When I was about 11 years old, I went with my parents on a trip to Sydney. As was usual on such trips, we visited the relatives. At one house full of cousins, uncles and aunts, I made a marvellous discovery. My uncle had made a mini bike for my cousin. It consisted of a single cylinder 2 stroke motor, about 25cc which started life as a lawn mower, in a small frame, with a belt drive to the rear wheel and a throttle on the handle bar. I was mesmerised. At my insistence, my cousin took the bike and myself down to the local park, where I remember doing a lot of pushing and not very much riding.
What I had quickly gleaned was that my cousin, who was a few years older than me, had lost interest in the bike. He had probably realised that pushing a mini bike was not as much fun as riding a push bike that worked. So I started work on my father and eventually my uncle agreed to sell the bike and we took it back to our home town of Hay in the Riverina. That trip home from Sydney was filled with delightful dreams of all the riding I was going to be doing around town once I got my new treasure home.
That was the beginning of a love affair that is still going strong 40 years later, albeit with a lengthy hiatus through the years.
When I could get that mini bike going, I pushed and jumped and pushed and jumped, but never was carried more than about 5 meters on it. My father had mechanics look at it and an engineer convert the belt drive to chain drive to prevent slipping. But I never did fulfil those dreams. When we finally worked out that the motor was too underpowered to drive it, I started working on my father for something more effective. The end result was a 2nd hand Honda 90 step through. In those days it was an ag(ricultural)bike. Now days it would be called a “postie” bike.
A Single cylinder 4 stroke with 4 gears and a centrifugal clutch, It took me everywhere far faster than I should have been going. At about the same time I was packed off to boarding school. Interminably long periods away from my home, my family, my friends and my bike proved to be a very miserable time. But holidays were absolute heaven. As is usually the case, kids of the same age with a common interest find each other and become firm friends. There were a few of us who had bikes and liked to hang out and ride together. I am talking about kids 12 to 15 years old here, so there were no licenses or registration to worry about. If you had a bike you rode it. Hay had a series of back lanes that gave us access to almost any part of the town without riding on a main road. The Murrumbidgee river wrapped around the town with wide areas of reserve along both sides providing the perfect area for riding bikes, and the only hills in town. 10 minutes out the road and into the river bend and we had a private reserve where no one would bother us all day. If we weren’t riding beside the river we were floating on it or swimming in it. The river was the centre of our universe and bikes our pastime of choice.
The thought of those holidays at home with friends riding bikes, swimming and socialising, sustained me through the long terms of boarding school 700 kilometres away.
There were many motorcycle adventures, crashes and even a second bike, a Kawasaki 120, to get me through 6 years of secondary school. After that and one year of letting my hair down after school it was back to Sydney to get on with life. By this stage, I had a second hand HD Holden station wagon to get me around. After 12 months in the city I found I had the opportunity buy a bike and became the proud owner of a second hand Yamaha RD 350. A twin cylinder 2 stroke road bike that was lethal off a standing start and I am still amazed that I didn’t have any serious accidents.
Eventually the bike died and I couldn’t afford to get it repaired and it faded from my life. For the next 30 years I was busy living life, working, getting married, having kids and growing up. All the while looking enviously at bikes as they roared passed me off to unknown adventures. I always told myself that eventually I would get another bike. I even mentioned it to my wife a few times, but I don’t think she took me seriously.
By 2007 I was turning 50. A good friend had recently passed away from a brain tumour and I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. My immortality was fading rapidly. It dawned on me over a short period of time that if I was serious about getting a bike again, I had better do it soon before I was too old or infirmed to enjoy it.
I worked out that I could probably afford a second hand bike. Not the $30,000 brand new Harley that I had dreamed about, but a bike that I could ride never the less. As a 20 year old, sports bikes were the ultimate and cruisers were for losers. 30 years of admiring bikes from afar had gradually brought me to realise that I thought cruisers were pretty good looking machines. They looked comfortable and not too fast. I was under no illusion about my riding skills and what the probable outcome would be if I jumped on a sports bike and tried to scrape bitumen around tight corners.
A good mate from Hay who had been riding with me right through those early high school days had bought himself a Honda Shadow ACE 750. I had had a good look at the bike last time I was in town and was impressed. It seemed affordable, reliable and had the relaxed classic cruiser look that I would settle for in the absence of a Harley. I started looking in earnest in newspapers, online on the trading post and even the dreaded ebay. I called in to a few bike dealers and made enquires. I was starting to think that a Shadow at the right price and the right time was probably unrealistic. Then I found one advertised at a dealership at Campbelltown. It was a bit above my price range, but I kept an eye on it for a couple of weeks. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere and nothing else seemed to be presenting itself. So I rang and asked if they would take an offer. They would. I took the wife one Saturday morning and went to have a look. It was love at first sight. Once I sat on it, there was no going back. I took it for a short test ride very nervously. It felt great. I went straight back to the dealer and said I would take it. My wife was a bit surprised, but very supportive.
Having made a deposit, the dealer needed a few days to organise the rego. I arranged to go back out a few days later to ride it home. Sydney was gripped by the worst drought on record at this stage and hadn’t had serious rain for a very long time. The moment I arranged to pick up that bike it started raining. I had to postpone pick up twice. I was the only person in Sydney hoping for dry weather. Eventually I got there and was then faced with a ride from Campbelltown to the Southern suburbs of Sydney. My first real ride in 30 years on a bike I hadn’t ridden before. I started out very nervously, one eye on the threatening rain clouds, but by the time I reached Kogarah, I was feeling right at home and wishing I could keep riding rather than go back to work for the day.
From that day on, riding became an obsession. I started compulsively checking the wether forecasts throughout the week, wondering if I would get in a decent ride on the weekend. I also began collecting helmets, jackets, pants, gloves, saddlebags, exhaust pipes, boots and sissy bars over a 12 month period. Living in the Sutherland Shire, my regular ride became through the Royal National park, which even after hundreds of visits, remains a beautiful ride. Chock full of motorbikes, especially on a Sunday, all heading for Bald hill at Stanwell park, which is a beautiful place to enjoy the view, check out the bikes and have coffee from the “van”.
I managed to have one small slide off the bike going through the Royal. Fortunately without damaging myself or the bike. I wasn’t going very fast and put it down mainly to fatigue. I had been riding for about 4 hours and simply went into a corner without concentrating. I entered it the wrong way and knew almost immediately that I wasn’t going to come out. It was a bit of relief in the end because it was always in my mind that chances were I would come off sooner or later and now I had done it and walked away. Now I could stop worrying about it and get on with riding. Most of the damage was to the pipes so it gave me a great excuse to change them for a set of Vance and Hines Cruzers which finally made the bike sound like a real motor bike and not a very quiet Volkswagen.
I have explored some wonderful country down the South Coast and particularly through the Southern Highlands, which I think is just the most fantastic country to ride a bike through. Judging by the number of bikes I see down there, many people share that view. My wife points out, with attitude, that she couldn’t get me out of the house for many years. Now she can’t keep me in. She has been on the back for a few short rides and is not terribly comfortable on the bike, but I am working on it a little bit at a time. She would be happy to go for longer rides if we did not have to go around any corners.
So now I spend my week going to work and reading weather forecasts and planning where I can ride to on the weekend. The weather is not so critical now that I have some decent wet weather gear, but there is nothing like hitting the rode on clear sunny day. It has taken me along time to get back to riding, but it has been worth the wait. I am so glad I didn’t wait any longer. And I am grateful to that mini bike that never worked properly, but got me hooked just the same.
