Like all stories mine has a beginning so I may as well start there, for me jumping on a motorcycle started at the late age of 34 years old following the relocation of my workplace, previously the office had been just around the corner, a five minute commute in the car whereas the new office location was a thirty mile drive through dense traffic.
Now I've always loved motorcycles, adored them even. I remember when I was about 12 years old my mum sent me to the old lady across the road to get my hair cut, I recall sitting on the chair in her kitchen, tea towel wrapped around my neck and her stood there with scissors in one hand, cigarette in the other "any requests" she said (well croaked actually).
That's when I reached into my pocket and pulled out a crumpled image cut out of some magazine or another. She took one look at it, laughed and said "maybe one day son, not today though, I'm a hairdresser not a magician" then she started snipping away. I just sat there staring, slightly morosely, at the photo of Eddie Kidd that I had passed to her.
As I remember he had black hair with all kinds of blonde streaks in it at the time, he was a complete hero to me, our own english version of Evil Kneivel. There wasn't a week that went by back then when he wasn't somewhere in the newspaper or on the television talking about jumping double decker buses or the great wall of china. When he wasn't stunting he'd be in photographs, surrounded by gorgeous women.
Anyway I never got a bike at 16 or 17 years old like I intended to, time passed very quickly (cars, marriage, work, kids, dog - you know the story) before I knew it I was in my mid thirties and unaware that I might be missing out on anything. I'd enjoy watching motorcycle related programs on television such as American Chopper andBiker Build Off, but I have to admit even watching MotoGP didn't get me yearning to ride a motorcycle.
Then one evening in I think 2007 I was sat flicking channels when I came across Ewen McGregor and some other guy sat on BMW adventure bikes at a border crossing waiting to get through, they looked rough I have to say but at the same time had beaming smiles. A couple of days later I rushed off to HMV and bought the DVD of the television series Long Way Round and ended up watching all 12 episodes in two evenings, I was hooked.
This was around the same time as at work the big relocation was being planned that I mentioned earlier, I was already dreading the everyday commute, you have to know the area to understand just how mind numbing the stationary traffic can be. So that was it, it was almost like there was a huge "GET ON A MOTORCYCLE" sign on the back of my eyelids, so I did.
I booked my CBT a few days later, ordered a 125cc Cagiva Raptor and got going with it. Within a couple of months I'd completed DAS, passed my full bike test and now owneda bright green Kawasaki ER6F. Oh how I smiled zipping passed 15 miles of stationary traffic everyday, I'd even go so far as to say I felt quite smug about the whole matter, haha.
Now I was quite lucky. The training school that I took DAS with had a forum on their website, the idea of the forum was to answer any training related questions, bike questions etc but was mainly used by ex-students and instructors to organise ride outs and meet ups.
I went to a few as I thought it could only help with my own riding improvement, I kind of treated it as post test training as the instructors that went on the ride outs were only to happy to help further with any questions I might have. After a few months of meet ups and ride outs I realised the weirdest thing had happened, I'd made a load of new friends, now that's not the easiest thing to do at 34 years old, or so I thought. But that's motorcycles for you, they really are the most amazing thing. They changed my life and they'll change yours also.
I continued to use the forum and attended regular rideouts up to six months after my test. Then in July 2008 another amazing thing happened, a post appeared on the forum, it was called
"anyone fancy giving this offroad malarkey a try, wanna go to spain..."
immediately I thought of that Eddie Kidd photograph, logged in to the forum and replied,
"I'm in" :)
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