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Biking :
Miscellaneous
Wyrd Motorcycling Part 1 - In The Beginning (up to 1993)
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Geasa: wyrd themes
There are some issues that always come up time and time again in a person's life, and we can't do anything
about
them except perhaps acknowledge that they are there and try to enjoy them. These are
best described as the word geasa (plural) which was the often terrible fate
inflicted on a hero or monarch by the gods, a significant handicap to that individual's
power.
Our own geasa are not often
terrible: I'm rather glad of one of mine! It's the wyrd of biking; every time
something important crops up in
my life, there is a biker theme somewhere close to hand.
How it all started
I started biking at the age of eighteen, and stopped again when I split up with that
particular boyfriend! However, he always told me that biking was in my blood and he
was right. My Dad
was a biker, though he stopped after a rather nasty accident involving a learner
driver and a
shop window, and naturally his experiences rather coloured my opinion of biking myself.
But let's take a few steps back. I suppose I had always liked motorcycles, even as a
child. When I went to university I did think about getting a bike, but decided I couldn't
afford it (which was perfectly true; however, parental ideas also played their part).
But my first true biker-to-the-rescue incident occurred in
1990 whilst I was living out in Germany, in Dortmund, as part of my studies.
Germany
I didn't much like it there; aged twenty, I was supposed to be teaching English to "children"
only one or two years younger than myself, students who knew much more about English
grammar than I did. Added to
this was a ni.htmlare landlady whose obsession with cleanliness and tidiness made home less
than homely.
Ultimately, she decided she didn't want me there because I'd left dust on the skirting boards.
I needed to find a new flat, quickly, and this was very
difficult because there was a huge shortage of student-budget places, partly because
of the Berlin wall coming down and
the resultant huge influx of East Germans coming to settle in the West. I was hundreds
of miles from home, desperately
upset and homesick, and I'd had enough.
Earlier, I'd met a woman called Ute Axthelm through a walking group. Although I'd
decided that the group was
not for me, I remained in contact with her and, on hearing the news, she put me in touch with
her daughter, Hilke, who was staying with her boyfriend whilst holding onto her own flat just
in case things went wrong and she had to move back! She just so happened to be looking
for a sub-tenant.
After considerable string-pulling with help from my teacher-mentor and Hilke herself, I was
able to sub-let the flat, and became relatively happy there. It came as a surprise when Hilke, probably the most mellow
landlady I've ever had, turned up to collect the rent, wearing her red and black leathers and
riding a large red motorcycle.
Another friend I made out there, an English student called Ann, had a boyfriend with whom she
split life savings to buy a bike of their own. Even though they later parted company and
he wrote off the bike in a crash, Ann and Hilke firmly fixed the seed that eventually
developed into my own desire to ride.
Top |
Part 1 |
Part 2 |
Part 3 |
Part 4 |
Part 5
Biking :
Miscellaneous
Wyrd Motorcycling Part 1 - In The Beginning (up to 1993)
This page created 12 Oct 1996
Last update 30 Apr 2007
© 1996-2007 White Raven
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