I'm old enough to be suitably moved by the feeling of nostalgia that sweeps over me when, these catastrophic days, I wander into bars in Cardiff. For a time these places were actually protected by huge bouncers who but rarely let me through their rarefied portals, but a couple of years of recession had sent these mere mortals on to more upright entertainments, such as collecting debts or catching rats; a species who bred faster, but, I suspect, only just, than unmarried teenage mothers heaped with social welfare excesses.
Surreal, too, are the number of old British bikes braving the roads. In just a day I saw one of those early 750 Commandos (complete with hi-rise bars), a sixties Bonnie in mild custom trim, a BSA A65 that left a trail of oil and, god help us, an Ariel Arrow that looked so faded I figured it had been on the road for thirty, forty years.
The retro boom the Japanese wanted to foist upon us looks like falling by the wayside, unlike in Nippon we already have an excess of old bikes, both British and Japanese, that cost a fraction of the price of the new stuff. Why bother buying new when for a quarter of the price something much more individualistic is available? With roads almost unusable due to an excess of stalled cars more and more people are looking at bikers with envy; even if it hurts like hell when you fall off.
The current widening of the perception of motorcyclists as people other than demented hoodlums, together with the depreciations of the recession, meant I suddenly found myself able to wander into the depths of the great city wearing any kind of garb I chose; all anyone cared about was the colour of my money. Even the police appeared to have given up trying to apprehend unsavoury looking characters.
I must admit that my twenty year old leather jacket is sadly hung on the back of the door. Apart from a couple of holes in one arm it’s still intact, but the slightest hint of drizzle causes it to soak up the water like a sponge and retain it for the next few days. Street credibility is one thing, but not if it leads to the pneumonia ward. I tried various liquid cures but rather than stopping the ingress of water they merely left the jacket with a most unsavoury odour, like a feline had pissed on it.
Thus, will curious readers find me cutting a dash in one of those flamboyant Gortex jackets, more puke purple than stately blue. Don’t blame me, it was the one damn thing I could find in a desperate hurry that fitted reasonably, modern leather jackets being so stupidly designed that I could not tolerate them.
Imagine my horror when | found the outer layer soaked up the water even quicker than the leather jacket. It didn’t penetrate the inner layer so I suppose its manufacturer's claim to waterproofing can’t be wholly denied. I should have suspected as much; my gloves have several layers of hi-tech material under the outer layer of leather - my hands never get wet but the leather is of such poor quality that it also soaks up the water. It’s a strange feeling to be shuffling around carrying one’s own body weight in water on the outside and yet being dry inside.
About the only good thing that can be said for these garments is that they can be easily dumped, once off the bike and heading for the nearest warm bar. Even that has distinctly weird overtones. Pick the wrong night or the wrong place and it's like turning up in some ghost town where the remaining populace have turned gay (judging by the lack of frails). Choosing the right pub on the right night is an entirely different matter - I have to fight my way to the bar, summon all my charisma to get served before the braying hordes and put my eyeballs back in my head, among other things, to keep from overloading on the excess of young skirt that substantially outnumbers the beer swilling, loud mouthed yobs who constitute the male minority.
It's pretty easy to tell the real motorcyclists (at least in winter) from the poseurs by looking at their footwear; anything effete likely to indicate they have never swung a leg over a bike. I always wear heavy-duty boots of some sort, not just because I want a fighting chance of surviving falling off a bike, but also because in these increasingly violent times a good sharp kick to the assailants kneecap is about the only way, apart from legging it, that I have of protecting the frail Fowler frame. I haven't found a boot that lasts more than a year yet, am currently checking out Frank Thomas’ one year warranty on their footwear. I figure I can't lose from such foolish largesse.
All that was needed to complete the visual overdose in the more amusing bars was a dozen or more Oriental frails dancing half nakedly on raised stages and.. . well, we won't go into that here. What was more (you need more, boyo?) the atmosphere was miles away from the doom, gloom and despondency that prevails on the political circus and even in the pages of most motorcycle magazines; it was reminiscent, nay nostalgic, of the sixties.
Remember them? ’Course, just as distance lends a rosy glow to memories of any number of old dogs (motorcycles not girls...) so that particular era, of which I only just caught the tail end, doubtless had lots of nastiness but so penal were the last few years that just about anything has to be better.
And it seems, perhaps fittingly in these liberated days, that the frails are leading the way. These are not yer feminist witches, either, but hard drinking, pill popping, loose dressing, fast talking independent young women who were they not inconvenienced by too short dresses would doubtless swing a leg over a pillion perch and enjoy a fast and furious tide, helmet-less naturally, along the dementedly curvy back lanes that are but a helmet’s toss away from the centre of the Welsh capital. Where motorcycles are, anyway, becoming rather more de rigueur as they can be safely tucked away in the hall rather than in the street, where the average GTi hatch is mere fodder for the hordes of youthful vandals who seem to wander these streets with all the freedom of headless chickens. The final piece in this liberation would be hordes of women taking up motorcycling...
As my last clash with the tarmac is but a distant memory, I’m afraid I've joined in with the excess of joy. it seemed the least I could do. The government having blown two grand per working person it doesn’t have just in one year (and before compound interest has an effect on the debt in the years it's going to take to pay it back), it would've been churlish in the extreme to have carried on in my usual sane and sensible manner (those who doubt such a thing should read some of the UMG contributors ). I felt sure if I got in the mood I could figure out how to live on several times my income.
Having already received one deservedly irate letter from an officer of law and order (after suggesting my idle moments were spent throwing eggs at passing plod - wrong country, mate) the details of two wheel abuse will have to remain thankfully obscure, but more often than not involved 12000rpm sorties just for the joy of hearing the snarl of the exhaust and killed the brake pads stone dead in half the usual mileage. I at least still held a firm enough grip on reality to know when to melt rubber in haste, if not outright paranoia.
I was, even in this heightened state of delinquency, put in my proper place by any number of truly mad youths who wailed pass, crouched down near their front wheel spindles on race replicas that were as outrageous in their hue as they were in their monthly HP payments. I didn’t really mind, I was old enough not to have to prove anything and they made themselves such easy fodder for loitering police cars that I'd probably arrive before them in the long run. I didn’t even begrudge them the fact that my excessive insurance premium was subsidizing their exuberance.
This feeling of good spirit was undoubtedly helped by a continuous loop of lan Dury on the Walkman, a motorcycle that revealed hidden depths of fury when relentlessly caned and the simultaneous demise of several old adversaries (nothing like putting the boot in when someone’s down). All I needed to do to complete the vicious circle was to lose twenty years worth of cynicism and nastiness. Or maybe not, where would the UMG be without it?
Bill Fowler
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