Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

Dave
We had a great time taking part in the free-for-all Mad Sunday ride, which is open to all-comers. The Monkey bikes weren't fast by anybody's standards but were bloody good fun and we reached the dizzy speed of 65mph on a downhill bit, keeping to the left so faster riders could pass.
"You do realise this could be interesting, having us pair tootling along while superbikes rage past at 180mph," Si had pointed out to John Stroud.
"Good. I like interesting," Stroudie smiled. "Besides, you were the ones who picked the Monkey bikes."
"Yes, but that was because they were the only ones we could get on the catamaran. To think we could have had racing bikes..."
We liked 'interesting' too, if the truth be told, and just being in the midst of this historical spectacle and being immersed in the smell and noise of thousands of bikes was a wonderful experience, even if I was on something that had loud pipes and a tartan seat, and looked like a Bay City Rollers memorial bike.
The Hairy Bikers  Blood, Sweat and Tyres  Si King and Dave Myers  p218

[Biggles]

Dave
It turned d out one of Muriel's relatives had worked as a cook in the royal household, and the luxurious but incredibly heavy recipes had been passed down into her family.
"That's amazing!"
"Thank you. You must try this one too..."
"OK then, Muriel. Blimey, I don't think I'll need feeding for a week after this. I'm right royally stuffed."
After we sampled Muriel's fabulously calorific food we nearly couldn't walk. I was filmed getting on my Ducati afterwards and a motorcycle magazine commented that I looked like a pot-bellied pig mounting an antelope. It was cruel, but unfortunately rather accurate!
"I've just realised, we don't actually have to polish off every single thing we're offered, do we?" I said to Si.
"I was thinking the same myself," he replied, loosening his belt. "I think we need to be a bit more strategic, Dave. And not greedy."
The Hairy Bikers  Blood, Sweat and Tyres  Si King and Dave Myers  p269

[Biggles]

Dave
"I've got a pain in me leg," he winced as I reached his side, which made me relax a bit. At least he was compos mentis, and the pain didn't appear to be too severe as he was talking normally.
I called Jane and went with Si to the hospital, where the news turned out to be not too bad at all. Thanks to the fact he'd been wearing some really good leathers, Si had got away with soft-tissue damage to one knee and a bash to the base of his spine.
His bike had not been so lucky; it was a write-off.
"What on earth happened, mate?"
A woman in a Renault Clio pulled out in front of me so I tipped the bike. I'd have T-boned her otherwise."
After he dropped it, Si's bike had skidded across the road and hit the Clio while he shot off in the other direction, into oncoming traffic.
"It was a bloody miracle nobody hit me, Dave. I was lying there going: "Oh no, man, this is it!" It was quite surreal. Then the woman got out of her car wearing bobbly pink pyjamas and I was saying: "I'm OK, sweetheart." Then someone asked me: "Do you want your lid off?" I said, "I'll take me own lid off, thanks, and when I pulled off me helmet some woman yelled: "Bloody hell! It's a Hairy Biker!" Dude, you couldn't make it up."
The Hairy Bikers  Blood, Sweat and Tyres  Si King and Dave Myers  pp270-1

[Biggles]

Dave
We also got to ride a Cossack Ural Mars 3 with a sidecar, the same as the very first bike I ever bought in my youth. It was an old knacker and we set off down the main street, Nevsky Prospect, which is a very busy six-lane highway, with me on the bike and Si in the sidecar. I found it hilarious... until we broke down, that was.
"Have you pulled the clutch in?" Si shouted. He was very worried because buses and cars where whizzing past us and we were causing a  dangerous obstruction. "Course I have! Bloody hell, I'll have to get out and kick-start it."
I eventually got the bike going again, but unfortunately it shot off sideways across Nevsky Propspect.
"We're gonna die!" Si shouted. "Bloody hell, Dave, this is it! The end!"
It wasn't the end, fortunately. Several days later, after getting to Finland, we found ourselves sitting outside the cabin we were staying at near the Baltic Sea. The villagers were all out painting next door, and Si and I were cooking and sharing our food with them. We did blazing salmon with pepper and lemon on a wood fire and made the most mouth-watering rye bread; it all tasted divine.
The Hairy Bikers  Blood, Sweat and Tyres  Si King and Dave Myers  p343

[Biggles]

