Remembering Pete

[Clive]

Eloquently put @Saul..... my feeble attempts at writing anything along those lines would just come out as inconsistent mess.

Your words speak for me to some extent.....  

[Clive]

6 minutes ago, Six30 said:

well said @Saul 

 

your the only friends i got on here and im banned from all the other forums .

And a voice from above said "cos you are a annoying cunt"  

[Six30]

4 minutes ago, Clive said:

And a voice from above said "cos you are a annoying cunt"  

[Buckster]

11 hours ago, Six30 said:

 

Hernia.

[Six30]

1 minute ago, Buckster said:

Hernia.

the twat aint even seen it

[Marcel le Moose Fondler]

45 minutes ago, Buckster said:

Hernia.

Ok I've got one...and I'm not getting it fixed...

[boboneleg]

In 2002 I was in a pretty low place.  I'd had an accident the year before in which I lost my leg and now I was sitting at home after more surgery just moping around. 

I decided to get a PC and see if there was anything on the internet to brighten things up a bit. I came across a motorcycle forum that looked a good laugh and started to get to know some of the characters,  @Buckster, @Renegade @YamaHead @MooN @Catteeclan @Pedro @Tym @Specs @Sir Fallsalot @yen_powell and many more (my apologies to anyone I've forgotten).  They were an eclcectic bunch with all sorts of views but most of all no one took themselves too seriously .

The guy who ran it @XTreme was my kind of man as @Saul says above,  a straight talker but bloody funny at the same time.  I can't tell you how much it lifted my spirits and it was my 'go to'  forum.  When Pete started this forum up I was so excited to catch up with old friends and carry on with the banter and meet (virtually) lots of new guys and gals as well.

No other forum I've been on has ever matched any of Pete's creations, he led from the front and was always trying to keep things chugging along .    Good  luck today Pete an wherever you end up I'm certain you'll be having a laugh.

 

[Marcel le Moose Fondler]

I wish I could also write just has well has you Saul...I'm still trying to wrap my head around this ...Pete will definitely be missed ...He always accepted how weird and quirky ( myself included)  some of us are with open arms ..had this twisted sence of humor that made laugh to tears at times ...just don't understand why such a routine surgery went so horribly wrong and it wasn't caught by doctors before his hernia operation...

[Six30]

22 minutes ago, Marcel le Moose Fondler said:

I wish I could also write just has well has you Saul...I'm still trying to wrap my head around this ...Pete will definitely be missed ...He always accepted how weird and quirky ( myself included)  some of us are with open arms ..had this twisted sence of humor that made laugh to tears at times ...just don't understand why such a routine surgery went so horribly wrong and it wasn't caught by doctors before his hernia operation...

i thought the same , he had a pre op appointment before hernia op , i though they checked all your vitals , thought something would of been picked up then..

[Buckster]

1 minute ago, Six30 said:

i thought the same , he had a pre op appointment before hernia op , i though they checked all your vitals , thought something would of been picked up then..

His heart muscle will have been damaged by the heart attack, it rarely shows up before hand.

[Marcel le Moose Fondler]

15 minutes ago, Buckster said:

His heart muscle will have been damaged by the heart attack, it rarely shows up before hand.

I understand the damage to the heart after the heart attack...but don't get how can someone with three blocked arteries can pass a vital exam before going under for his hernia surgery...

[Buckster]

8 minutes ago, Marcel le Moose Fondler said:

I understand the damage to the heart after the heart attack...but don't get how can someone with three blocked arteries can pass a vital exam before going under for his hernia surgery...

Restricted arteries, people adapt and it only shows up when it reaches a chronic stage.

[Pedro]

I met Pete online in 2002 I think, when I bought my Transalp 650. I had joined AdvRider at the time, and he just sent me a message on there to invite me to DualSport UK. At the time, he also had a Transalp 650 and was still living in Wales. It was a new thing to me, bike forums, and turns out  I quite liked the small intimate group on a forum like that compared to the vastness of AdvRider or even Horizons Unlimited. It's the closest thing to a motorcycle club clubhouse there is online. 

I literally had started riding a few weeks before joining that forum I think, and started posting my first ride reports literally figuring out how to go on a motorcycle. I was happy to be amongst @modrover, @YamaHead, @Sir Fallsalot, @boboneleg, @Renegade, @Catteeclan, @yen_powell, @MooN, and even @Tym and @Buckster who gave me so much shit I considered leaving plenty of times. With some of those people a relationship grew to frequent communications outside of the forum.

