Hanne

Once upon a time there was a wee DR650 and he was as happy as Larry. His chain was always tensioned just so, his pipe was polished and his oil was fresher than newly processed steak. Every day he would pootle into town and pootle back again before relaxing on his carpeted piece of garage and enjoying a good night’s slumber. Life was good.

Then one day he woke up and he was ANGRY. It was quite inexpliclable. Overnight his once demure throttle had developed an angry revving habit and his smooth front decal had sprouted a pair of thick angry eyebrows. Much as a child might wake up one morning and find themselves deep in the quagmire of adolescent turbulence, the DR had developed an attitude. And the attitude looked like it was there to stay.

At Christmas time the DR was dressed up in ribbons of every possible hue, festooned with tinsel and taken on an outing to see the Christmas lights. There were far more red lights than green ones. This made him ANGRY.

One morning a shiny new sports bike pulled up beside the DR at the lights and took off at a far greater velocity than the dual purpose model could possibly manage. This made him angry. Seeing the same bike having a ‘friendly chat’ with the local policeman and his radar gun a few kms further on simply added to his rage. No one ever singled him out for special attention. It simply wasn’t FAIR!

Then one day the DR’s owner rode into the garage astride *shock horror* another bike. A wee ax100, to be precise. A machine 15 years its senior and 6 and a half times less muscly and MANLY. And the owner was smiling. This made the DR VERY angry! He felt betrayed. He felt emasculated. He decided not the start the next morning to get his own back.

Unfortunately for the DR his owner had an arsenal of flat mate’s bikes at his disposal. Seeing the owner pull up on a new set of wheels every day did nothing to mitigate the DR’s feelings of inferiority and rage. As he sulked in the corner his battery drained flat, his tyres began to deflate and he acquired a pet spider behind his instrument panel. His eyebrows began to peel and became hidden by the spider webs until one day they simply handed in their notice and vacated the premises of his face.

Suddenly the DR felt as if a weight had been lifted off his pack rack. He remembered that red was his second favourite colour and he couldn’t wait to see the red fairy lights at Christmas. He rejoiced that he had not been issued with any infringement notices during the course of his road career and he philosophically accepted that there while are fundamental differences between a 650cc 4 stroke single and a 100cc 2 stroke both have their merits. Brylcream sport bikes still really pissed him off, but on the whole life was good!

That weekend the DR’s owner did a big clean up of the shed, vacuuming up the eyebrows amongst the assorted debris from the shed floor, evicting the spiders from his steed and doing a full service on his mighty Suzuki. He painstakingly cleaned every panel and even reapplied the stickers, of which the owner had become rather fond. Luckily the externally applied insulation tape did not have the same effect as the original ANGRY eyebrows. While they serve to remind him of his stroppy period, these days the angry DR has come to accept who he is and all the emotions that his identity entails. As he vibrates down the highway he revels in his thumping resolve and his eyebrows proudly proclaim his insolence and alternative lifestyle choices to all the world.