By David1300 on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 02:53 am:

Not my personal story, but I enjoyed the read. Starting first kick - Nick Warne 

By Barmy on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 08:58 am:

Back to around 1970- Why did the funny things happen when I was a kid?- I went back to my home village from uni, and bumped into an old friend who had got a clapped out old BSA 650 sidecar outfit. Whilst away I had bought an outfit of my own and I thought, with youthful arrogance, that I could REALLY show him how to drive it!
My mate had an appointment at the hospital in the local town, so I said I would drive him there, secretly harbouring evil thoughts about showing off my 'skill'.
Now please bear in mind we drive on lhe left here.
We set off on a high speed journey which had a large content of sidecar wheel in the air and spinning back wheel on right hand corners. Eddie sat clenched into the seat if the sidecar.
On our arrival at the hospital I saw a parking space on the opposite side of the road which would require a U turn to get us into it. Given that there was a gap in the oncoming traffic I made the snap decision to undertake a manoevre which will be familiar to sidecar pilots worldwide. I applied full right lock at 30mph, whilst pulling hard on the front brake lever and keeping the throttle open. This had the effect of producing an immediate U turn, which saw us shoot into the parking space. Now for the surprise.
The braking on full lock had hooked the front mudguard stay behind the swan neck sidecar mounting strut and held it at an angle - which meant that I couldn't straighten up and stop, but instead popped us out into the traffic again. Much squealing of tyres. Funnily enough Eddie drove us home. 

By Daftlad on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 10:46 am:

I nearly got sideswiped this morning....... by a wheelie bin - no not a ST1300 a real wheelie bin! - just tootling through one of the local villages and this bin came out of nowhere, must have been blown out by the wind. Now I NEVER would have lived that one down.  

By Bernie on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 12:32 pm:

Back to Rhodesia in the early 70's. I was at a bike rally up in the mountains. There were about 500 of us camped in a pine forrest. One night, I was sitting at our camp fire drinking beer, and idly watching the guys at the next camp fire.
They were crouched in a circle, fiddling with something on the ground, I couldn't see what it was.
Suddenly there was a loud WHOOMPA, and a huge ball of fire errupted from the middle of the group. They all fell back, except for one guy, who stood up with a suprised look on his face, and his hair on fire.
When he realised this, he let out a scream, turned and galloped off through the trees. In the dark, all I could see was this flaming torch bobbing away into the distance with diminishing screams.
This was too much for my mind, I fell off my seat and lay shrieking with laughter on the ground. About 15 minutes later, the guy re-appeared out of the darkness, ANGRILY. All his hair was gone, and his scalp was black. He wanted to fight all 500 of us, all together, or one at a time, he didn't care. Only trouble was we were all laughing to much to take up the challenge.
Turned out they were fiddling with a small gas camping stove. 

By Highlander on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 11:34 pm:

Ridig home from college many years ago. It was getting dark , I was on me CD175 and the weather had been raining ....car stopped in front of me and, well me breaks was cr4p to say the least...realising I was not going to stop in time I lent forwards and covered my headlamp with my hand .....

logic thinking @ 17 years old.....night time and no headlamps = pushing bike the rest of the way home.......save headlamp and will ride home in the dark....with sore hand ....small price to pay ....  

By Rod on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 05:07 am:

When I was a 17 year old apprentice lout, our local sergeant, the legendary Des S of Wynnum, tried to flag me down for speeding at 80mph on a dark wet night. Saw him at the last moment and as we both tried to get off the road at the same time I knocked him into the muddy drain. When he angrily emerged, he accused me of being as big a dickhead as his son, then turned me round and kicked my arse (literally) and sent me home standing on the footpegs with instructions to stay in first gear. No ticket though and no breathalyser (just sore for a day or two)! Aaah the good old days.. 

By Motorasta on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 06:04 am:

SILLY TESTOSTERONE GAMES

Again; Circa: early 1970’s, in Oklahoma:

I’ll preface this with a bit of history: Way back when: Guys (and only, guys), could get their motorcycle license at age 14, in Oklahoma.

