When I was a six-year-old, my Dad employed a Massey Dip Ag student who owned a Matchless 500 single-cylinder that looked magnificent in black and chrome and sounded the goods. On a clear, still evening we could hear every gearchange Robert made between Mum & Dad's farm and Stratford -- about 16km away!
This bike was also a pig to start. I can remember Robert with all of his gear on, throwing all of his weight onto the kickstarter, eventually removing gear item by item as he worked up a sweat, and then having to put it all back on again once the British beast eventually acceded to his ministrations and burst, grudgingly, into life.
"Standing on your mother's corpse you told me that you'd wait forever." [Bryan Adams: Summer of 69]
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