What is it with guys bout girls on bikes?

[moko]

yeah mate! but with that you see come pretty girls... ahh theres the bit you missed :P all the ones you old guys used to pickup wearing ur wrecked leather jackets etc... where were your standerds?

Standards,what are they? Oddly a lot of really tasty girls used to be attracted to the greasy few,"bit of rough",I suppose.I was in a long-term relationship with a really nice clean-cut girl,looking back we were real chalk and cheese but were happy for more than 3 years until she wanted the ring and house thing while I bought a GS850 instead.A few girl bikers around in those days too,a lot less than now but there were girl riders in Plymouth with an XT500 and Norton Commando,nearer my then home in Cornwall there was one with a race-rep Suzi GT750,real beast of a bike,another with an XS750 and dirty Cathy with an immaculate 250 B.S.A.I started a relationship with a nice squeeky clean suburban housewife while still in my "Lemmy on a bad day" phase,met her sister and the poor girl was struck dumb with horror,met her dad and he asked whether I wore my jacket on the bike or dragged it along behind me,again chalk and cheese but we lasted 5 years or so.

[750Y]

what's with guy's and girls on bikes???
men's bikes are from mars(a cold uninviting place inhabited by brainless amoeba) and women's bikes are from Venus(a warm inviting place filled with Love and chocolate).
men are just jealous.

[Paul in NZ]

I wrote a very long story for the MGNOC magazine on my search for love on 2 wheels. It it was not gunna bore anyone shitless, Im happy to post it here?

Cheers

[Motoracer]

I wrote a very long story for the MGNOC magazine on my search for love on 2 wheels. It it was not gunna bore anyone shitless, Im happy to post it here?

Cheers

Post it!

[jrandom]

I wrote a very long story for the MGNOC magazine on my search for love on 2 wheels. It it was not gunna bore anyone shitless, Im happy to post it here?

Cheers

Well, it's not like you're pointing a gun at us and forcing us to read it, are you?

[Paul in NZ]

Hmm

I posted it and it disappeared?

Oh well.... :spudwhat:

[Velox]

what's with guy's and girls on bikes???
men's bikes are from mars(a cold uninviting place inhabited by brainless amoeba) and women's bikes are from Venus(a warm inviting place filled with Love and chocolate).
men are just jealous.

mmmmm....... chocolate.

Hey - the place I got my bike from didn't have any chocolate! I'm feeling ripped off.

[LB]

Hmm

I posted it and it disappeared?

Oh well.... :spudwhat:

Try again? There is a limit to the number of characters you can have in a post, but it will tell you if you've got too many and you can just split it into two or three postings.

Keen to read it!!


.

[Paul in NZ]

There is something inherently sexy about motorcycles. Males of the species are often not sure why or even consciously thinking of it but deep down, in the seldom acknowledged animal subconscious, they know this to be true! There is also something (for most guy’s and some girls) definitely sexy about Girls. Why is it then so confusing for a young man to put the two together?

Could it be that all those raunchy motorcycle magazines are telling us lies? (you know the magazines I mean, The ones that you buy for the articles and never look at the pictures)

From my very first ride on a friends long forgotten Norton Dominator Model 7, I tended to see myself as a leather clad road warrior sweeping down the highways, causing hearts to flutter and attractive young women to swoon with desire with my passing. But that aside, like many a young man of my generation I spent a fair amount of time and effort trying to entice these mysterious creatures onto my pillion. And like (I sadly admit) many of my peers I spent quite a few long lonely nights wondering where it all went so obviously wrong!