Picture, if you will, young men (okay, boys), in a hurry to prove their worth:

So, Let the Games Begin

The first and most dangerous game was to ride up next to your bud and grab the ignition key out of your partner’s bike (while at speed), then ride up the road about 50 yards and throw the key into the weeds.

Fortunately, I was never a victim of this trick. But, in retrospect, it taught me some valuable lessons: always ride in front or behind your partner; always pay attention while riding; and always expect the unexpected!!!


Years later, I learned this game in EARNEST while skydiving: a pilot, who was a bit too full of himself, decided to give a few of us “jumpers” a bad time on the way up to 12,000 feet. So the last one out of the plane on that load decided he had had enough. He smiled, and after a few chosen words, jumped out of the plane with the keys to the plane. The pilot had to dead-stick it in from 12,000 feet. It humbled him considerably… . 

By Bernie on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 01:09 pm:

One day, I was riding my BMW along a lonely stretch of road in Rhodesia. The terrorist war was in full swing, and this section of road had been ambushed a couple of times recently. I was in a nervous state and had the old girl wound up.
I suddenly became aware of the sound of a powerful engine rapidly overhauling me from behind. I looked in the mirror in suprise, because I was fair moving, and was even more suprised to see nothing. I frantically looked in the other mirror, still nothing. The engine noise was getting very loud now, and I had the sudden feeling that I had entered the twilight zone. My ears said I was about to be run over, and my eyes said there was nothing there.
The next moment, as my ears said the invisible vehicle had arrived, an aircraft roared overhead, no more than 50 feet up. I nearly shit myself.
It turned out the police had hired the aircraft to check the road for ambushes. 

By Bman on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 06:56 pm:

You might be a redneck if...
While having sex, you hear "There's no car coming, honey." 

By Bernie on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 07:31 am:

Gr8eyes, your wish is my command.

Once, many years ago, I was travelling by car, at night, through the Zambezi valley in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). I had the car wound up to about 80mph, when I came around a bend and saw an enormous pile of shit in the middle of the road. When a 7 ton bull elephant has a dump, he leaves a pile about 2 feet high. What really caught my attention was the steam rising from the offending pile. I didn't hesitate, I hit the brakes as hard as I could. Of course, under brakes I could not swerve, so I hit the shit square between the headlights. When I finally stopped, the lights were shining into a forest of huge black legs rising into the darkness above, the closest only 6 feet away. Had it not been for the shit, I would have hit the elephants at 80mph.
It took about a weak to clean the car, there was shit all through the radiator and engine bay, shit under the car, over the car, in the car, and even some in my pants. 

By Bernie on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 09:09 am:

OK, here's another one. I was at a bike rally in Rhodesia, and had gone on my dirt bike because you could have more fun without risking your expensive and hard to get road bike.
One afternoon, our top motocrosser put on a display of riding on the back wheel, he was a genius. He could pop the bike up at will, go up and down through the gears, stear the bike, and even bring it to a stop.
I was mightily impressed, and determined to learn how to do that myself. So I took myself off to a quiet place and started to practice.
Well my bike, a Yamaha DT360, had plenty of power, but was long, low, and heavy. After about 15 minutes of frustration, I stood up on the pegs, bounced the suspension, and pulled with all my strength on the bars.
To my suprise, the bike stood straight up. At this point, I learnt some things which are not obvious when observing someone else doing it.
The first is that your body weight is now supported by your hands instead of your bum and feet. The second, is that it is hard to close the throttle when you are hanging from it.
You can picture what happened next, the bike started to go over backwards. So I decided to abandon ship. I dropped my feet off the pegs and started to run, but the bike was going faster than I can run, so I pushed it away, but I could only push it forwards.
It dropped onto its wheels and fell over in front of me. Meanwhile, the top of my body overtook my legs, and I launched into a flying bellyflop, right on top of the bike, which was still screaming it's head off.
As I landed on it, I was trying to avoid the spinning nobby tyre, thrashing chain, footpegs and bars waiting to impale me.
I survived with minor injuries, and nobody saw the incident, thank God, but I now live happily in the knowledge that I will never be a Wheely king. 

