In 1993 the worm was beginning to turn. At 38 I had a respectable husband, a responsible job and was accustomed to stepping from the passenger seat of a reliable small car. Some demon of delayed adolescence, aided and abetted by a new friend, who'd been a biker man and boy, found its way into my head. Why should I be driven everywhere? What sort of person was I if I was totally dependent on other people to take me from place to place? Wouldn't it be nice to have a bike again!
| saw her in a pot-holed yard: KOT8Y, to be known as Katy - a small black Honda with red speed stripes [last seen in 1999 - 2021 Ed.] turning her bars pathetically towards me, and showing some dimples in her number plate. Husband and friend negotiated laconically with the dealer. I had the sense to realise that I was totally at sea in a man’s world. If I wanted the bike at a good price I had better swallow my feminism, shut up and play the bored bimbo. We got the bike at a very good price. In fact, we came away with two bikes. My husband treated himself to an ex-despatch Maggot, and with silly grins on our faces we set off to buy leathers. You can't walk in black leather, you can only strut. It felt good. Very good!
Things had changed a lot since I wobbled out on to the open road on the Wisp. That was in the good old days before CBT, when men were men, women were women, and squashed learner bikers in the hedgerow were just kids having fun. I was appalled at the number of skills I needed before I could even take Katy out, and scared to death at the amount of power she seemed to have at even the smallest turn of the throttle. I had to take this mean machine through figures of eight, around U-bends, and in and out of lines of bollards.
The bollard exercise intrigued me - I mean when exactly would one use this strange skill? Is it even legal on the open road? Is this why one sees cone hotline numbers advertised at major roadworks, so that aficionados can leave messages for each other on their prowess? “Hey guys, Mitch managed to slalom fifty of the bastards before the police caught him...” Was this some obscure national sport of which I'd hitherto been unaware?
Also I had forgotten how to balance. I could turn the bike right with no problems but left was another country, separated by a glass wall - leaning even a fraction was a pure nightmare. I take my helmet off to the hard working and dedicated instructors at the East Dorset Motorcycle Training Scheme. It took me two attempts to get through the CBT, approximately nine months to complete a six session training course, and three attempts to pass my test. At times their faces wore the bright, desperate smiles of nursery school teachers who are hanging on to the ragged fringes of sanity by a thread and have just thought of a new place to insert the Lego bricks...
I discovered that Katy was a bit of a whippet around town - fast, devoted, reasonably reliable and endlessly forgiving of my inexpert gear crunching and unscheduled braking. She only dumped me once and that was hardly her fault as I'd been rammed up the backside by a blind Metro trying to drive over me on to a roundabout. Like me, she took a lot of warming up on cold mornings. I became adept at the one-legged Morris dance necessary to kick some guts into a cold two-stroke. I’m sure this is a contributing factor to my sciatica problems, but don’t dare admit it to the doctor who would think I was barking mad. She was abstemious in her drinking habits - £5 worth of petrol would easily see me through a fortnight, and the oil tank always seemed half full.
At thirty she purred, at forty she growled and at fifty she sang in a high rusty soprano. I hope I can do the same when my turn comes. The only thing that let her down was the electrics. Having a 6V system’s practically worse than useless. I had to hope that the traffic behind me was either clairvoyant or gifted with the eyesight of a hawk to make out the feeble indicators. Thank God the brake light worked, and I had mastered the art of hand signals. Not all the signals I used were actively recommended in the Highway Code, but, hell, it's dog eat dog out there and with shades and helmet no-one could recognise me.
| would undergo a complete metamorphosis every evening in the ladies’ loo at the office. Off came the smart clothes, on went the leathers and boots. The persona of the caring, responsible welfare advisor who mopped tears and sorted out problems for a living was unceremoniously dumped in a rucksack with the remnants of my lunch. On went the shades and the grin. I could ride past my colleagues in the car park without being acknowledged. In fact, there would be a distinct drawing aside of skirts as I went past. What’s the strange link between black leather and thuggery in the minds of the public? I was becoming a middle-aged tearaway in training for senile delinquency.
A brief word about women and motorcycles. Why are there so few of us? Why do petrol station attendants always assume we're male until we take our helmets off. What's the point of calling me a dickhead? Yes, I do understand the gesture, having returned it while simultaneously cornering and changing gear! A proud moment! How come only lorry drivers can tell the sex of a biker at fifty paces? Do they have X-ray vision or just an extraordinarily hopeful libido? Why can’t I get leather jeans that fit both my hips and waist? That's enough feminism for now. Suffice to say that although it’s fun to drift along as a pillion, nothing beats the feeling of absolute control when you're upfront in charge of the business end of the machine.
Absolute control and Katy didn’t always go together. I mentioned that it took me three times to pass my test. I can’t blame Katy for all the faults - she was carrying a very nervous rider - but I do feel it was a bit mean for the brakes to pack up just as I was attempting the emergency stop - I've seen better slaloms but not many!
Also, she took some coaxing on dual carriageways. It's all very well showing off in heavy traffic by overtaking lines of cars at a steady thirty, but I would’ve appreciated more acceleration in the higher gears. Even a gentle hill would have her grumbling in fourth and snarling angrily when I changed down. She also had a wicked habit of slipping back to neutral from second gear, and doing her best to stand still while screaming abuse at me. This caused a fair bit of white-knuckle roundabout work and didn’t do much for biker-motorist relations. The gears generally were like stirring treacle. I soon gave up trying to figure out which one I was in, and simply listened to the engine instead.
The day of my third and final test she pulled her meanest trick of all. With half an hour to go, all four indicators steadfastly refused to work. I knew how to change the spark plug. I knew how to check the tyres, check the chain, charge the battery, change the oil... I even knew the difference between a camshaft and a crankshaft but electrics were my weak point, which comes from being married to an electrical engineer.
One takes certain things for granted. With the help of a biker friend I did the only possible thing, took the indicators off. I suppose it’s a bit like threatening a stallion with the gelding irons! Katy then behaved perfectly, perhaps wondering what else I would hack off if it failed again. I'd taken a large screwdriver with me. If I passed it was to remove the L-plates. If I failed I was going to commit murder followed by Hari-kiri. Perhaps the examiner saw the glint in my eye. All I know is it felt pretty good to be dancing on those L-plates.
I'm trying to sell Katy now to a young friend of mine. He’s only 22 and has the recklessness to give the bike the workout it deserves. Me? I’ve got another bike. A real one, a Yamaha XS400 with a low slung seat and a full throated meaty roar from her gorgeous twin cylinders. She’s big, she’s heavy, she won't take any crap from anyone or anything. We're still circling round each other, the bitch and I. Like female mud wrestlers sizing up each other. She has the looks and the brawn. I only hope I prove to have the brain to rise to the challenge - it's going to be an interesting,relationship.
E. Andreoli