Bikes, birds and the chase.
Bikes, birds and the chase. (Part I)
Back in the 70's we blokes all saw ourselves as rebels and adventurers. Riding the lonely highway, looking cool, looking good to the chicks and zooming off into the sunset after pulling some amazing bird, with your mates looking on jealously. That was really what most of us were looking for when we were younger and I don't suppose that has changed much. The biker image of good looking blokes pulling stunning birds was mainly gleaned from books and movies, but for some of us it all worked out amazingly well.
Riding the biggest noisiest bad ass bikes (or so we thought) in the neighbourhood, looking hard in our leather jackets with filthy denim cutoff over the top, disgusting oil soaked jeans, open faced lid and cool sunglasses. We tried to look like a stereotypical biker gang and we thought we were the dog danglies, until it rained.
Showing off for your mates and the girls was one of the more popular pastimes. But, it could drop you in it; pulling wheelies outside a sixth form Girls College in North London my chain snapped and the bike hit the deck. As I was trying to pick it up, a police car pulled up and the two cops helped me get it to the side of the road. I was just explaining that I had "fallen off because the chain snapped", when this chorus of girls piped up "Pull another wheelie mister!" The two coppers laughed their nuts off.
Later that year I tried showing off to a crowd of girls on Chelsea Bridge, they were on their way back from a party and had stopped to watch 'the bikers', I started by wheel spinning my newly acquired CB550 Honda away from the tea stall, unfortunately during the week the council had laid down an antiskid road surface and as the rear wheel drifted on to it, the tyre bit and the bike flipped completely, landing on top of me. (Mind you I did get off with the nurse from St Thomas's hospital, so that was alright then).
We were always cruising the pubs and clubs in South London, hoping to find a good looking girl to take home, or maybe to her place, because ours had engine bits everywhere and oil stains on the sheets, I once took a girl home to my place and as we fell onto the bed she screamed, not because I was huge, but because her arse had found the Mk 1 Amal I had left in the bed, so that's where it went.
Mostly though; it was trying to find a girl with her own place. The number of times I had taken a girl home only to find she lived with her parents, flat mates or even husband was, to say the least, frustrating. Daddy was always happy to see his best girl turn up at 2am on the back of an 8 foot long purple chopper! God knows how many times I nearly got caught copping a quick consolation feel on the doorstep. I was once chased down the Kings Road at 3am by some loony parent wearing a Chinese style dressing gown and waving a 9 iron, (he was wearing the dressing gown, not me).
I never did have much trouble with the girls, despite looking like a refuge from some bizarre Mad Max type film. I am reliably informed that I was quite good looking when I was young, long flowing hair, slim build and intense Steve McQueen blue eyes. (What ever happened to that good looking chap...) The fact that if I sat on your mum's sofa she would put newspaper down first, I am not kidding that happened several times, or that daddy would take you to one side and threaten all sorts of dire vengeance etc, just made it all the more exciting and gave the nookie a bit of edge. Most of the so called 'good' girls were very good in my opinion. I remember getting noshed in a doorway by a girl everyone knew as fairly quiet, prim and proper, this was near the Castle pub in Tooting, when her parent's car stopped in the traffic, they looked over but did not recognise her or me in the darkened doorway, certainly got the adrenaline going.
My mates in the 70's used to love going drinking with me, I was one of those blokes who would check out the women and know which group to chat to, I could nearly always get everyone a bird by the end of the night, mostly by making them laugh, get a woman laughing and you are halfway there and if we tried to pull birds that were with blokes, we sometimes got in a bit of a punch up as well, all fisticuffs then, very rarely was a weapon used and you would probably be buying each other a drink the following week.
Mild mannered CB Nick even managed to pull the barmaid in the Hole in the Wall pub without realising that her boyfriend was standing there, he spent the rest of the night following Nick round trying to pick a fight, Nick was completely mashed and every time he got near Nick one of us pushed in between them, this carried on right up until we arrived at Chelsea bridge tea stall, where the bloke was eventually ushered quietly away and had the facts about how many mates Nick had there and that it was probably a good time for him to go home. Nick never realised until we told him.
Posh birds were best, mostly after a bit of rough, no commitment and some excitement for the evening. Hanging around the Drugstore in Chelsea was a good place at chucking out time, as was the Markham Arms, a gay pub that strangely always had a fair contingent of girls in there. You used to get the posh bints in the Drugstore looking for anyone to buy them a drink (they never had any money) or score some drugs (funny how they always had money for that), the amount of herbal tobacco I sold to them was amazing and no one ever complained.