By Gr8eyes on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 07:02 pm:

I knew it great stories Bernie

Glenn 

By Bernie on Thursday, October 16, 2003 - 08:22 am:

One day a friend invited me to come out to his parent's farm and meet his family, so I rode out on my BMW R90S, and parked it on it's side stand under a shady tree when I got there.
After a pleasant day, it was time to go, and the whole family came out to see me off and have a look at my flash bike. As we walked out, I saw that I had forgotten to turn the petrol taps off on arrival. Oh shit!
Hoping for the best, I attempted to start the bike, but sure enough, the starter motor just went clunk and stopped. Petrol had drained through the carby and filled up the left cylinder, causing a hydraulic lock.
With everyone watching closely, I took out my tool kit, removed the left spark plug, and gave the motor a kick with the ignition off. I didn't want a fire ball.
Well, 450cc of petrol squirted out of the plug hole, straight into the face of my mates old man. It went in his mouth, up his nose, and in his eyes.
How embarrassing, while they led him away screaming in agony, I hurridly reassembled the bike, got it going, and made a rapid departure.  

By Gr8eyes on Thursday, October 16, 2003 - 07:55 pm:

Keep em' coming Bernie. I'm having trouble getting up off the floor

Glenn 

By Rod on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 12:04 am:

My brother and I had a trail bike 'drag' to avoid being second past a whole heap of cow shit on the dirt road to O'Reilly's (30 years ago). 250cc always beats 100cc. When we got to the top he asked me if I knew what it felt like to get flying cow shit in your face at 60 mph and knocked me flat on my back. I was still laughing - no visors in those days. 

By Billl on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 05:47 am:

Back in 1964 I had a new Yamaha 80cc on/off road, two stroke bike. I was very proud of my first motorcycle and was quite hesitant when a friend asked to ride my bike. But he assured me that he had ridden before so I loaned the bike to him.
About 2 hours later, he came back and told me that although he had done nothing wrong other than fill the tank with gas, it now was making a screeching noise. I asked him if he added oil to the gas and he replied no he didn't check the oil at all. (street two strokes in those days required you to mix the oil and gas in the gas tank)

Bill L. 

By Bernie on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 07:29 am:

I was touring in South Africa once on an old BMW R69S, like you see in the museums. I had the girl friend on the back, and a large load of baggage.
We were on a beautiful new highway, sweaping through the Drakensberg mountains. Unfortunately, the highway was still under construction. After about 50 KM, we came to a barricade, and a detour sign.
The detour was just a fresh track which they had bulldozed up the side of the mountain to join with a fire road in the forest above. The gradient was so steep that they had made a series of hairpin zig-zags to ease the climb.
I looked at the track in doubt, but I didn't want to go back 50 KM, so I gave it a go. I couldn't build up any speed because of the turns, so it was just grind away in first gear.
About half way up, I started to run out of power. There was no way I could stop or turn back, and to stall and roll backwards would be fatal.
In fright, I wound the throttle to the stop, pulled in the clutch, and let the motor scream. I then slipped the clutch and maintained momentum for about 500 metres until we got to the top.
At the top I stopped to let the bike cool down. The clutch was nearly on fire, thick smoke was pouring out the housing and off the cylinders, but after about an hour, she fired up, and off we went, no worse for wear.
 