The first job I enjoyed in the motorcycle industry was later in that year when, as a kid almost straight from school, I answered an ad for a Junior Spare Parts Assistant with the Triumph motorcycle importers and distributors, Hazell and Moore, in Sydney. I knew the place well enough, for I had often pressed my nose against the show-room's display window at night to admire the gleaming Norton, Triumphs, Panther, James, NSU and flashy Indian machines that littered the floor with some profusion.
Of course, I didn't know what a spare part was, but I was the proud possessor of my ancient Model 18 Norton, so I knew what a motorbike was, and that was apparently enough for the company. I will never know why they decided to employ me, but I was leaping out of my skin to get into the industry and I suppose there was more than a little of my rampant enthusiasm on display. It must have counted for something.
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p20

[Biggles]

I sat on that tiny - about 5 inch x 9 inch rubber pad which was referred to as a 'pillion seat' and smirked at the passing peasantry as Harry swung on the 3T Triumph kick-starter and then with no warning at all, we leapt from the gutter and flew along Campbell Street to the adverse-cambered left hander into Castlereagh Street.
A tram had just left its stop and was half-way across our path as, with its bell clanging like a funereal dirge we slid sideways across its bows, missing the thing by a coat of paint and then hurled ourselves up the steep climb which followed. Of course I was desperately trying to juggle three small parcels and hang on for dear life, while unintentionally leaning back at about forty-five degrees and on the very lip of that tiny rubber pad.
Thankfully, an ultra-swift gear-change allowed me to bury my nose into Harry's bony spine and to slide forward about a tissue paper's thickness, the while stuffing those parcels down the front of my shirt and grabbing hold of the base of the bike's single saddle. How that somewhat agricultural engine managed to hold itself together during that frightful journey I will never know, for it was wrung out to nearly peak engine revs before it was mercifully allowed the temporary relief of the occasional selection of a higher gear.
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p39

[Biggles]

At the top of the scale of Near Misses was the occasion when I was riding my little 125cc James along at a fair clip in Sydney's CBD when a brand-new Jag suddenly pulled out from the gutter in front of me - yes, the classic right-hand turn in front of the rapidly approaching motorcyclist - and screeched to a stop side-on leaving me with nowhere to go but to crank the bike over and run wide into on-coming traffic.
As the footrest dug in I reefed the little bike upright again just as a Council truck whooshed past in the opposite direction with its accompanying blast of fetid air, stinging grains of sand and little bits of paper, the horn blaring. The little bike was fitted with a (useless) rectangular mirror on the right side of the handlebar in which, because of high-frequency vibration, everything was always heavily blurred. When I pulled into the gutter to settle myself down I glanced down to discover that the mirror head was gone and that its mounting arm was pointing straight back at me like an accusing finger! You can't get much closer than that and expect to get away with it!
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p46

[Biggles]

To my amazement, the first thing that the flashed into sight was a Triumph outfit, with a Triumph racer perched where the sidecar body would normally be, the racing machine strapped securely to a timber platform. The gigantic driver of the sidecar (who was bereft of balaclava, cap or goggles, but was wearing a khaki Army great-coat) hung his huge frame into the corner to help keep the outfit on an even keel, while the front wheel chattered and crabbed across the road. A pillion passenger hung likewise, one palsied hand gripping the rear guard of the racing bike, the other trying to hold his leather cap in place. But that wasn't all there was to it, as I marvelled at the apparent expertise of a sidecar driver who seemed to know more about the roadway ahead than I did, or who may have possessed a form of supersonic eyesight, because the visibility ahead was down to almost zero!
As the outfit rushed past me, it disclosed another outfit it seemed to be towing- another Triumph outfit, but this one was an out and out racing machine - with a man steering it, and with another racing Triumph solo on the sidecar platform! But rather than a tow-rope between them, or even a chain, a solid bar was mounted between them, the racing outfit's engine howling on full song as it provided its own power, the open megaphone exhausts bellowing frightfully. Far from simply being towed, the second engine was actually helping the road-going outfit to haul its heavy load over the Mountains!
A forlorn passenger sat, humped shapelessly behind the driver of the second outfit, which was an even greater surprise, but the greatest shock of all arrived moments later when the two heavily-laden outfits thundered past to display yet another pair of racing solos being towed from the chassis rails of the rear outfit by stout ropes. Two grim-visaged riders clung to the handlebars of the two machines for their very lives, exerting little control over their respective fates as they alternatively banged together and sprang apart, the two ropes twanging like violin strings.
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p53

