Start the week topic 13th October

[guest7]

I was watching some oik yesterday and he seemed inordinately pleased with his tough little self when he aimed a high velocity spit at the ground.

I got to thinking about all the things that we did as teenagers that we thought were cool, but we know realise were a bit dumb. Starting with pushbikes, why did we always stop with the longest skid we could manage? Also (and I saw this only this morning) what's so cool about riding for miles no-handed? Moving on to motorbikes, I'm sure few of us manically rev our bikes at traffic lights these days, nor do we spin up our rear tyres at the lights to annoy boy racers in cars. Nor do we try and wheelie away from every traffic light.

Recently I put on my bike jacket to go to the pub and thought, "all these badges look a bit childish" and within ten minutes I removed them all (with the exception of an Ogri badge). I'm all for keeping the faith and all that, but some things look better on younger men.

I won't even go near what I used to wear when I was a teenager (there's a startling example in a recent newsletter, a photo of me playing guitar).

So... what silly things did you do as a biking teenager that you wouldn't do now?
GC

[Richard]

RD200, probably 1978 or '9.  School track past the bicycle sheds and out.  Badly adjusted twin Leading Shoe front brake and a friend named Avtar standing in the track.  I haired up to him, slammed the front brakes on and went straight over the handlebars when they locked up.

I still manage to look like a prat sometimes though.

And I no longer have drum fronts.

Flared jeans, mid length hair, trying very hard to pee so high it went over the wall and into the playground beyond.  Oh dear.

Richard

[squirrelciv]

Wearing brightly coloured feathers as an earring just like Adam Ant God they hurt if you caught them when pulling your helmet on / off.
Denim cut-off over my tassel sleeve jacket when riding my fizzy. Even got my Mum to embroider a Honda wing on it when I got my XL100.
Putting your feet onto the luggage rack while chinning the tank (another one from my moped days)
Rolling your fag packet up in your tee shirt sleeve.
Chewing matches.
Wearing your scarf on the outside of your collar.

I can't do any more the embarrassment is too much.

[robG]

Its 1984 , lanes around Rudry {just outside Cardiff }, XL 185S , Sunday morning { ? }, October ish .I'm going well , back ends sliding a bit on wet leaves , gravel etc , but I'm on a trail bike {they all do that sir ! } . Getting very confident now , a bit more right hand .........

Floor , sky , floor , sky , floor .......ditch , b!£%*r.

And rest .

All quiet apart from a gentle , regular bop, bop.bop ....mm where's that coming from .{Not helped by being upside down in the ditch , feet towards the road }. Suddenly realise that directly above me still cutting his hedge is an old boy ..' scuse me have you seen a bike ? '

Replies ' Over there son ' { carries on snipping at hedge }, not even a glance downwards.

Scrabble up , see XL sticking out of ditch on opposite side of road . Drag upright , kick straight , cough , adjust tie and ride off as if nothing's happened .

[Steffan]

emptying out contents of a tin of kero into a jar and placing said jar onto a low shelf in the porch in order to go and get fuel for my Honda (first and last) Benley. I managed the fuel collection OK but on returning from my little illegal jaunt (no licence) I find that my kid sister has been taken to hospital after tucking into the kero. To say my parents were not happy at being viewed as child abusers because of my fecklessness is an understatement.

Rather took all the romantic gloss off bike riding for a while; 10years or so, as it happens

Steffan

[trophydave]

Denim cut-off over my tassel sleeve jacket when riding my fizzy. Even got my Mum to embroider a Honda wing on it when I got my XL100.

Oh yes.Denim cut off with the picture from the inside cover of Led Zeppelin four painted on the back(odd cause I never did like Led Zep).I must have looked very cool on my GP100.

[robG]

Staying with the wardrobe ,Dunlop green flash daps { I'm Welsh !} . Very poor choice in the garage as evidenced by the removal of my left big toe nail whilst placing CB125S1 on the centre stand , having forgotten to retract side stand .Drat .

