You always remember your first time. I’ve worked in the motorcycle industry all my adult life in one way or another, often exposed to the latest and greatest thing. But I was often the youngest, hardly ever taken seriously and mainly valued for my tea making skills.
But hanging around the motorcycling scene from an early age meant I got to be around some movers and shakers. And as far as I could see back in the day, the coolest thing at the time was dragging your knee on the ground. You can picture the scene; a pimply youth smashing around of a tuned fifty (ish), splitting his time between attempting the art of knee sliding and squeezing spots. Like a parading pubescent primate trying to impress the girls and find my place within the hierarchy of the motorcycling pack.
I rode with a group of the aforementioned juvenile primates. We’d hang out around a local petrol station eating liquorice allsorts, drinking fizzy pop and indulging in the kind of smack talk that’s expected from the bunch of hormone-fueled, sugar-driven spunk trumpets we were. Just how Rock ‘n’ Roll were we?
At some point it was suggested the car park area at the back of the petrol station was good quality black top, making it possible to practice our scratching and sliding. Plus we could chase each other around without arousing too much attention from the local plod or the garage staff as they all knew we were harmless, anyway.
My steed for this adventure was a Honda ST70. Not just any ST70, though. This mighty beast was turned with a big, fat inlet manifold, a CG125 carb, gas-flowed head and if I recall, scooter racing tyres. I looked stupid, but it went like stink!
You can probably imagine the sight of us chasing around a car park, hanging off like apes from the trees with our knees out. Basically looking like the biggest bunch of idiots imaginable.
But then it happened – my knee momentarily touched the ground!
A mixture of rapture and utter confusion swathed my pathetic soul, spinning me into a state of confusion. Had I ? Did I? Then it came, the searing pain and the realisation that I had got my knee down for the first time. I had been catapulted into the elite group of riders that “had”. But the fact I’d been wearing jeans meant that the pain was now growing into absolute agony. With gritted teeth I stopped, jumped into the air howling like a banshee at my amigos, and displayed the now leaking and contaminated wound on my knee.
I was the knee-sliding alpha male just for one night, and I’ve still got the scar to prove it! Do you remember your first time?
Good to know we don’t have to grow up Griff, I still check my ‘Slider wear’ after every outing !