I did my first longer ride on a bike to meet @XTreme and Alie, now recently moved to southern Spain and in search of a place to live, before they settled on the house they've been in until now. Then a second meet up in their current house a couple of years later, in which he took a picture of me trying to kickstart his XT350, that picture haunted me to this day at every opportunity 

DSUK turned to Maximumbikes, then somehow I grew apart and the forum also disappeared and turned to a facebook thing, I think. Years later, I was very happy to get a second private message, again through AdvRider , as an invitation to join this current forum. My life had by then changed, as did I, and I talked a lot with Pete, he and his wife again becoming good friends, this forum has since then provided a needed internet home and I've used it to vent a lot. He loved that I posted my Morocco ride reports on here and I loved doing those too. He supported me during a few moments when he felt I was about to leave, keeping most of his opinions off the forum to try and avoid exits, because he loved to provide people with this space for them to gather around and didn't want anyone to leave on account of him.

This forum is not going to be the same without him, and I doubt it'll survive without him, he pulled it forward with sheer enthusiasm. His over the top self confidence and absence of fear of ridicule were his favourite tools for the job, and you can't help but appreciate that.

He and his wife are friends, real world friends, and I'm desolated she lost him in such a quick and surprising way.

[Pedro]

Today, Pete will be cremated and his ashes brought home by his wife.

[Buckster]

13 minutes ago, Pedro said:

I met Pete online in 2002 I think, when I bought my Transalp 650. I had joined AdvRider at the time, and he just sent me a message on there to invite me to DualSport UK. At the time, he also had a Transalp 650 and was still living in Wales. It was a new thing to me, bike forums, and turns out  I quite liked the small intimate group on a forum like that compared to the vastness of AdvRider or even Horizons Unlimited. It's the closest thing to a motorcycle club clubhouse there is online. 

I literally had started riding a few weeks before joining that forum I think, and started posting my first ride reports literally figuring out how to go on a motorcycle. I was happy to be amongst @modrover, @YamaHead, @Sir Fallsalot, @boboneleg, @Renegade, @Catteeclan, @yen_powell, @MooN, and even @Tym and @Buckster who gave me so much shit I considered leaving plenty of times. With some of those people a relationship grew to frequent communications outside of the forum.

I did my first longer ride on a bike to meet @XTreme and Alie, now recently moved to southern Spain and in search of a place to live, before they settled on the house they've been in until now. Then a second meet up in their current house a couple of years later, in which he took a picture of me trying to kickstart his XT350, that picture haunted me to this day at every opportunity 

DSUK turned to Maximumbikes, then somehow I grew apart and the forum also disappeared and turned to a facebook thing, I think. Years later, I was very happy to get a second private message, again through AdvRider , as an invitation to join this current forum. My life had by then changed, as did I, and I talked a lot with Pete, he and his wife again becoming good friends, this forum has since then provided a needed internet home and I've used it to vent a lot. He loved that I posted my Morocco ride reports on here and I loved doing those too. He supported me during a few moments when he felt I was about to leave, keeping most of his opinions off the forum to try and avoid exits, because he loved to provide people with this space for them to gather around and didn't want anyone to leave on account of him.

This forum is not going to be the same without him, and I doubt it'll survive without him, he pulled it forward with sheer enthusiasm. His over the top self confidence and absence of fear of ridicule were his favourite tools for the job, and you can't help but appreciate that.

He and his wife are friends, real world friends, and I'm desolated she lost him in such a quick and surprising way.

I’ve never given you any shit, how rude! I’m a gentle soul.

[Buckster]

11 minutes ago, Pedro said:

Today, Pete will be cremated and his ashes brought home by his wife.

On the way home she should abandon the urn in a derelict building.

[Pedro]

7 minutes ago, Buckster said:

I’ve never given you any shit, how rude! I’m a gentle soul.

Now you are, but back before you were mellowed by Harley ownership you were very angry.

[Marcel le Moose Fondler]

7 minutes ago, Buckster said:

On the way home she should abandon the urn in a derelict building.

I'm trying not to laugh...

[Buckster]

8 minutes ago, Pedro said:

Now you are, but back before you were mellowed by Harley ownership you were very angry.

It isn't harley ownership that tempered me.

[Tango]

I first me Pete on "The Forum that shall not be mentioned". I guess that it was around 2011ish. Obviously there were our interactions on the main forum, but we also took some of our discussions onto DM's to bitch about some of the twats there! We shared similar political beliefs also, which we obviously couldn't discuss there. 

I drifted away from that forum, but received a message from Pete inviting me to join this place, which seemed like a good idea at the time! But, as it was driven mainly by him, it took a different path to other forums that I'd been on and that was quite refreshing. Unorthodox, much like Pete!

