|
|
Part 1 |
Bottom |
Part 2 |
Picture Gallery
First time round
I first became interested in biking at the tender age of eighteen. An ex boyfriend, Nigel,
took me pillion on a Honda CD200 - I found myself completely unafraid and loving every minute
so that his original caution soon vanished. It was as if I were supposed to be doing
this...
I later learnt the basics in a supermarket car park, using the two available CD200's in turn,
depending on which one ran at the time: one discovery was that you could get up to 40mph in a
car park..! I also rode pillion on a Honda CBX550F2 and, later, a Honda VT500. One of my
worst experiences ever was turning up at the B.M.F. rally in Peterborough in a Yugo; admittedly
there were four of us, and only one bike big enough to go the 100 or so miles South, but even
so.
I found that my perm soon became utterly squashed under my helmet,
so I lost my perm. In due course, I lost the boyfriend and the riding too.
The gradual return
For many years after that, biking was just something I had enjoyed and wasn't quite ready to
do. But after moving down South in 1993, I started to think about it; I'd never really got on with cars, had
never had any motorized independence, and I kept seeing nice bikes and thinking increasingly
wistful thoughts about riding them.
In the end, it took a trip to Glastonbury in November 1995 (I was
attending Tom Graves' wyrd lecture there and meeting him
for the first time) to seal the decision. I sat on a 550cc Suzuki owned by a former boyfriend
of Lorraine (owner of Pomegranate Products and a biker herself)
and found that in spite of being short, I could get both feet flat on the ground. This was
the first time I'd had any such experience with a Big Bike, so the grin was wall to wall.
Once home, Helen, a colleague of mine, showed me an advertising feature
for a riding school in
St Albans, so along with Karola, another colleague with ambitions of B.M.W.'s (she's a German
and somewhat taller than me) reserved our places on the C.B.T. in January 1996. After
Christmas, during which Karola's back seized up completely, she pulled out and I attended the
C.B.T. with my then husband, Chris.
I chose a little white CG125 - I don't like two strokes very much and, after some initial
trouble with clutch control, found myself whizzing round the carpark with an enormous grin on
my face - big enough for the CBT tutors to recognise and comment that I was really having one
serious whale of a time. I came out of the C.B.T. with my certificate and the nickname Evel
Knievel! I also ached quite dreadfully for some days afterwards.
Boris and the bikeling
I then began my bikeling apprenticeship in earnest, two hours at a time through the coldest
parts of the year. About three lessons in, I had my one and only real prang (though I did
drop the bike on more than one occasion after that) in Harpenden High Street on a Saturday
lunchtime - plenty of audience, and totally embarrassing. I was riding a black CG125 and,
pulling out of a T-junction, failed somehow to steer and went straight into the opposite kerb.
I just saw it coming; it's at moments like these when one's mind goes blank, certainly as a
learner. I scraped my elbow, put a six-inch bruise on my hip, and bent the front fork of the
CG. After that, my tutor started calling me Terminator, but I got back on and later redid the
same junction without mishap.
I failed my first test in March; funny how one can disentegrate into a gibbering mass of
nerves. U-turns were always my bugbear, but I failed on a variety of other things too. Maybe
the headlamp falling off beforehand was an omen. Anyway, I rang up for a retest and they had
one the next day, so I did it again the next day: same examiner, uh-oh. I only failed on two
things instead of virtually everything, but I was much more relaxed and treated it as a nice
ride out.
Less than a week after that, I bought my first ever vehicle: Boris, a blue
CG125. I promptly
did my back some mischief by failing to learn how to use the centre stand properly; when the
muscles had healed up I got the knack.
Boris and I did some 1400 miles together in the three months I had him. With that little bike,
I learnt how to clean carbs and inline filters as the tank was rusty and all manner of crud
came down through the fuel tubes. I also started really learning
how to ride.
I finally passed my test in June 96, and was high as a kite. I wasn't a bikeling any more - I
was a biker! The very next day, Boris broke down on the way to work - I found out just how
much uphill there was between where he conked out and where I lived. My muscles have
really developed since I started biking!
I took Bucks Fizz to work and got teased about drunk-driving; I was, however, too hyper to
drink more than plain orange juice.
Top |
Part 1
Part 2 |
Picture Gallery
This page created
Last update 30 Apr 2007
© 1996-2007 White Raven
The Wild Wyrd World
Annwn, the Wild Wyrd Web Site
Affordable
Astrology Reports
Raven's Roads: Travels, Motorcycles and Writing
Markeroni, the Gentle Art of
Landmark-Snarfing
|