Also flared jeans . On same 125S , come gracefully to a halt, feet up, at traffic lights , note look of admiration on face of rather attractive totty in car alongside.Go to place right foot down , kickstart has inserted itself into right flare , crash to floor , lights change you can guess the rest .Double drat.

[pigafetta]

I did exactly the same thing on my CB125 with the kickstart stuck up me jeans. I was still in school at the time and I had a garage right by where all the other schoolkids got the bus home. So I came roaring up to my garage and skidded to a halt under the admiring glances of about 40 kids....CRUNCH!

I had very long curly hair, an army cap and the filthy, pachouli oil stinking denim cutoff. Mine had 'Motorhead' across the shoulder panel, an ace of spades on the pocket, a Hawkwind patch and a badge from a rally that I never actually went to. I had a massive pair of old bike boots with loads of buckles up the side. God, I looked a prat.

I had this horrible little bright yellow suzuki custom. I spent half the time sliding down the road on my arse and dragging myself out of hedges.

I had a tassled leather jacket too with massive collars.

The random acts of stupidity are too numerous to list....

Oh god, the shame...

Dave

[guest40]

All of the above and some more.... bugger, I'm still doing some of it cos I can't grow up!!

[OMEGAMAN]

Top of a very big off road hill, long run down the grassy side at speed (on road legal Honda c50 with bright flourecsent green mirrors & wheel rims?), then locking the rear brake & seeing, (out of three of us abreast), who can skid the furthest before falling off!

[guest24]

Oh dear and double dear. 1983, started life proper on a CG125 after a brief stint on an SS50. Riding like petrol doesn't cost anything as my pops used to fill up the tank.
Roll forward 25 years.
I'm the pops now and I buy the petrol. Now riding a YBR125 as my mid-life crisis. Still got badly fitting leathers, but mercifully, the derri boots are gone.

Incidentally, the 25 year gap has included lots of other bikes of various sizes and in continuous usage so I've not been only a 125 man!

[Steve Lake]

Two things stand out......(amongst the myriad bum clenchingly eye wateringly shamefully embarrassing moments of my past)
1.  From the age of 18 (until I got married at 22) my only form of transport was a BSA gold flash with an Avon sports chair....this i totally abused as often as i could, trips to the pub with 3 mates in the chair and two more on the back.......seeing how long and how fast i could go with the chair whhel off the ground etc etc.....well, one of these mates had a rather lovely sister....so i used get round his place as often as possible....and i'd taken her out on a few occasions.....and, as they lived in a cul-de-sac....I had a habit of roaring up the road and spinning the outfit outside their gate ending nicely lined up, sidecar wheel a couple of inches from the kerb, ready to roll with hot date in the chair......except on this particular day........I sort of got the spin a bit wrong......the sidecar wheel and the front wheel both met the kerb simutaneously the whole plot then went completely arse over t*t, I (how lucky can you get) cleared the dwarf garden wall landing on my feet 6 foot from the front door, just as her old man opened it.....'hello Mr T**** is D****in?' I said....'no she 'aint....and move that f***ing motorbike, it's pi55ing petrol over my roses!' amazingly.... the Avon chair had a broken screen and the bike's dual seat got rubbished as it landed upside down across the dwarf wall with the weight of the whole machine on it....oh, and my  ego took a bit of a hammering too.

2. Not bike related....but, as i was courting (what a quaint word) my now Wife, and her not particurlarly keen on my lovely beeza outfit, (admittedly now sporting a rather large box in place of the avon sidecar....which had fallen to bits due to episodes similar to those mentioned above....and the box had mysteriously gained 4 fetching brass handles....which looked remarkably similar to those found on the entrance doors to the barracks i was then living in .....as a member of HM forces)
So....I bought a Minivan off a mate who was on his way to Aden, for 50 quid....hey...this was quality motoring......AND he'd kindly left the double mattress in the back AND the porno pics pasted to the inside of the roof!....all very tasteful.....and something i'd completely forgotten about when prospective father-in-law asked to look round my fine new piece of transport!!!!.........I cringe at the thought even now.......it took several months and copious amounts of beer to get the old fella back on side

pip pip