My ego will recover (in time) and I was lucky enough to discover in time the love of my life but in my first, post puberty years I was mystified how the collective female population could possibly have the will power to stop them selves from flinging themselves onto my pillion and grabbing a hold of my (somewhat slimmer) waist. I was a rugged foot loose road god with ex army boots and a black plastic jacket! How dare they resist me?? (most of you have guessed by now that our family did not in fact have a full length mirror in our house)

Joking aside, lets be honest here!! We all, to one degree or other, imagine we look pretty darn ‘crash hot’ on our bikes don’t we!! Well Ok maybe our more ‘secure’ riders on the distaff side may have a different slant on it that I cannot fathom. 3 daughters and 24 years of marriage are not sufficient experience to offer any worthwhile comment on a ladies perspective! (no I’m serious) But you guys know what I mean! You are riding through a small town, your chrome pony throbbing away powerfully and you just cannot help to glance over to see what you look like in the shop windows… “Man I look good on this bike” you think to yourself… (Please Note! This is usually followed by “AAARRRGGGHHH, Oh man that hurts” and by a trip to the hospital to get the tow ball of the car in front of you surgically removed from your forehead). But just before that, you just knew all those hot looking babes you just knew were out there (waiting for an MTV crew to discover them) were itching to get on the back of your rumbling freedom machine!

Sigh! Sorry guys! Experience tells me that the reality is usually somewhat different. Vicki, in a rare display of utter honesty describes a ride on the pillion of my 1980 Moto Guzzi Le Mans 2 as being similar to having a concrete block rammed up her posterior with a sledgehammer! Being a sensitive new age guy and in an effort to please the great love of my life, I pinched the dogs second best sheepskin blanket to soften the ride. This did not suffice! Apparently comfort has been lifted to being like having a concrete block covered with a flannel, rammed up your posterior with a sledgehammer! (plus the dog’s not too happy with me either)

“But darling!!!” I plead, “I can’t sell this bike! I look good on it” Actually I look like a large un coordinated blue / black cordura clad sack of spuds impaled on a prehistoric agricultural implement but a boy has to dream, right??. It’s a measure of Vicki’s love for me that she tolerates this bodily abuse to share in my passion for silly old motorcycles. That and the fact that she owes me big time for all the gardening chores ;-)

However, current status aside, I still remember (in 1973) sweeping elegantly down the driveway of Cashmere High School on my first real motorcycle (that I had ever actually owned)! The coal black and gold 1954 AJS 500 single was without doubt a majestic motorcycle and pulling up in the students car park in a clatter of mal adjusted mechanicals, a slight haze of oil fumes and an enormous cloud of youthful testosterone signaled my ‘arrival’ to my fellow inmates as a man of substance! A motorcyclist!!!

[Paul in NZ]

In those days the arrival of any new machine, even one as staid as an AJS, was an event of great import and swiftly the crowd of the usual suspects emerged from behind the bike sheds! Sure I already had a car but a 1949 Hillman 10 was transport. The AJS was freedom, speed (well after a Hillman 10) and RESPECT! Or at least that’s the way it should have been!!

Naturally the mighty AJS towered above the usual Honda C50’s, leftover Vespas and Honda XL175’s. It was BIG and a full man sized 500cc. The fact that half of the scooters and all of the 125’s could leave it gasping in a haze of 2 stroke fumes never entered into it! It was big and shiny and went thump, thump thump! It was a proper motorbike and naturally I was far too cool to enter into a race which I was bound to loose!

To my very great surprise it seemed that no sooner had I arrived when one of the female objects of my school boy desire who, normally, would barely speak a word to me except to borrow a pencil perhaps sidled up to me. And here! On the very first day as a proper motorcyclist! “Hi Paul” she husked deeply in a voice that hinted of desires as yet unrealized! “I hear you have a new bike and it’s a big one”. Oor Eer!! I was really paying attention now!! There was obviously something about this motorcycling business that was suddenly INTENSLY attractive if my first experiences were to go by!

If I was ‘excited’ by the bike before, I near burst all my spots when she continued..”I’d REALLY like to go for a ride on it” There was a bit of momentary confusion until I made sure that yes indeed she was actually talking to ME and not some other guy called Paul over my shoulder and yes she DID want to go for a ride with me on that bike and not one of the newer ones! So, there being no time like the present I casually strolled to the machine and easily fired it into life! (truth time – I scrabbled in a most undignified fashion and luckily it started on the 3rd kick). She hitched up her kilt and slithered across the pillion seat in a fashion, which caused a nervous twitch to appear in my left eyebrow and a throbbing vein to appear in my neck! As I carefully as I could, I slipped the beast into gear (massive clunk) and we set off around the school block! It was the first pillion I had ever taken and possible the 10th time I had ever ridden a proper bike and I was delirious with joy!

