Motorcycle Riding

My father had a real love for cars and motor cycles which incidentally, is not shared by either my sister or me. He especially loved car rallies. If you have never been on a rally in England you haven’t lived! These were similar to paper chases but often lasted 2 or 3 days and nights and were complex enough that some competitors became so lost and disoriented that search parties were sent out to find them, once the time limit had been exceeded by 12 hours or so. The object was to navigate the smallest roads and back lanes to pick up clues and arrive at the various check-points within the allotted time allowance. The planners made sure you could do this without excessive speed but once a competitor became lost or missed a clue then time had to be made up. This necessitated driving at break-neck speed in the pitch dark on narrow lanes. More than once my father ended up in a river and on one occasion, came face to face with a famer pointing a loaded shotgun at him. Apparently he wasn’t the first to miss a bend in the road landing him in the farmer’s front yard at 3:00am.

As kids we went on some of the day rallies and they were fun. My father would drive and my mother would navigate. Just listening to the pair of them disputing the directions was sport enough.

Motorcycles were his first love, however. On occasion my father would go to a race track with a couple of chums but more often it would be a family outing to a motocross in a field or a hill climb through the woods in some obscure place. Off we would go with a picnic basket, raincoats and wellington boots for a day of ‘excitement’. Once parked we would traipse through the mud, find the best vantage point and watch the bikes and riders as they slid around in the mire. It got old very quickly for me but my father never tired of this activity.

In spite of, or maybe because of this upbringing, I joined the Middle-Age Motorcycle Club back in the 60’s. I was far too young for it, I might add, but a friend lent me a small woods bike and, with minimal instruction I followed the group of 6 or 8 men and women into the woods. It was so much fun although somewhat reckless, now that I look back on it.

One warm, Sunday afternoon the group stopped at our local pub for a cold one after a particularly taxing ride. On leaving the establishment we had to enter a busy road. In turn we lined up on a slight incline and waited for a break in the traffic. When my turn came my inexperience became obvious to all who watched. After stalling on my first two attempts, I saw my opportunity, pulled back on the throttle, popped the clutch and stood my bike on its back wheel! I cleared the road in a wheelie that would have impressed Evil Knievel. Across the road was a gravel parking lot where I landed reasonably unscathed although not on my wheels.

That little exhibition stopped traffic and also brought the inhabitants of the pub running to pick up the pieces. They dusted me off and sent me on my way with only minor damage to the bike but major damage to the ego. Although I didn’t know it at that moment, one of those rescuers was to become my husband of 38 years and counting.

Motorcycles are still not my thing and my helmet has been hung up for a number of years but if I hadn’t thrown my leg over that bike on that day, my man for life might have slipped away.