[Biggles]

And just as a footnote to the story, the Indian factory was the largest motorcycle factory in the world back in the 1920s and the designs were sometimes years ahead of the several other US manufacturers. For example, a 1914 "Electric Special" Indian could be purchased with an electric starter, a 1000cc engine and a crude form of suspension by quarter-elliptic leaf springs front and rear, surmounted by a pair of well-sprung single saddles. It has been said there were not many 'E.S' models made but they were listed in the local catalogue, so were available to eager buyers.
A major advance for motorcycling in general was Indian's invention of the twist-grip throttle control, albeit on the left handlebar. This finally did away with the lawnmower-like control lever which was in use by other manufacturers until this invention. As we are well aware, the twist-grip throttle control is in universal use on motorcycles to this day, and will probably remain so forever.
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p61

[STeveo]

Thanks for these Biggles. I used to read Lester's column is many magazines over the years, usually with a smile.

[Biggles]

Because of my short legs, and a certain degree of puniness, I learned a neat trick all by myself, and I learned it the hard way, a simple trick I hereby pass on to all you motorcyclists out there who may be having trouble lifting your machines onto a centre stand, for almost everybody tries to do it in precisely the wrong way.
The way it should be done is as follows:- Push the centre stand lever down with your left foot - that's your left foot (not the right foot as almost everybody seems to do, but which results in them being hopelessly off balance!), and when the two stand lugs are on the ground, you face your bike, take your hands off the 'bars, and, by now perfectly balanced and not splay-footed, grasp a convenient frame rail, bracket or dual seat base and lift the bike easily onto the centre stand. Try it for yourselves and be prepared to be amazed at how much easier it is.
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p65

[Biggles]

Think of this: a motorcycle outfit is probably the most unwieldy device known to Civilised Man. All the power and braking effort is generated by the motorcycle, and that is where most of the weight is. The weight of the sidecar itself cannot be lifted clear of the ground by mortal man, but a Newtonian Theory becomes fact when it enters a left-hand corner too quickly with no-one in it and the driver unaware of what is certain to happen.
In the Newtonian effect, the sidecar then becomes weightless and floats into mid-air with great enthusiasm, cranking the left-turning outfit hard over until the right footrest digs into the ground. The trick is this; you come into your corner fairly briskly and change down a gear, tweaking the throttle open at the same time as you turn the handlebars. The bike actually drives itself round the sidecar, the third wheel lightly skimming the road, the tail-end stepping out a little with a few degrees of opposite lock applied. Go into the same left-hander with the power off briefly and you terrify the natives as you exit under full power while waving the wheel about in the air.
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p79

[Kev Murphy]

I only ever once traveled in a sidecar... as a teen, a mate fitted a two seater lounge chair onto his Harley outfit.
We sat facing the bike and the pillion. Even had seatbelts fitted, and wore helmets, and the cops STILL booked us!
4 on a bike was a no-no.     (Whyalla, SA, circa 1965)

[Kev Murphy]

I don't think that wearing a helmet on public roads was made mandatory until 1972?

[Biggles]

But the cruncher came when the tirade subsided and a chill voice from the sidecar I could not even see finished the dressing down with the question: "and why don't you grease your bloody brakes?"
It was all too much! So the brakes squealed a bit when they were working, so what? If had greased the brake shoes as she suggested, it's a fair bet we would still be trying to pull the outfit up this very day!
But there we sat, with not a soul in sight, and I couldn't see the side of the road to know whether we were in the middle of it, poised on the brink of a small cliff or about to slam into a tall gum tree.
It was an awful feeling and not at all helped by the less than friendly advice I was still being offered by the sidecar's incumbent, who had been my wife for a little too long. Who cared, at that time, whether she should have heeded her sister's friendly advice about the charming radio announcer; or run away with the local Preacher, married the randy butcher, all of whom, I was advised anew, having  been candidates for her affections at one time or another? Why did she think I was trying to kill the both of us? Why on earth would she think it was my fault everything went black so suddenly? Why did I turn out to be an idiot some village was out there looking for? Why didn't I buy her Uncle's tattered old Vanguard motor car?
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p87

[Biggles]

