Crickey, my claim to fame is having had 3 brain cells.... having used mine for dispatch riding and negotiating many one-way systems in London!!Richard Simpson Mark II wrote: ↑Sun Apr 05, 2020 9:04 am Had to laugh at the KH250 riders having three cylinders and six brain cells...there was one who spent every Saturday riding his Kawasaki around the one-way system in Blandford.
Street Riding Years - free download
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mark vb
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Re: Street Riding Years - free download
Re: Street Riding Years - free download
download/file.php?id=96266Chris S wrote: ↑Sun Apr 05, 2020 9:40 am I actually tracked down the bloke who wrote that iconic '6-brain-cell' letter to Bike mag.
Unfortunately, he 'wasn't in a good place' at the time, so that was that.
Let's fast forward a couple of years to 1980: great music, great films and some great bikes.
Irrc, the best year ever for new bike sales in the UK. Even I bought a new IT250G from Meeten & Ward.
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The Life helmet advert was the model "Tula", the leathers were painted on. She was the first transgender Playboy model and a Bond girl as well.
Just showing my age!
tom
... and today was a good day in the life of...
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gbags
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Re: Street Riding Years - free download
Thanks Chris,
I can’t wait to read it.
Great pics, music, films!
Wonderful days.
I can’t wait to read it.
Great pics, music, films!
Wonderful days.
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Richard Simpson Mark II
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Re: Street Riding Years - free download
Well, I'm part way though the book, and have also enjoyed Chris' photomontages.
Strikes me how lucky we were to be young at that time. Brilliant music, cool bikes with cooling fins, and hardly a care in the world. Oh and Norwich Union's very generous 'Rider Policy' that enabled people like Chris to run a 900SS
what have 18-year-olds got now?
A Chinese scooter, speed cameras, and music that makes you want to go and stab someone.
We could also live far better....free higher education if you wanted it and could muster a couple of A levels, affordable property and jobs that paid 'proper' wages...even in the gig economy that Chris worked in.
What have today's kids got?...very few proper jobs, no hope of earning enough to buy a house, and £30,000 + of student debt to pay off for a degree that's pretty much worthless. For the few decent jobs that are going, you have to do an unpaid 'internship' in the hope they might take you on at the end. And I thought slavery was abolished in 1834.
Strikes me how lucky we were to be young at that time. Brilliant music, cool bikes with cooling fins, and hardly a care in the world. Oh and Norwich Union's very generous 'Rider Policy' that enabled people like Chris to run a 900SS
what have 18-year-olds got now?
A Chinese scooter, speed cameras, and music that makes you want to go and stab someone.
We could also live far better....free higher education if you wanted it and could muster a couple of A levels, affordable property and jobs that paid 'proper' wages...even in the gig economy that Chris worked in.
What have today's kids got?...very few proper jobs, no hope of earning enough to buy a house, and £30,000 + of student debt to pay off for a degree that's pretty much worthless. For the few decent jobs that are going, you have to do an unpaid 'internship' in the hope they might take you on at the end. And I thought slavery was abolished in 1834.
Street Riding Years - 1984
You do wonder if blokes our age had more fun and freedom back then.
On motorbikes it surely seems so. Bikes were ‘proper’ and a couple of hundred quid got you an XS650.
But there must always be a temptation to cast a rosy hue over one’s carefree youth.
I recall the 70s - my teenage years - as being particularly shite, prospects wise.
Loads of terrorism, Cold War, strikes and all the rest.
By the 80s I didn’t really care anymore but few realise how close we actually came to WW3 in autumn 1983.
And at least in London, as I recall rental accommodation was as hard to find as now. There was always a housing crisis.
If you didn’t mind the periodic upheaval. squatting was so much easier. In Gower St we all had regular day jobs.
I compare my despatching times with today’s gig bikers.
Paid holidays, health insurance, any sort of workers’ rights - forget it and who cared!
It was ‘the last of the rock n roll jobs’ and there was plenty to be had.
Looking at today’s grubby scooter-punks most probably on low wages, I feel sorry for them.
Who remembers ‘the savage jaw of Nine Teen Eighty Four’?
Spitting Image, Yvonne Fletcher, Nina and her 99 Red Balloons, Bophal, Brazil movie, The Miners’ Strike, Stonehenge, The Young Ones, Sade and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Ben Elton, Paris Texas, the Crack scourge, Grand Hotel Brighton, Spinal Tap. More reminders below.
I made a travel bike from an AJS Stormer (mental MXer) and a CD200 (comatose commuter) plus bits of RD, VW and XL and rode down to Algeria. I’d pull over at sunset and could hear the engine oil boiling away.
On motorbikes it surely seems so. Bikes were ‘proper’ and a couple of hundred quid got you an XS650.
But there must always be a temptation to cast a rosy hue over one’s carefree youth.
I recall the 70s - my teenage years - as being particularly shite, prospects wise.
Loads of terrorism, Cold War, strikes and all the rest.
By the 80s I didn’t really care anymore but few realise how close we actually came to WW3 in autumn 1983.
And at least in London, as I recall rental accommodation was as hard to find as now. There was always a housing crisis.
If you didn’t mind the periodic upheaval. squatting was so much easier. In Gower St we all had regular day jobs.
I compare my despatching times with today’s gig bikers.
Paid holidays, health insurance, any sort of workers’ rights - forget it and who cared!
It was ‘the last of the rock n roll jobs’ and there was plenty to be had.
Looking at today’s grubby scooter-punks most probably on low wages, I feel sorry for them.
Who remembers ‘the savage jaw of Nine Teen Eighty Four’?
Spitting Image, Yvonne Fletcher, Nina and her 99 Red Balloons, Bophal, Brazil movie, The Miners’ Strike, Stonehenge, The Young Ones, Sade and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Ben Elton, Paris Texas, the Crack scourge, Grand Hotel Brighton, Spinal Tap. More reminders below.
I made a travel bike from an AJS Stormer (mental MXer) and a CD200 (comatose commuter) plus bits of RD, VW and XL and rode down to Algeria. I’d pull over at sunset and could hear the engine oil boiling away.
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Re: Street Riding Years - free download
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Street Riding Years - 1984
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Street Riding Years - 1984
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boboneleg
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Re: Street Riding Years - free download
Great photos and I'm really enjoying reading the book.
I have a different prospective on Gower Street to you, it's where the hotel is that we stay in as a family if we visit London
https://arosfalondon.com/
I have a different prospective on Gower Street to you, it's where the hotel is that we stay in as a family if we visit London
https://arosfalondon.com/
one-legged adventurer
Re: Street Riding Years - free download
Thanks.
Think I remember Arosfa. Sounds like an anagram but it's Welsh (same thing ;--)
We were right opposite, between Dillons and la-di-da RADA.
Now, according to Zoopla a 1-bed flat is ~£1.5m or £4500 mortgage. Nuts.
Below: 1982.: dodgy R100T + annoyingly unkillable CB400 auto and Benly.
Sometimes I quite fancy the 'full-power' CD250 version, but prices correspond with Gower St flats.
This one (cool vid) was on ebay a few months back.
Think I remember Arosfa. Sounds like an anagram but it's Welsh (same thing ;--)
We were right opposite, between Dillons and la-di-da RADA.
Now, according to Zoopla a 1-bed flat is ~£1.5m or £4500 mortgage. Nuts.
Below: 1982.: dodgy R100T + annoyingly unkillable CB400 auto and Benly.
Sometimes I quite fancy the 'full-power' CD250 version, but prices correspond with Gower St flats.
This one (cool vid) was on ebay a few months back.
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