yen_powell

Possibly! It was on a camp site with very warm weather despite it being nearly winter and in the evening there was a fog so dense I got lost walking back to my tent. I rode to Bungay afterwards using a torn out page of an AA road atlas which seemed to show a direct route but was a bit misleading. Ended up on a very small ferry for a pound (Reedham?).

I've ridden that in a 'going slow between the cones' competition somewhere on the Norfolk Broads. I was trying to do it on my glitchy Varadero which did not like slow riding until I added a power commando and I asked to try again on Chris's bike. The winner rode a bloody Varadero!!!!!!!! I have video of it somewhere, the bloke just stopped all the time and stayed still without putting his feet down, it was amazing to watch. Sadly he died on the same bike later on I heard.

Is that Whealies old bike?

I think I may have already told you about the time they put a health testing machine in our town hall for a few weeks. I put my money in and stood on the scales. The instructions were in tiny writing and I bent down to see that it said to press this large red button which I did not knowing that this measured my height as it was pressed. The piece of paper it printed out said I was 12 stone but only 4 feet 8 inches tall and I was morbidly obese. I did it a few weeks later properly this time, a vast improvement and without even dieting or going to a gym.

Flares on the kickstart era!

They look like a trip hazard to me!

Laugharne?

The kerb stones are bloody high over there aren't they. Bet they take some bumping up!

We had a rough cockney sort working with us, called Big Al. Big Al was missing a belly button from a machete wound, got that during his bouncer days in south London apparently. He took a liking to Bobby and loved to hear his stories. One day Bobby was talking about various musicians and suddenly said, "You know George Melly once tried to pick me up on a tube train." Big Al considered this for a second before replying, "What 'appened Bobby boy, d'you fall over pissed?" "Oh no." say Bobby, "I was a much better looking chap in my youth".

I'd forgotten about Greeb and Grebo.

I also got called a headbanger.

When I were a lad in a leather jacket, the word for us was Grobs. This was applied to bike jacketed people who liked certain music, nothing to do with motorbikes, although a lot of them had one. The word is used on the small writing on the back of the Iron Maiden album from the 80s (Number of the Beast I think).

Sod that, those bolts holding it to the bridge deck look a bit flimsy. I wouldn't be able to concentrate worrying about that. To say nothing of the wind making my book hard to read.

In 1972 I was not long out of the remedial reading class (but still struggling due to I.T.A) and making Saturn V rockets out of plasticene because moon landings were all over the television.

I used to work with the bloke pictured below, he was related to the Queen Mother I believe and his father had been colonel of the Scots Guards. Bobby, as he was known, was super posh AND very light on his loafers. When he heard that the council's chief executive had decreed I should wear a suit when meeting councillors he replied, 'Well our chief exec is hardly an expert in sartorial elegance is he". I had to look up sartorial in a dictionary. The last time I saw him was after he had retired. I was sitting in a trial hole speaking with a large hairy Irish road worker called Big Dick. A Jaguar rolled past and he leaned out the open window and shouted, "yoohoo Ian!". Bobby must be very old now, but still writes for the sort of Royal fan magazines they sell in the US I hear.

Those boots are wedged under the workbench in the garage. My neighbour gave them to me out of the blue one day, along with a pair of trousers, gloves, knee and elbow pads and a few other bits because his back was shot and he had no plans to ride a motocross bike again like he used to. He just rode his Suzuki V- twin rorty road bike to get his 2 wheel fix he said.

You're not claiming you've worked your way up to being working class are you? Ideas above your lowly station I reckon. Getting out of the bath to piss does not make you posh. I read that Lord Wotsisface, the royal photographer's book, Patrick Lichfield, that was it and he was riding a motorbike in the 60s/70s when he was in the Grenadier Guards (well one of the ones with the hairy hats anyway).

See this hot weather look you, it's not bloody good enough see. Just give me 16 years, my old welsh spell book, 1,000 sacrificial lambs (but not the good looking one) and then Boyo watch this space....... I shall make it snow just like home!

Can't you take it off, pop it in a jiffy bag and post it to him? Surely you have a spare syrup whilst you wait for it to come back?

That'll be south Essex, if you want a Tudor mansion in this bit and you have the cash there are plenty about. I reckon there are about 3 millionaires on every tiny country lane here judging by the houses you see as you ride around. And those are just the ones you can see, some have drives that put their front door half a mile from a public road. Wool trade wealth built most of them in the 1300 - 1600s I suspect, and the stock market and bank robbing pays for the upkeep now.

I've voted for the Welsh turd polisher, because if you had told me this time last year his bike would be on a road with snow in the back ground I would have laughed so hard a bit of wee would have come out, but there it is!!

I think you're right. If they think no one will notice they leave it. I understand, who wants to pick up a hot turd, pop it into a bag and carry it about, but that's the price of owning a dog these days. When I was a kid some scummy people used to chuck their dog out at the start of the day and call them in in the evening, like cats. I remember one called Champ when I was about 7 years old, a large German Shepherd, used to lay outside the flats where we lived. If you called him he would come for a walk with you. The git bit me on the shoulder once as I ran past like a looney and frightened him. We also had a German Shepherd called Sheba, it was one of my jobs to take her out a few times a day, I had to walk the opposite direction from Champ in case there was a fight or worse....puppies!

Here it's to keep the whole thing out of the clag and plop. I once went through some clay so thick that it formed a perfect 4 or 5 inch thick ring of mud to stick to my front wheel, the forks acting as a cutter to keep it the same width as my tyre. I thought when I left the soft ground and got onto tarmac it would fall off. No chance, I was riding along with my front end 5 inches higher than it should have been. Had to stop and use my hands to drag the stuff off in the end.