The Triumph twist-grip on the bike was badly damaged for some reason, and was entirely beyond repair, with no other stock available for several days, and the normal 7/8" twist-grip couldn't be used because it was too small in diameter.
There happened to be a one-inch twist-grip lying about which was once fitted to an unknown pre-war motorcycle, and this was very easily screwed to the left side of the handlebars, but which then of course worked in precisely the wrong way. Roll it forward to go, and back again to slow down.
Nothing to it, you would think... forward to go, roll back to back-off. Oh, if it were only that simple, because he had ridden motorcycles on the road, and had raced them as well for years, with a twist-grip on the right side which opened the way they still do to this day. Oh, and there was also a clutch lever on the left handlebar to think of, the operation of which made it impossible to ride the bike with any degree of smoothness. Can you imagine rolling the throttle forward, then back again as you grab at the clutch lever, and then trying to ease the clutch out gain while rolling the twist-grip forward? No? Neither I. As for moving off from a standing start?
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p91

[Biggles]

Whenever he needed work done on his AJS single he would always ask for a quote first. I would have to give him a vague idea of what it would cost and I always erred on the high side and explained it was by no means a firm figure, but it made no difference to him whenever he came to pick the bike up.
"What are ya gonna stiff me for this time?" he would invariably ask. No matter what the job cost he would always complain about the price. "That's a bit steep, isn't it?" was his stock reply, and on one occasion I stared him in the face and uttered those very words at the same time as he did, while he (again) politely asked if I could "take the edge off it a bit."
On another occasion when he asked the cost of servicing I said softly "Funchburble."
"That's a bit steep isn't it?" he asked, for the umpteenth time.
"What is?" I innocently replied.
"The price you just quoted," he said.
"I didn't mention a price," I gloated, "I said Funchburble."
"Funchburble?" he queried, with an upward inflection, "What's Funchburble got to do with it?"
"Nothing" I replied, more than a little tersely, and sick of his attitude. "You caught yourself out that time. You complained about the price of the job - again - without being given a price to begin with." He was not amused at the jibe and paid up with a bad grace then stamped briskly out of the place.
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p103

[Biggles]

The smile had gone as he took off, bug-eyed and grim-visaged, towards the three-lane Victoria Road at ninety degrees to the traffic stream. I caught him almost as he burst out of side lane, grabbed the tail of the scooter and leaned back to dig my heels in, while shouting loudly "Brakes! Brakes!"
He dragged me towards the middle of the road and planted his own feet hard down as he heaved on the front of the scooter to gain extra purchase. Over my right shoulder I caught a flash of green as the lights changed. Oh, Gawd!
We pulled up almost at the median strip as a phalanx of cars leaped away from the lights and bore down on us, both of the scooter's wheels clear of the ground, its engine screaming like a Banshee, the rear wheel spinning crazily inches away from the Jewels.
With feet tangled and tripping over one another, we shuffled, sobbing with terror, onto the median strip as traffic zoomed by in both directions, the Vespa engine still on full song, the bike now miraculously in neutral.
I dragged the clutch lever in and strained to roll the throttle back as we waited for a month till everything on four wheels sped by. Chastened, he apologised as I wheeled the scooter back to the curb, only then discovering that the sole of my left boot had been peeled back and was laughing at me as I walked.
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p113

[Biggles]

The Dream - or Nightmare, as almost everybody called it - had a couple of extra tricks up its sleeve to trap the unwary. First of all, it had a gear change lever on the left side, where all British motorcycles had more 'normal' right foot change; it had an engine-speed clutch on the end of the crankshaft - spinning at four times the speed it would be if it was fitted on the gearbox main-shaft - and (horror of horrors!) the gearbox employed the dreaded 'rotary' gear-change.
That so-called rotary gear-change was tricky at the time, because you would push the pedal down from neutral to select first gear, then down again for second, down again for third, and down again yet again to select top gear. If, or more often when, you pushed the pedal down again, you would be back where you started... in neutral.
Then, and this is the trickiest part of all, if in your confusion at apparently missing a gear, you pushed the pedal down again, it would select first gear once more, lock the back wheel, spin sideways, snap at least one of the rear chain adjusters, and then happily pelt you straight over the handlebars!
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p122

[Biggles]

