I had always fancied having a bike but it wasn’t until my boyfriend (yes, it’s another girlie - we're coming out of the woodwork, Bill) decided to resume his motorcycling career with the purchase of a Guzzi 850T3 that I decided that I could definitely cope with having a bike of my own.
We heard of a crashed Yam RS100 at a breakers and I was soon the proud(?) owner of a badly bent bike and a heap of spares for the princely sum of exactly £100.
Although the front end was a mess and the frame bent (both replaced from the mass of spares), the bike was suffering more from bumps and bruises than any major injuries. There were no signs of rust, it was three years old with 3000 miles on the clock. Even I could see the potential.
It needed new chain, sprockets, battery and lots of time sorting out the bike - nine months, in fact, but mainly because I wasn’t there to nag away at my boyfriend. I had to push it to my local training ground as my licence hadn’t arrived. After a few sessions I was ready to hit the road.
My first few journeys were conducted in tandem, the Guzzi steadily thumping off down the road and my little bike wingding-dinging madly in its wake. Soon, however, I was screaming all over my home town on the little machine and generally having a ball.
I just used to thrash it in all the gears and the bike just seemed to love it, although I never managed more than 65mph (down hill with a following wind) but the acceleration of my little two stroke single up to 40mph was great stuff. I could scream off from the traffic lights leaving Escorts in my wake, but by the time I’d reached 35mph in third power delivery was dissipating and the Escort drivers drove past, shaking their heads with superior smiles on their faces, but at the next set of traffic lights...
Nothing ever seemed to go wrong with my bike. The headlights had the unnerving habit of dimming when I applied the brakes, the indicators either winked once every five seconds or stayed on all the time.
I’m not sure that the concept of handling can be applied to such a little lightweight bike, I used to negotiate corners with my patented point and pray method. This basically comprised of keeping the bike going in the desired direction and desperately hoping that I would make it round the corner.
Mind you, given the performance, this technique could be used for most of the time. The only time I was really caught out was at the beginning when I was feeling a little over-confident. After approaching the bend at too high a speed, I ended up going straight across the road and onto a grass verge. I sat there smiling and doing my best dumb blond act at the bloke who had been driving the oncoming car. He looked justifiably unimpressed and I don’t blame him, if he hadn’t had such good reactions then my motorcycling career would have been over before it had barely begun. Still, I’m told such embarrassing and terrifying incidents can be put down to experience (or lack of it in this case).
I decided to take my test and get rid of the bike. The latter, I’m sure, caused it to play up. First it cut out and I had to push it a mile home. Then the engine started overheating and I feared I'd have to buy a new oil pump, but it only needed adjusting.
When test day arrived I was tense and apprehensive. Two hours later I pottered back grinning maniacally - I had been sure the bike would seize on me or cut out or some other such horror but it behaved. The following day I sold it for three hundred quid.
The only maintenance I gave it was the occasional oil top up, the odd plug chop if I was feeling particularly mechanically minded (and my boyfriend suggested it’d be a good idea) and when I was feeling totally bored I sometimes gave it a clean.
Although I only clocked up four thousand miles in the year that I owned it, they were almost totally trouble free and I don’t feel that the bike owed me a thing. After the RS I was totally hooked on having a bike and began looking for a 250, but, as Hammy the Hamster used to say, that’s another story.
Carol Bond