Ah! The thrill as we pulled up before the common room! She shook her wind-tousled hair (no helmet required back then) and whispered “Why don’t we go for a ride one night?” EH?? I spluttered in a rather undignified fashion. This temptress was asking ME out?? Flipping heck! Speechless and knowing we were quickly getting into dangerous territory (and hoping I was still cool) I managed a positive reply, found first gear and sped off home before she noticed I had lost control of my legs.

The appointed night approached and I made sure the black beast GLEAMED. I had even managed to make the rusty bits conspire to look semi respectable as I chugged down the driveway to the front door of my hearts desire Her Mum and Dad greeted me at the door, and after the usual eyeballing from dad and satisfied that I was not some sort of manic Hells Angel, warned us to be careful. I handed over my best crash helmet (WW2 vintage) for the delectable miss and before I knew it she was grasping me tightly around my then boyish waist and we were thudding off into a warm night. A night suddenly filled with the expectation of some heady delights!.

The feeling as she snuggled into my back was indescribable! We wafted through that summer evening, the big single purring beneath us as we headed to a friends house under the flimsy pretext of listening to the dreadful wailing of some ‘new’ record that she liked and with luck, a cup of turgid instant coffee (ah! Simple days!). Suddenly, in the midst of my happy reverie, something solid flew past my left knee and the steadfast beat of the engine was replaced by a strangely hollow whoop whoop whoop sound! The poor old AJS lost all power and was quickly loosing forward motion! Briefly the night held it’s breath as the engine failed to respond to my diligent twiddling of all the controls. I felt my evil plans slip a gear as we coasted to a silent halt beneath a lonely streetlamp.!

Dejection!

The spark plug had chosen that exact moment to abandon its grip on the aged alloy of the cylinder head and had taken the HT lead to the magneto with it! Drat!. By the pale yellow glow of Joe Lucas’s best 6 volt headlight we finally found the ejected items and it was hopefully screwed back into the gaping hole! But it was no use. The thread was stripped and it was apparent during the long push home, that so were my chances with the delectable miss. Sigh!! To be fair she was very nice about it and I did drop her home in my mum’s powder blue Morris Mini but I could tell the ‘moment’ had passed before it had truly arrived. I was the very definition of disappointment..

The plug thread was eventually repaired ( a story in itself) but it was too late! Whilst I was out of action the object of my lust had been beguiled buy a “smart young man’ who had unlimited access to his mothers car (non powder blue mini) and I had missed my chance! Paradise was lost! (well, delayed a bit)

[Paul in NZ]

Despite the setbacks, life however went on during that first summer of biking and shortly after this episode I met my first love! She lived in a rural village on Banks Peninsula where her elderly folks had a small farm. He was ex RAF complete with propeller over the mantelpiece and she was from pragmatic farming stock. The parents were incredibly kind to me often leaving a snack out when I’d drop Penny off after the long drive or ride from the movies in the city and I was often invited to stay the night instead of making the long trip home. I’d ride over for visits and we would go for long walks holding hands, talking and getting indignant about important issues of the time as was the fashion.

One weekend she asked me to come for a ride! I thought she meant a ride with me but no! She meant me on the back of her CZ 175 farm bike! EGAD! What an opportunity I thought!! I’ll get to hold HER tightly about the waist as we gently pootle about the village!! What I had not considered was that she was one of those horsy type girl’s and rode the long suffering CZ like it WAS a horse. Penny rode AT THINGS (like gutters and fences) rather than around things! I suspect that she rather expected the poor bike to jump on command! While that may of worked when she rode solo, it didn’t with me on the back and before long flesh was lost, words were exchanged and although we enjoyed a long (platonic) friendship we never ever bought up the subject of motorcycles again! (sigh) Paradise lost again!

