Aw shit! I thought I’d got over it. Oh, it’s probably only nostalgia. Anyway, this is how it all started. At the age of 14, I fell in love with a greasy Victor Mature lookalike who lived up the road. Well, not him exactly, rather his flash new Triumph - big, beautiful beast that it was. I used to spend ages gawping at it on the way home from school, yet, I don’t think I ever had to say hello to its owner.
That bike set the seed. My teenage fantasies were filled with me riding a big beautiful bike. Of course, it was only fantasy, because back in those days, any female who sought to ride a bike would have to be eccentric or something. All of my school friends spent their dinner hours sitting on the school wall beside the road, chirruping about Bonnies and the guys who rode them; their ultimate dream, to be Johnny or Ricky’s pillion: I dreamed of my own bike and no pillion.
The years passed and I made a full recovery. Peace and Love, beads and flower power took over. Mods and Rockers were just something I read about. The reality of work (you remember, your dad told you about it), marriage and babies followed. Naturally, so did divorce. I kept the home fires burning, swung out of the chicane and started to plan a future for the kids and me.
I went to college to get some A levels, hoping to eventually get a degree and become a solicitor. All very well, but I needed transport. My bank manager (the old fashioned sort that you keep in the wardrobe) gave me a loan for a car. So, I promptly went out and bought a second-hand Honda CB125S. The bank manager wasn’t amused but I thought I caught a nostalgic twinkle in his eyes.
In the days before the current restrictions, it was not the largest machine I could have ridden as a learner, but age and single parenthood had diluted the teenage fantasies. All the same, I refused to listen to envious and stick-in-the-mud friends who tried to persuade me that a little moped was more appropriate for a thirty year old mum.
I paid £200 for my little bike, and was thrilled to discover that fully comp insurance cost peanuts for ancient novices. So, instead of purchasing a cheap Kangol as per the original budget, I splashed out on a super-trendy Shoei full face. Talk about street cred, I was obviously ahead of my time.
"You will deliver it, won’t you?" I nervously asked the dealer, terrified that I might have to ride it home. He did, at no extra charge. It was just adorable. I spent hour after hour touching it, polishing it, sitting on it. Eventually, I screwed up all my courage and turned on the ignition. I hadn’t the first clue how to start it. It took me two days to come to terms with the clutch and throttle combination and thus start moving! Having conquered beginners stall, I became quite blase, happily sailing around the quiet local streets, clocking a magnificent 15mph in first, paralysed by the thought of stalling if I tried to change up.
After three weeks of this daredevil cruising, I realised that I was not doing the bike justice, or a lot of good, so I placed an ad in the local rag: Wanted - experienced motorcyclist to teach learner. I had one reply - Ian Bishop. He taught me how to ride my Honda, how to take it to bits and, even better, how to put it back together with nothing left over. He also introduced me to his local bike club. To my surprise, the Forty-One Club immediately accepted me as ‘one of the lads.’ I really felt great; it left coffee mornings standing.
My little bike took me everywhere for the next four years and only went sick a couple of times with minor ailments. It consoled me when I failed my test and usefully advised me to remove the mirrors, so that the next time the examiner would notice me checking behind!
Then, I was blinded and deprived of my brain by love. The little Honda sat neglected for a year whilst I was chauffeured everywhere by car. I sold it in the end and it was then written off by a youth who should have known better. That might have been the end of my story, but it isn’t.
Prince Charming lost his charm and my oldest son finally convinced me that he was responsible enough to handle a motorcycle. He had obviously paid great attention when I sermonized, in the past, on the dangers of car drivers who lie in wait at left-handers, radiators snarling ready to wipe up unwary bikers. He had all the right answers to my fearful misgivings. Anyway I gave in, either to his brilliant case or for a quiet life; I can’t remember which.
He worked like blazes and never went out. His clothes became tatters, because, as we all know, to a biker, the beast comes first no matter what. I got heartily sick of eating, sleeping and living bikes. I’m sure it never got me like that! Finally, it arrived. A Suzuki DR125SZ. Personally, I’ve never liked trial bikes, they look too skeletal and flimsy.
This one didn’t look that bad, perhaps I’d just never looked at these models with discernment. I dutifully admired it and followed as bidden into the field at the back of our cottage. (Not our field, of course, but the owner lives hundreds of miles away. What the eye doesn’t see, etc.)
I smiled to myself as he cautiously kicked it up and stalled it. I sighed, thinking back to my own long winded attempts to get mobile. And he was off... round the field, like a duck to water. I had to admire him. Then he broke my heart, as only children can. The engine hardly warm, he dismounted and insisted that I have a turn on his pride and joy.
Gingerly, I mounted. Perhaps they made them differently nowadays? Perhaps I’d forgotten how to ride, to manage the gears and the brakes? Oh hell, I’m 42, perhaps I’m just too bloody old! I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth, and, with an audience of bewildered little ones fearing for their mama’s life, I took off around the field. And round again. And again. I screeched to a halt in front of my proud offspring. Shaking like a leaf I thanked number one son and went indoors for a fag.
Aw, shit!
Back came all the old feelings and memories. Especially, that heady freedom of an empty road in the early hours. I’ve obviously got a terminal case of bike fever. Now, I’m saving for a bike and sidecar. Fashion’s right out, unless it’s white with fringes. But do solicitors ride big, beautiful bikes? This one will!
Lynn Dornford-Robertson