This served me well during my recuperation and eventually I was able once more to get a small 250cc bike, which I christened "Elsie" since her Reg. number was J734 LCN. I sold the scooter, which, in retrospect, was a bad move. (See below)
A sweet little classic Honda in very good condtion, I thought it would serve me for what is left of my motorcycle life (I am approaching 81). I have managed it for two years but increasingly the neuropathy in my left foot/ankle made changing gear awkward and painful. I had to think about how to wangle my foot around the lever and this spoiled my riding, when it should be an unthinking action, snicked in automatically.
Regretfully she had to go and was advertised nationally on Ebay. An interested buyer got in touch. Could he come down to view the bike? I gave directions and soon the doorbell rang. When I answered it we both looked at each other and said together, "I know you!" He was an old colleague, a retired police motorcycle cop who I had worked with in the days when we both trained bus drivers. He was in remission from throat cancer and the treatment had left him weak so that, like me, he was looking to change his powerful, heavy bike for something smaller.
A deal was very soon done, and he came back the next day, driven by his wife, to ride it home. So we were both very happy. He had got a very reliable little bike and I knew it was going to a good home. But what an absolute coincidence. Advertised nationally, it went to an old friend and colleague!
So I was now, after 64 years of motorcycling, without a motorcycle of any kind. My memory went back to the twist and go scoot. I could still manage one of them. I used Elsie's sale money to look for and buy another! I have fitted a screen and hand shields and can report that it is cosy and comfortable at sub-zero temperatures. And I don't have the gear change problem!
A far cry from the heady days of my BMW 1000cc (owned and loved for 27 years), but at least I can still tootle around the lanes under two-wheeled internal combustion power!
11 comments:
Definitely a cosmic chuckle, meeting an old friend like that!
Glad that you are still awheel
gz:
Thanks! I see you are enjoying NZ to the full (but you always seem to enjoy your packed life to the full!)
Its always good when you sell something you have thoroughly enjoyed to someone who will also enjoy and look after it. It makes selling it almost a pleasure. I've often thought about getting something similar to use with the camper although its a long time since I have ridden a motorcycle.
I'm sure you'll have great fun with the Honda as its not only riding it thats enjoyable but also the tinkering and looking after it.
Dave:
So you understand the joy of passing on a loved object to another carer.
I can thoroughly recommend a "twist and go" small scooter as a tender for a campervan, especially for someone who hasn't ridden a "proper" motorcycle for some time. They are so ridiculously easy to operate, with little thinking involved. Just a handlebar throttle to go faster/slower and two handlebar brakes for stopping/slowing.
I agree than tinkering with bikes (of any kind) can be just as enjoyable as riding them. I have just converted my ebike from its original 7 gears to a custom 8 speed block.(11 to 34 teeth) Now I have exactly the ratios I need.
I sympathise wholeheartedly. I motorcycled for about fifteen years, not through any visceral preference but because I couldn't afford a car. Nor did I envisage my situation changing. In those days two wheels tended to be regarded as a stepping stone to four wheels; owning a bike and a car was something of a rarity. However, a year before I started working in the centre of London the writing was on the wall and I was driving a Bond minicar three-wheeler, a vehicle so amateurishly contrived it was more an act of comedy than a serious form of locomotion. It was eventually sold in order to buy an engagement ring for the woman I subsequently married.
All my motorcycles were bought on the cheap and each involved some form of technical or financial compromise. I fear I didn't love any of them. The first car I bought remains the vehicle I detested most, one reason being it represented all that was wrong with British car manufacturing of the time. My present car is easily the best car I have owned, in all departments (technical, efficiency, comfort and even value for money). I can't say I love it because I reserve that verb for activities that offer wider scope of experience than car driving, but I find it a reassuring beast. Since I garage it ever night I sense it reciprocates my ill-defined feelings towards it.
At this point you may be asking why I have even bothered to start this comment. On the subject of self-guided propulsion we are obviously poles apart; judging from your choice of language bikes have played a large and emotional part of your life, whereas my relationships have all been pragmatic. Yes and no.
Ironically my association with powered two-wheelers was prolonged by the first two magazines I worked on in London. Mopeds in the case of what was then called Cycling and Mopeds (now Cycling Weekly); real bikes in the case of Motor Cycling (the Green One) now defunct. The two-wheeler sensation (even at the 50 cc level) is unique and there have been odd moments during the past fifty years when I've allowed myself to yearn just a little, especially when it comes to multi-cylinders. By which I mean those with properly designed engines and quite unlike the Squariel where one had to "put up with" (how I hate that phrase) overheating rear cylinders, What has prevented me from spending money on this yearning is a personal analogy. Motorbiking has much in common with another of my enthusiasms, ski-ing - brilliant movement with no practical application. And on this latter point I would call into question your use of the word "cosy" at low temperatures. Surely a "cosy motorbike" is pure oxymoron. Never mind any consideration of the road surface when times are frosty.
Motorbikes, to me, are impractical, the more so as we get older. Which is not to say they are useless. They offer immediacy of control, a comparatively inexpensive source of exhilaration, a way of relishing one's own isolation, a closer relationship with the outside world, the temptation of speed, and - for those of the nerdy persuasion, of which I count myself - the visual pleasures of technology. A series of delights, in fact. Rather than viewing them as transportation, better to see them as a branch of sport.
I have gone on far too long but I've tried to purge myself of romanticism, and tried to be honest. I know full well you will disagree with my conclusions (your disagreement is implicit in the implications of a further phrase "a sweet little classic Honda"). But here and there we may say we at least share the same vocabulary.
I am particularly glad you've solved the gear-changing problem. At a cost, of course, since gear-changing on a bike is yet another of a bike's delights. Car drivers don't know what they're missing.
I shudder at "implicit in the implications of". One can never re-read text too many times.
RR:
Thanks very much for your long and interesting comment. I can always rely on you for such. A "cosy" motorcycle? A matter of comparison really - the screen and handshields help to keep the blast off. Although "blast" is hardly the description of the way a 125cc scooter parts the air. A top speed of about 65 with a following wind, but enough for how I use it these days.
I do miss being on a large, meaty motorcycle, dropping a gear, then winding it up for a deliciously swift overtake, the willing engine responding with a laughing snarl.
T E Lawrence commented that, "A skittish motor-bike with a touch of blood in it is better than all the riding animals on earth, because of its logical extension of our faculties, and the hint, the provocation, to excess conferred by its honeyed untiring smoothness." I cannot do better than that!
I do so much agree with your ultimate paragraph.
Ah. Thanks for the link to this. It reminds me of the nifty little scooter I tried, but abandoned because my knee is too worthless to trust. It would have been perfect except for the knee thing. It was a Honda Ruckus.
You trained bus drivers? You've done a bit of everything. I keep reading books that involve the Romney Marsh, and of course I think of you and your bicycle rides and coffee stops. Some books I set aside before I finish them, but mostly finish ones involving Romney Marsh.
Vita:
I have copied the following to your blog:
I see that you enjoy books (novels) about Romney Marsh. I have found a good new author who concentrates in that area and is very historically correct.
Her name is Emma Batten. If you use Amazon Kindle her books are available there. I don't know if you will have them listed on Amazon.com (US version) but they are on Amazon.co.uk
Hi, Avus. I've ordered 3 of the paper, not electronic, books right from Emma Batten, and they're on their way. Not as economical as getting them from the library, but considering what I pay per month for the local newspaper, it's not so bad.
Vita
Well done! I hope you enjoy them.
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