As a way of consoling myself the AJS was retired to the back of dads shed and I lost myself in an frenzy of beer (1 small bottle was a considered a frenzy back then) and a buying spree of increasingly flash old wrecks funded by my part time work!! But my school days were coming to an inglorious end and finally it was time to join the ranks of the full time employed! On the plus side, we now had some bigger bucks to spend on Motorcycles! In short order, a very sad and very bent Triumph Chopper, (the victim of a head on), that I had purchased somewhat nervously from a pretty evil looking guy for $150.00 was dragged kicking and screaming from a dark corner and into the light!

The poor old thing was straightened, re-chromed, re-painted, polished and bought up to date with the latest fashions! (well, it was the 70’s!) For a first effort it looked pretty slick! We were well into the late 70’s now and there was a minor chopper revival, this bike was cool (so was facial hair, perms, flares and body shirts. Urk!)

With in days of getting it registered and warranted summer had arrived and we were at a friend’s party one night when a very attractive young miss asks, “Is that cool chopper your bike?” At first I thought she probably wanted me to move it so her boyfriend could park his car but no! She liked the look of it and wanted to know more! I suddenly felt ‘dangerous’! (little did she know) Before you could say Mmmppfffhhh! We were get to know each other and I had dashed home to get my car to give her a ride home. The poor old chopper only had a single seat but I could see a pillion pad in my VERY near future!

By the time we finally left, the party was in the dying stages The bottle ran out of beer and we had listened to Andy’s 3 LP’s 6 times each. I was looking forward VERY much to getting to know the young lady a bit more on the drive home in the car! Alas this was not to be! Halfway home she suddenly went a funny green color was violently ill all over the inside of the door of the Mk1 Ford Cortina Station Wagon! Not the stunning finish to the evening that I had been looking for! However telephone numbers were exchanged and next Saturday (after some pretty frantic car cleaning) saw us out on a date! As it was raining, in the car!

The result was the same! (sigh) We had purchase a burger and at least she had managed to get the window open this time! I thought she was really starting to like me! By the third date the car was starting to smell funny and I was getting used to removing the interior and hosing it out on Sunday mornings. This young lady was turning out to be a bit weird, even for me!

Undeterred I had built a pillion pad for the little Triumph, she had recovered from whatever mystery illness afflicted her so one evening it was with a feeling of growing anticipation that I rode off to visit my lady fair! Our first ride!

It was also the first time I had been to the parents house in the daylight. Golly! I knew her folks were well off but it was really very very flash and very ‘old money’ indeed! I was warmly welcomed by mum and dad (I was getting very suspicious by now) and the young lady of my teenage dreams came down stairs and made us both a coffee which we took up to her room to listen to music? Eh?? Not only did this sound depressingly familiar but this was ODD! Mum and Dad raised no objections, so away I went! I settled on the bed while she fluffed about with records and the like. Then she picked some thing up and placed it on my shoulder. “Have you met my pet rat?”

SWEET CEASARS GHOST!! A rat!

It was not even a ‘nice’ white one!! Just a stinky old, dirty brown ratus horribilus! AAARRRGGGHHH! I HATE rats! After she calmed me down, extracted ratty from where the poor critter had landed (with some force) and mopped up the coffee we agreed that we should go for a wee ride to get some air! After I had the pre unit twin lit up she alighted the pillion pad, all feline grace and tight jeans (now we were getting someplace) and we burbled off into town where we could hang out with friends and REALLY look cool! One thing about that bike was that it had chrome hubs, spokes and rims. It fair glittered as it cruised under the neon lights and it looked HOT!

Then, as now, Friday night was posing night in Christchurch and a thousand other small cities! We tooled along the streets, past the lowered Ford Anglia’s and hot Morris Minors and down main street. The barely muffled flat white drag pipes crob crob crobbing, chrome spokes becoming glittering disks and us looking like we were made for each other (Yeah baby!). At last we were happening (it was the 70’s ok) and in the words of the great Chuck Berry we were “Moving thru the traffic like a mounted cavalier”. We finally copped a red light where Columbo crosses Morehouse and the delectable long legged miss stood up to relieve the stress of the crease in her ‘too tight’ jeans in a vital spot (this bike was built LOW baby).

