You dont know what you are missing until you have tried it. Then you either love it and explore it more or you just take it and leave it. i was lucky in the fact that My dad liked bikes (still does in fact). I was nine yrs old and we have moved to a new town, when dad came home one Saturday with a few boxes of bits, a quick glance and i was off out the door football in hand, Little did i know then what them boxes would do to me later on in my life, How much grief they would cause, the highs of feeling alive, the lows of days/weeks of work only to find the bike still would not run right. And it was all my dads fault.
At the age of sixteen i finally could have my first road legal bike hurray! It was a 1973 Honda C50, in bloody battleship Grey, complete with the full fairng windshield and legshields. No CBT then to ride a moped, so off we went me on the C50 and My dad on, the bike that he built from the box of bits, his BSA B31. I was in front so he could watch me ride and give hints tip extra when we would arrive at our destination ten miles away. I was alive, the wind was rushing through the £2 autojumble helmet i had brought 2 weeks before, my donkey jacket was stiffer than plank of wood, my £5 jeans off the local market let the wind rip through them like they were made of tissue paper, but i was alive, i was moving the world was mine i could go anywhere on this bike, the sun was shining the birds were singing , my bare hands were freezing, My doc martin boots were muddy, I had arrived, I was a biker at last!
Third roundabout in i was in the nearside lane, checked the massive mirrors to find where my dad was, as I wasn't sure which way to go. He was in the outside lane pointing straight over or so i thought. As I crossed over into the outside lane his pointing became more urgent, Slowly iI looked in the direction of travel just as i crossed the give way lines to the roundabout, it was then i noticed the Mercedes car coming around the roundabout and straight at me. My riding skills kicked inand i grabbed the front brake. yes the front brake on a 1973 C50, the front forks rose up higher the harder i grabbed then the tyre skipped across the tarmac and some alien screaming started from somewhere inside the cheap lid, shit thought I the bloody lid is haunted.
After a loud screech and a bang and another even louder screech, I opened my eyes to find myself sitting on the road in the middle of a two lane roundabout with the front end of a merc 2 ft away from me, to my left was a battleship grey seat less hondaC50 revving its head of whilst laying on its righthand side, the strong smell of petrol made me get up and walk across to the bike to find the cap had come of and my £0.50p of petrol was draining away across the road, like a wet snake. The merc driver then grabbed me by my shoulders and just shook me whilst shouting his head. My dad ran across and pulled the driver off me and gave him a mouthful back, whilst two old ladies walked towards the bike and dragged it across the road out of harms way and they even stood the bike up for me. After the old man had finished with the merc driver and had managed to get the old dears on their way, he handed me the petrol cap. As he watched I replaced the cap and shut the seat down Click.
"get back on then " he said
"i cant!" i stuttered from fear feck man no way was i going to ride agin it is feckin dangerous!!
"Get back on your feckin bike, I aint riding it home" was his words
With legs like jelly and an arse clenched so tight it could break walnuts i got on the bike started it and followed him to where we was going. By the time we had got home again that evening I was king of the road again, alive, running free and about to take over the world.
Still was all his fault, if he hadnt made me get back on, I would given up there and then.
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