despatching in town, though reasonable value when its excellent engine life is taken into account - I know two people who have done over 200,000 miles on pretty much the original motor.
Purely by chance, I came across a cheap Honda Two-Fifty, low mileage, immaculate condition, etc. It's a nice looking machine but one based on the old 200 Benley motor, not exactly leading edge technology and way down on power compared to something like the grey import GB250 thumper.
Loaded up with all the usual DR gear, plus parcels and letters, the Honda was best described as sluggish, if comfortable and easy to manhandle through the chaos of London traffic. I don't know what they've done to the twin cylinder engine but it's a pretty appalling device compared to say an RS250! Lacking in both torque, power and character.
Once I'd adapted to the dangerous lack of go - it was so slow that it was dead easy to become prey to mad taxi drivers and drugged up cagers - I rode it through the winter, on the back of the hope that its lack of power would be useful on icy roads. That was sort of okay (yawn, yawn...) but then I found the poor old thing was merrily corroding away. The frame was a rusted relic, the petrol tank more brown than red and the poor old engine had the pure white gut-rot demonstrative of cheap alloy propped up only by clever use of lacquer.
Basically, six months of despatching, through admittedly very desperate weather, destroyed the chassis. Such was its decline that I felt no inclination to attend to the basic needs of the motor, which reacted with its own mechanical decay, chiming rather than ringing with ruined bearing surfaces. With about 20,000 miles on the clock, the whole thing was beyond hope or salvage. Not even the most mean minded breaker had any interest in taking it off my hands, even when offered it for free.
However, it had turned in 75mpg and cost next to nothing to run, worked out at about £50 a week in depreciation even if I put a match in the petrol tank. In fact I sold it for £200 after doing a cleaning blitz and putting in fresh oil. Had it rained overnight it would never have gone, because it would just take the tiniest bit of moisture to bring out all the corrosion.
I'd already seen that the end was in sight, bought a cheap GS450E. This is another strange bike that has shown little or no progress since its inspiration, the seventies GS400 twin, came out. An old design more or less limited by modern noise and pollution laws, that offers only a mediocre riding experience, if one that's entirely adequate for despatching - at least it had a touch more go than the Honda!
Whilst battering and barging my way through London on this most Micky Mouse of motorcycles, I spied an NX650 Honda (well, yes, I'm rather biased in favour of this brand of cycle) for sale outside a North London dealers. I approached it with deep suspicion as it was the kind of store known for dealing in crashed and stolen machinery, but the trail based thumper looked exceptionally clean and tidy, in line with the 4500 miles on the clock.
The GS had just received its monthly clean and shone in the sparkling light of a London summer afternoon, the kind of day when Joe-Cager overheats in his car and begins to wonder whether this motorcycling business might, after all, have some merit. As I work in the black economy I usually have a few thousand quid secreted on my person, and when offered an extravagant trade-in deal on the GS had no hesitation about making up the difference in cash.
What a difference a good motorcycle can make. The NX's rather like a tall version of the RS, only with about four times the go and an alarming propensity to pop large wheelies at the merest throttle provocation. With the sun shining, the jobs flowing, the cagers cowering behind their wheels and the good old Honda roaring away in a most primitive yet enjoyable way, I was sporting such a large grin when I turned up at the office that the Controller accused me of being at the speed tablets again. Shit, who needs drugs when motorcycles can produce such highs, as well as loads of dosh?
The next day there was thunder and lightning, a torrential downpour of biblical proportions and dreadful trips through impossible traffic in desperate parts of London, where if you stopped for a moment you'd likely be hit with a steel bar and robbed if not male-raped...I cursed, screamed and hated the whole game until a brief burst of sunshine lifted my spirits. Such is life. At least the money's good and I can take a break when it all gets too much.
D.F.