Just then the light went green. And! Like any young man in Columbo street on a Friday night I did not think! I reacted!! My right fist went twist, my left hand popped the clutch and the bike leapt forward! A shrill scream pieced the suddenly silent air….

As the scream died it seemed to contain several words I pretty sure her parents had never taught her! The fact I could actually hear her behind me over the straight pipes told me all I needed to know! Drat! Just when it had all finally been working out I found that being left standing in the middle of the busiest (and coolest) intersection in town with number plate burns to her inner thigh was not the aphrodisiac I hoped it would be and I was advised that “home, NOW” would be good!! She never called me and I never called her and ultimately I think that was for the best!

[Paul in NZ]

I had by this stage given up the idea of somehow combining women with motorcycles. It just was not working for me and was making holes in my bike for pillion seats I would now never use!

So after that I rode alone! If I did go on a date then I would take the car and I would sit in the front row at the bike club meetings with all the other single males convincing ourselves we were all lone wolves while really we were just kinda sad. (If you want to know what it felt like, listen to country music) Strangely (for lone wolves) we would all drool over Phillis when she arrived. We were all actually a little scared of her as she was ‘bad’. She was the sort of girl that seemed to own more black leather than a whole herd of Angus steers and had the correct interior fitments to show it all off to good effect. We could not help dreaming and to be fair, I think she kinda liked us wondering what it would be like to have such a pillion?

It was about then that I abandoned the chopper life (once the factories started making them the thrill left me) and secured a crusty old 750cc Norton Atlas! After the second rebuild it became a café racer and we sported clip-on’s, rear sets, swept back headers, Dunstall Megga’s, a Laverda SFC humpy seat, 12.5 : 1 pistons, a huge cam and carbs so big you could roll a soccer ball through em! I sprayed it all in Mk2 Jaguar maroon with a black panel down the top. Cor! It was a real café racer and a stunner! I was years ahead of my time in the whole Rocker revival thing! Surely the chicks would dig this?

It was this thought that was bubbling in my mind one day as I strode across the street to the waiting beast. Open faced (matt black naturally) helmet at a jaunty angle, Stadium MkVIII goggles on top, tugging on my skin tight leather gloves, huge boots swinging manfully with white submariner socks tucked over the top and mum’s best white silk scarf showing from my black leather bomber jacket. An asphalt love god if ever there was!

The mighty Norton was standing waiting on the main stand facing down the street and into town! She looked like a 100mph standing still and as I reached her I looked up to see two pretty young things looking hungrily at the bike from the window of the dairy where they worked. Now, quite what effect I was having up until then I will never know but I was sure (in my primal apeman subconscious) that blasting off at warp factor 10 in a wall of noise would have them panting for it! Exactly what that meant I was not quite sure other than it was probably a good thing. Though, now looking back, leaving the scene quickly was not exactly going to secure me a date was it?

I caught their eye, winked and nonchalantly threw a steely thigh across the seat of the slinky Norton. Normally this was good thing BUT today there was a rather steep camber on the road and I had mounted from the high side. (oops) I never found my footing on the other side and as I slid off into the gutter pulling the Norton with me all I could think was “Oh Bugger!” as I lay in the gutter with 400lb of best british steel on top of me! After a few minutes I painfully weaseled out from under the bike and not needing any confirmation that the not very muted laughter coming from the shop was directed at me I push started the now flooded beast and rode slowly off down the road! Defeated (and deflated) again!

The years rolled by! A stint working in England saw me tearing around the Devonshire country side on a TS125 with a bit of a mural on the tank. Pink Floyd’s, Dark Side Of The Moon. (stop laughing). Again, solo! Bikes and girlfriends came and went and before I knew it I was in love with my Vicki and living in penniless splendor in a renovation project with babies at our feet! The cool bikes had gone to pay for the house and I was commuting on a $75 TS250 Suzuki Savage assembled out of cardboard box full of stuff. Vicki came for a couple of rides during which I set fire to her new jeans on the stubby high level pipe and that was that! Women and bikes! Bah humbug!! Or so I thought!