"What," he trumpeted, about a meter and half over my head, "the Hell do you think you're doing?" I noticed that his lips moved, but the large teeth didn't. They were, unbelievably, so large they needed a conscious effort to stop them being spat several meters up the road. I wondered what would happen to them whenever he sneezed; perhaps he whipped them out first?
"I'm stopping these cars from exceeding the speed limit." I announced, hoping to receive some acknowledgement for my services. He looked at me with the same amazed expression you would expect if I had suddenly divested myself of my garments and stood starkers in front of him, or had decided to have a leak onto his boots. I thought for a second he was going to faint and that I might end up underneath him - a daunting prospect indeed.
"You're doin' what?" he bellowed, making my eyes water with the draught, "that's what we're supposed to be doin'! 'Snot up to you to do that!"
He then offered to arrest me for some offence or other, but I hastened to point out to him that surely one could not be taken to task for trying to prevent people from committing an offence, and thus it could then hardly be an offence in its own right. He half closed one eye and gazed skywards as I could see him struggling with what I considered to be the logic of my statement.
A few seconds later he nodded as though some Providence had provided him with the answer to his dilemma.
"Come on, you," he said, as he lead me down to where the BSA was parked. "Let's have a look at your bike!"
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p134

[Biggles]

When riding a 'naked' bike like this, with the machine leaping about underneath me like a live thing, occasionally nodding its head and twitching its tail while trying to assert control, the wind tugging firmly at me the while, I often felt almost as though I was throwing myself into the corners and flashing along on my own down the long straights. The machine seemed then form only a part of one entity, albeit a very large part, its presence allowing me to do this as though I was managing to achieve this nigh-blissful state all on my own.
On these occasions, I reckon I felt very much like a type of human/mechanical Centaur; not like one of those mythical half horse/ half man hybrids we see in Classic Fables or in ancient illustrations but more like a serious rider feeling as one with the bike he - or she, of course - is riding.
There are few pursuits on this earth which come within a bull's roar of that feeling when the open road beckons, the weather is kind, the bike is well prepared and the mood is right. Well, now that I think of it, perhaps there are one or two, or even more, which might compare but a hard squirt into the countryside on your motorcycle along with some mates still remains pretty much out there all on its own!
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p140

[Kev Murphy]

 

[STeveo]

 

[Biggles]

Two things occurred almost at once not long after I fired up the little 350cc MAC Velo one morning and my (first) wife climbed, complaining as usual, onto the pillion. The bike was resting on its stout prop stand and she, again as usual, stood on the nearside pillion footrest before swinging her leg over and settling down, which of course meant heaving the bike up with its added burden as I slipped into gear and took off briskly, as usual.
Two right-handers later and nicely on the boil I lined up a favourite left-hander and cranked the bike into it, to suddenly discover that the prop-stand was still down! Of course it dug in and spun the bike almost completely side-on, whereupon - almost out of control- it flopped over to the right. I tried to dab my right foot to the ground but discovered, to my horror, that the errant kick-starter crank had slipped up the inside of my trouser leg and I simply couldn't move my foot off the right footrest!
OK, there I am, trying to flick a badly bent prop-stand up out of harm's way on the bike's left side, at the same time trying to lift my foot off the footrest on the other side to remove that accursed kick-start lever from inside my trouser leg, while fighting a minor tank-slapper as we are spearing, only just under control, towards on-coming traffic. I am also being heartily abused by an irate pillion passenger who is belting me about the head with one of those little wicker baskets which were all the rage with newly-pubescent females at the time!
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p152

[Biggles]

An example is the Clark Cable Company which along with Bowden, supplied carburettor, magneto, clutch and brake control cables to most major motorcycle manufacturers.  As just one example, a Clark cable purchased from the company for, say, a 6T Triumph clutch, was precisely the same as one which could be purchased from the distributors in a 'genuine Triumph' spare parts box, and it sold for less than one-third the price of the 'Triumph genuine article', for Clark supplied the same cables to the factories, to be labelled as 'genuine' as they exported to Omodeis. The same applied to handlebars for most of the British motorcycles, along with control levers footrest and other rubbers, which were supplied by original manufacturers to the various factories as genuine spares. They were exported to Omodeis for sale as simple, 'over-the-counter' spare parts, with never a claim to them being in any way the genuine article. Little wonder the major distributors were off-side with that small company with its giant turn-over.
Vintage Morris  Lester Morris  p170