Ooops

Notwithstanding, if Alistair or Ted were to get better offers and decide not to accompany me on my extended motorcycle tour, I’d be delighted to share my tour with the two IAM/EAMG Observers that I’ve been fortunate to be assigned to whilst progressing to my IAM and RoSPA qualifications, neither of whom will be embarrassed if I were to name them as David Izzard and Graham Cooper. Both are extremely competent and very accomplished motorcyclists who have taught me so much and are an absolute pleasure to ride with, and have enabled me to stay as safe as possible aboard a motorcycle, whilst deriving more enjoyment from my bike than I thought possible.

How would you describe to a non-rider the attraction of riding a bike, as opposed to driving a car?

Motorcycling creates an opportunity to escape from the stresses of everyday life, focus the mind on self-preservation and to display your individualism, and be yourself. To stay safe, you need to apply total concentration, and in doing so, you engage the challenges presented by speed, freedom, and danger, all in pursuit of the indulgences of sheer pleasure. However, motorcycling does come with several health warnings, the obvious one being the inherent safety risks and dangers presented by other road users, and another is that the love of owning and riding a motorcycle can very quickly become ADDICTIVE! If in doubt, ask any Wife, Girlfriend or Bank Manager!

When do you intend giving up riding?

That’s got to be the ‘Million Dollar Question’!

If you had asked me that question twenty years ago, would I still be riding a motorcycle when I’m seventy, the answer would probably have been NO! If you had asked my family and friends the same question, the answer would have most certainly have been NO! If you had asked that question of my doctor, he would have probably answered that I’d be mad if I was still riding at that age.

Then to cap it all, when I found myself queuing up behind my former IAM Observer (who I’ll not name, but who did get a mention earlier, at the Port of Dover prior to a tour of Greece seven years ago, having not seen him for about a dozen years or so, his very first comment to me when he realised it was me, was to announce as ‘he was surprised that I’m still alive’! So, I guess it’s an almost impossible question to answer! Suffice to say, one day I guess it won’t be safe for me to continue riding, or I might simply fall out of love with motorcycling, as I almost did during the COVID lockdowns, when I kept looking at my gleaming bike, locked in my garage, with nowhere to go and no-one to ride with. We’ve all ex-

perienced some difficult times over the past two years, which we pray, and hope, are now behind us!

Describe your scariest moment on your bike?

Scariest moments? I suppose when things go wrong whilst motorcycling, in varying degrees, they’re all scary moments!

I’ve had several scary moments over the years and far too many to list here. But to name a few, I can remember riding over the brow of a hill on a German Autobahn at high speed on a fully laden Harley Davidson Ultra Glide, being distracted by the guy riding beside me, then suddenly being confronted with a wall of standing traffic. For anyone who has ever experienced attempting to bring almost half a tonne of Harley Davidson to an emergency stop, you’ll know that’s scary!

On a slightly different note, falling off whilst leading a Moto-Cross race at Lyng in Norfolk, and attempting to curl up in a ball whilst lying on the ground to protect myself from the other thirty odd bikes roaring past, and some over the top of me. That was REALLY Scary!

Finally, having decided to watch the Boat Race on the Thames in London in 2006, to avoid most of capital’s heavy traffic, I jumped aboard my ‘twist and go’ 250cc Vespa scooter that I owned at the time. After watching the race, I set off for home, only to end my day in the Homerton Hospital in Hackney, seriously injured with a suspected fractured hip and femur, after being knocked off whilst riding along the Seven Sisters Road by a Mercedes Benz driver who claimed to the Police that ‘HE DIDN’T SEE ME’!..........As motorcyclists, how many time do we hear that comment? Far too often when things have gone wrong, which in itself, is also VERY Scary!