The babies grew, the Suzuki left and the dear old Triumph TR6C “Trophy” had taken up residence in the shed for some time when Steve and his partner suggested that we all attend a New Years Eve Party come Bike rally out Akaroa way! As it so happened Vicki’s folks had offered to baby sit that night so we were ON!

We got away late and with too much gear and a few minor problems with babysitters! I’d just come back from a stint of working in the states and I’d picked up an inexpensive helmet to helmet intercom. It was not working very well with static from the Triumphs ancient electric’s and patchy reception on the radio all the way around the bottom of the Port Hills! I was thinking it was not such a stunning investment when finally, with the sun setting on a blistering Nor’ wester day and the temperature hovering in the high twenties we came to the fast L/H bend just before Lake Forsythe.

The bike was going amazingly well and we were now at that point of the trip where the problems of getting away were but a memory and the only reality that mattered were 4 good friends, 2 old bikes and the patch of road swiftly running beneath our wheels! I happily gunned the old trumpy through the left hander in second, found third and wound her out to Triumph heaven. Steve and Janice were keeping station on their ’67 TR6P “Saint” and just as I hooked top at about 75mph the radio amazingly cleared and the opening bars of the greatest rock n roll song on the planet leapt into my helmet, Neil Young’s ‘Live” version of Hurricane. I settled back in the seat. Felt Vicki snuggle in behind me, dropped my left hand over the love of my life’s leather clad thigh and got a warm squeeze in return!

Could life get any better than this?

Now, I know that it would have been great if Vicki had been on her own bike and all that but at that stage of our life it just was not going to be! All that mattered was that after many many false starts we were having a REALLY positive experience on the bike!

The Akaroa Hill was in front of us, the promise of a cold beer was waiting, the best rock song in the world filling our helmets and best woman in the world at my back on a warm summer evening on a sweet running cycle!! I finally felt like I had made it! The two great loves of my life together in one perfect moment!

I still look back on that golden evening and smile! A man might live his whole life and only ever experience a few fleeting moments of perfection and to share it with the one you love? It really just doesn’t get ANY better than that!

It almost made the journey worthwhile….

Almost….

[greenhorn]

I just read it all start to finish without a break.
Awesome writing man, i loved every bit of it.

[moko]

Nice one Paul,got my own memories of a favourite pillion passenger as you say.Can also relate to the "If it`s going to happen,it`ll happen when you`re trying to look cool" scenario.Best/worse moments both on the same bike,my first one,CB200,pulled up outside the pub one Sunday,all the boys were their leaning against the wall watching the bikes come and go.Superman here roared up,flipped the side-stand down and promptly dropped it down a drain,me and bike in a heap,luckily I had good mates and after a mere 2 years or so they`d stopped laughing.Same bike,going around a sharp bend like Barry Sheene to impress a group of youth watching from a bench,grounded her and ended up sitting in the road as it bounced along on it`s side and very nearly ended up going through the plate-glass window of an electrical store.
Wind on a few years and me and my reprobate mates,by now on bigger machines,my XS650,Bonnies,that kind of thing,eye-balling "the opposition" as a rival gang rode through,guy at the front(who ironically became a mate when we were all older and wiser)Gave us his best Clint Eastward glare and his Bonny chose that moment to jump out of gear and rev like no triumph twin was ever meant to rev,he wobbled,they all wobbled while being cool we all sneered,saving the gleeful hysterics until after the deflated convoy had moved along out of sight.Great days.

[scumdog]

Great story Paul! read it all in one hit and can empathise (not to be confused with enter-thighs).
Oh all the posturing and swaggering of youth, We all (males that is) in our early years thought all it took to get women into bed was a flash new car/bike/shirt/hairstyle!! Oh such creatures of shallow substance and vanity, when it came to the "right" woman they didn't give a fat rats (sorry Paul) arse about the friperies, the just wanted the guy as he is, man if we had only known that we could have saved ourselves a fortune and a lot of skinned knuckles.
Bloody women, why couldn't they have said that right at the start!! (thinking back, a few did but hey, what did they know?)