By Billl on Saturday, October 18, 2003 - 04:06 am:

I love these! Years ago I use to ride a BSA 650cc A-10 as a dirt bike/hill climber. I was riding in the Panoche Hills in central California on land that the Bureau of Land Management had declared "off limits" to motorcycles. They claimed that the Blunt Nose Leopard Lizard lived there and our bikes were disturbing it's mating ritual. (You're supposed to do that at night!)
Anyway, I and a friend were coming down a very steep hill when two BLM guys pulled up at the bottom. After insisting that we come down and after me saying that my wheel was locked and it wouldn't roll, they started up the hill after us. I decided that going down was not an option so being on a small ledge, I turned and tried to go back up in 1st gear. The hill was loose and very steep and I couldn't make it. Twice I tried in 1st gear and when they were about 10 feet from me I turned upwards again and hit the hill in 2nd gear. As I crested the top of the hill wide open in 2nd gear and throwing a rooster tail about 50 feet in the air, I glanced back at the two BLM guys being buried in massive quantities of powdery dirt.
(this story is totally fictional officer...)

Bill L.  

By Bernie on Thursday, October 23, 2003 - 09:20 am:

It's 1970 in Rhodesia, I'm 20 years old, and I've just sold my soul to the devil to get a Honda CB 750K1. Big bikes were very hard to get due to sanctions, and there were only about 5 of them in the whole country.
On a saturday morning, I rode into town to meet the mates and show off the bike. At 10:30, the pubs opened, and we went in for a few beers. 2PM was the closing time, and they threw us out. My mate asked me to take him out to his place, which was on a small holding about 20 miles out of town.
Once we were clear of the city, I opened her up, and let the bike run up to max speed, about 185Kph I think.
In those days, it wasn't fashionable to wear biking gear, and we were both dressed in shorts, T shirt, shoes, and nothing else. No helmets, goggles, nothing.
In summer, huge thunder clouds often built up, with rain pouring out the bottom, and blue sky with sun shine all around.
Well, we crested a rise at max speed, and ran into a solid wall of heavy rain. I remember shutting my eyes, and snapping the throttle shut, and the next instant we were down.
When the world stopped spinning, I opened my eyes, and I was still in the seated position, with the bike lying in the middle of the road, and a surprised truck driver was pearing down at me through his windscreen. Both me and the bike had only suffered cosmetic damage. My mate had separated from the bike, and had a bit of a tumble, but was also unhurt.
Our guardian angles worked overtime that day. 

By Bernie on Tuesday, October 28, 2003 - 01:34 pm:

As a young man, I had been riding road bikes for several years when a couple of friends
persuaded me to buy a dirt bike, and get into some real fun. So I hunted around and finally
found a second hand Yamaha DT 360. Bikes were hard to get in Rhodesia under sanctions.
On my first trail ride, I went out with a group of 4 other experienced riders. They took me
out to the Chinamora Tribal Trust Land to the North East of Salisbury. TTL's were trail bike
heaven because they were huge areas of undeveloped land where tribal Africans carried out
subsistance farming. They lived in small villages scattered in the bush, and connected by
a network of foot paths. There were no fences or private property to worry about.
In the middle of this area was a solid granite, whale back, mountain, called Domboshawa,
similar to Ayers Rock, but a bit smaller. The surface was unbroken, but weathered to a rough
texture which provides almost perfect traction for tyres, even better than a tar road.
We rode up the mountain and played for about an hour on the top which was covered with large
humps and dips, perfect for jumping. Then the leader said it's time to go, and he rode up to the
opposite side from where we had come up, and disappeared over the edge, followed by the others
and me at the back. When I got to the edge and looked over, I nearly died. They were riding down
a slope, about 300 feet high, and so steep that, had you climbed it on foot, you would do it on
all fours. I knew that if I chickened out, they would never take me out again. I didn't know the
right technique, so I slipped the bike into neutral so I wouldn't have to worry about stalling
the engine. I then rolled the bike over the edge and immediately stomped on the back brake,
locking the back wheel. I also applied the front brake as hard as possible without tipping over.
In this way, I only just managed to control my speed. I dragged the back wheel, locked, all the
way to the bottom. Once there, I had to get off the bike for a while and sit while all my "Mates"
gathered round and laughed. I wore such a flat spot on the tyre, it was nearly through to the
tube, and I had to replace it.

I found a couple of pictures on the internet of Domboshawa, not the ones I wanted, but the best
I could find. These are recent pictures, 30 years ago, the population density was much less.