We occasionally exchanged DM's as I saw him as a friend and kindred spirit, where we bitched about the state of the world!

I lost my biking mojo a little while ago and was surprised to receive a phone call from Pete, asking if everything was OK with me. He genuinely cared for everyone on here. Mind you, his opening words to me were: " Fuck me, Bob. I didn't have you down as a cockney wanker!" It was the first, and last, time that we'd actually spoken together.

I hope that we can hold this place together in his memory, but we have to resign ourselves to the fact that it won't be the same without him at the helm.

Keep dodging those puddles, mate!

[Skippy]

Relatively speaking I hardly knew Pete at all, I think we both happened to be on some god-awful FB group and he commented on a photo I’d posted up. Can’t remember what the photo was or exactly what he said but I’ll bet it was something unflattering………..and I’m guessing it also made me laugh.

We discovered we were living fairly close and so we arranged to meet up after a few interchanges on the phone.

I’ll never forget waiting for him to turn up at a cafe/bar in Barranda and as I sat there waiting I wondered what he’d be like. Fuck me, he was just as I imagined and it didn’t disappoint. He had the worst fitting pair of jeans I’d seen in a long time, a jacket that was way to big for him and a pair of boots that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a building site.

What a scruffy fucker and as soon as he opened his gob out came the sing-song accent and I liked him instantly. We sat, we chatted and generally took the piss out of each other. He particularly like my black and white sportsbike boots.

Off we went for a ride and we explored all kinds of abandoned shit. He took me down roads that were totally unsuited to my Kawasaki Z750 and he didn’t give a fuck. I laughed like a twat as I bounced along trying not to smash my balls into the tank; all the while he glided along on his gay Honda.

It was his fault the zipper broke on my jacket and also his fault that the warning like came on. I think he liked the idea that he could will things to go wrong.

We met up a few times over the course of a couple of years and it never failed to be entertaining. He thought his “street Spanish” was so good………I thought how funny it sounded as he never tried to hide his strong Welsh accent.

He always referred to me as a Cockney Wanker and I didn’t mind that at all. He called me a cunt to my face and I knew we were kindred spirits because it just made me laugh out aloud.

A few weeks ago he asked what I was doing at the weekend and I think he was hinting about meeting up. I couldn’t make it but sitting here now I regret not trying harder to take the time to go over and see him. I feel guilty and it makes me very sad. It feels like I let him down. If he’s watching me type this he’ll be thinking what a soft southern shite I am because it’s just brought a tear to my eye.

So there you go, he came into my life out of the blue and very unexpectedly. He was a force of nature and certainly unique. He disappeared without warning and far too soon.

I hope he knew I considered him to be a friend. A daft Welsh twat yes, but a friend nonetheless.

 

[Tango]

1 hour ago, Marcel le Moose Fondler said:

I understand the damage to the heart after the heart attack...but don't get how can someone with three blocked arteries can pass a vital exam before going under for his hernia surgery...

Before my prostate operation I had to have an examination by a cardiologist.  I had an ECG and an ultrasound scan of my heart. I'm fairly certain that any blocked or restricted arteries would have shown up there. But, maybe the requirements are different in Spain to here? Anyway, we don't know what it was that finished him off. It could have been any number of different things.

[Buckster]

I’m not even sure how I ended up on a forum run by Pete, I suspect it was from Advrider, that and bad luck. We spoke on the phone quite a lot, he asked for advice when he was setting up the business in Spain and we stayed in touch but never got around to meeting, the reality is that we interacted frequently, often daily for over 20 years, I still cannot believe he is gone. 
 

I have to say that I don’t think this place can survive without Pete driving it, if we all want to stay in touch then I’m inclined to start a private Facebook group, the cost of running the forum would probably become a problem ultimately, Pete put it on his existing servers so that swallowed some of the cost, as a stand alone it would cost something like £500 a year to operate and without Pete I think we will all drift away from it because he was the glue that held it together. 

[boboneleg]

6 minutes ago, Buckster said:

without Pete I think we will all drift away from it because he was the glue that held it together.

That's exactly how I see it as well, he was the glue and everything else that kept it going .

[Saul]

3 hours ago, Marcel le Moose Fondler said:

Ok I've got one...and I'm not getting it fixed...

Don't be daft get it sorted.    What happened to Pete is just what happens in life and death, doesn't make it any more likely something is going to go wrong for you or that it even did for him.   Could have just been his time. 

We are all going to die at some point you can't live in fear of it just do your best to get by.   And for fuck sake listen to the medics, many have died from not doing that.