After 16 comes 17. Some of my mates had moved onto bigger bikes. We could go straight up to 250cc in those days. One mate had a brand new Yamaha XS250 bought for his 17th birthday. Another bought his own Kawasaki KH250 stroker, while another had a Suzuki X7. I wanted a bigger bike too, but my father had different ideas. He hated the motorcycle thing. He never did like me having a 50cc, let alone anything bigger so I was given the words of advice from dear old dad, “IF YOU EVER GET A MOTORBIKE YOU CAN BLOODY WELL FIND SOMEWHERE ELSE TO LIVE”
Instead, my parents gave me my first car. A 1957 Hillman Minx. Column change gears, no syncro-mesh on the first two, bench seat in the front and headlights dipped with a button on the floor next to the clutch pedal. I took to driving like I had with riding. I loved it, but the pangs of desire for riding two wheels never escaped and at nineteen I decided that a motorbike was back on the menu.
I was still living at home so took my chances with father. I had been working for a few years by now and was earning decent enough money, so I calculated that if my dad did decide to kick me out, then I would probably be able to support myself in my own dingy little bedsit. I took the chance. I went to CMW motorcycles in Chichester and bought myself a Honda CM250 custom. Don’t ask me why. I obviously liked it at the time!
I rode the bike home and held my breath. My dad came out of the house. Looked at the bike, looked at me and went back indoors. Not a word was said. For three months he never spoke to me, other than the odd grunt. But I never got kicked out, so it was worth it!
I had been riding my mates 250’s over the past couple of years so hadn’t lost the knack. I regularly used to borrow my mate Dave’s KH250. On one occasion I was riding the bike the bike on the A29 Shripney road out of Bognor Regis and was giving it a ‘handfull’. Youth and inexperience on a bike that handled like a pig!
I was going round a long sweeping left-hander and finding that centrifugal force was throwing me out towards the centre of the road, and I was just about hanging on. At that same moment a Bee, the size of a golf ball hit me square in the face on my left cheek. How it didn’t take my head off and how I managed to stay on the bike I still have never reckoned! I had to make excuses and came up with a story to pacify my father that I had been in a fight at a pub. I don’t think he ever believed me, but I don’t think he ever guessed that I’d been riding a motorbike1
The Honda was actually very comfortable and easy to use, but it wasn’t big enough. I needed more cc’s. So I passed my test. If you can call the 1970s and 80s motorcycle tests a test! I seem to remember arriving at the test place, booking in and being given some verbal instruction s to ride a particular route around the town, unsupervised. The examiner at one point walked out between two parked cars for my emergency stop (completed in slow moving traffic…. Uggh, what’s all that about?!!!) Then at the end congratulating me and telling me that I had passed. Test passed. Bigger bikes were now the way forward.
BMW K1200RS 