The teaching is imprinted just as strongly as the first vision of the bike. His second gift to me. Around in circles, clockwise and counter clockwise, figures of eight, stops and starts. Some good, some not so good. Just as if he were a circus trainer breaking in a new horse. He rode the bike back home. I walked. I had to have all the safety gear – a helmet, gauntlets and proper boots before I would be allowed to ride. My dad hadn’t worn any.
My mum was right, of course. The bike was a licence to go to the edge. Somehow, I never went completely over.
The staid British motorbike would do 70 mph if you laid flat on the fuel tank. Bend the footrest up and it’s amazing how far the bike could crank over. Those wide handlebars controlled the wildest of tricks. My helmet would be off as soon as I was out of sight. Nothing like the caress of the wind across my face and through my hair. Nothing like it except to add a girl on the back. Hugging on and pressed into you. And you showing off with power and mind-numbing cornering.
The lanes of my home Berkshire countryside suited an immortal. Exhilarating speed and sweeping corners.
Oh, those sweeping corners. First the back wheel starts to slide. Not unusual and correctable. Next, the front wheel does the same. Not usual and far more threatening. Put both together and I was headed for a jean and skin shredding slide down the tarmac. I planted my left boot and pushed up. The bike straightened and whipped upright. Luck is with me – again. I speed on. No point to slow down just because I’d had a near call with unbelievable pain and likely death.
The bike was a pig to start. I decided to take it apart to see what I could see. My mechanical skills were limited to taking apart watches. I couldn’t put them back together again. This, I’m sure was what was in my mum’s mind when she confided her worries to my dad. Somehow, he didn’t interfere. I never got too far inside the engine, never did find the cause. The bike still begrudged starting. The mystery lay in the bits that were left over.
I wanted more bike, faster and bigger. I wanted to race. What my dad had given, though, he could take away. He took it away. No more motorbikes. I was to get a little old lady’s car – an underpowered Morris Minor. This one, I wrote off when I drifted off a corner and into a fence! You can’t inject staid into a thrill seeker.
Forty years on … a friend asks me what I would most like to be doing. Riding a motorbike, I reply. I feel it physically from all those years ago. So, I buy one. My children are delighted, my wife – an orthopedic nurse – is livid.
I need new training. I need kitting out. With full head helmet and body armour and gloves, I look like an astronaut. Quite a change. Quite a change in the motorbike, too. It is a 650cc Suzuki V-twin. Simply sweet. A blue beauty. The bike does more than 100 mph and I do just that.
Sadly, Ottawa’s urban maze is not suited to the lord of the Berkshire lanes. Staid replaces thrill. It’s just a two-wheeled car. Then the lord falls. Cut off by a car. The damage is superficial except inside. The edge morphs from thrill to fear.
I sell the bike. The dream dies. The memories persist, though. Memories of one hell of a ride.