A fast adrenaline filled ride was always a good precursor to a…… well, a fast adrenaline filled ride. You want a wild and rampant woman? Then literally scare the pants off of her, riding fast always seemed to get them going, the vibration of some bikes helped as well. I had a BSA 441 SS for a few years and when I bought a CB750 four the woman I was with at the time was most put out, she preferred the throbbing of a big single, to the high revving vibes of the Honda. Yet another loved the high frequency vibes of a 380 Suzuki I despatched on, sometimes we had to pry her off the seat with a crowbar.
Thirty years ago we lived for the moment, we were randy little gits who tried to shag every bird we met, sometimes we won, sometimes we didn't, we enjoyed the chase and although sometimes it wasn't worth the effort, but that didn't stop us. We rode our bikes and our women (and sometimes other bloke's women) like there was no tomorrow, because, for us, all that mattered was the here and now. Hedonistic? Yes, but fun all the same. FTW!
Read more…
Riding the biggest noisiest bad ass bikes (or so we thought) in the neighbourhood, looking hard in our leather jackets with filthy denim cutoff over the top, disgusting oil soaked jeans, open faced lid and cool sunglasses. We tried to look like a stereotypical biker gang and we thought we were the dog danglies, until it rained.
Showing off for your mates and the girls was one of the more popular pastimes. But, it could drop you in it; pulling wheelies outside a sixth form Girls College in North London my chain snapped and the bike hit the deck. As I was trying to pick it up, a police car pulled up and the two cops helped me get it to the side of the road. I was just explaining that I had "fallen off because the chain snapped", when this chorus of girls piped up "Pull another wheelie mister!" The two coppers laughed their nuts off.
Later that year I tried showing off to a crowd of girls on Chelsea Bridge, they were on their way back from a party and had stopped to watch 'the bikers', I started by wheel spinning my newly acquired CB550 Honda away from the tea stall, unfortunately during the week the council had laid down an antiskid road surface and as the rear wheel drifted on to it, the tyre bit and the bike flipped completely, landing on top of me. (Mind you I did get off with the nurse from St Thomas's hospital, so that was alright then).
We were always cruising the pubs and clubs in South London, hoping to find a good looking girl to take home, or maybe to her place, because ours had engine bits everywhere and oil stains on the sheets, I once took a girl home to my place and as we fell onto the bed she screamed, not because I was huge, but because her arse had found the Mk 1 Amal I had left in the bed, so that's where it went.
Mostly though; it was trying to find a girl with her own place. The number of times I had taken a girl home only to find she lived with her parents, flat mates or even husband was, to say the least, frustrating. Daddy was always happy to see his best girl turn up at 2am on the back of an 8 foot long purple chopper! God knows how many times I nearly got caught copping a quick consolation feel on the doorstep. I was once chased down the Kings Road at 3am by some loony parent wearing a Chinese style dressing gown and waving a 9 iron, (he was wearing the dressing gown, not me).
I never did have much trouble with the girls, despite looking like a refuge from some bizarre Mad Max type film. I am reliably informed that I was quite good looking when I was young, long flowing hair, slim build and intense Steve McQueen blue eyes. (What ever happened to that good looking chap...) The fact that if I sat on your mum's sofa she would put newspaper down first, I am not kidding that happened several times, or that daddy would take you to one side and threaten all sorts of dire vengeance etc, just made it all the more exciting and gave the nookie a bit of edge. Most of the so called 'good' girls were very good in my opinion. I remember getting noshed in a doorway by a girl everyone knew as fairly quiet, prim and proper, this was near the Castle pub in Tooting, when her parent's car stopped in the traffic, they looked over but did not recognise her or me in the darkened doorway, certainly got the adrenaline going.
My mates in the 70's used to love going drinking with me, I was one of those blokes who would check out the women and know which group to chat to, I could nearly always get everyone a bird by the end of the night, mostly by making them laugh, get a woman laughing and you are halfway there and if we tried to pull birds that were with blokes, we sometimes got in a bit of a punch up as well, all fisticuffs then, very rarely was a weapon used and you would probably be buying each other a drink the following week.
Mild mannered CB Nick even managed to pull the barmaid in the Hole in the Wall pub without realising that her boyfriend was standing there, he spent the rest of the night following Nick round trying to pick a fight, Nick was completely mashed and every time he got near Nick one of us pushed in between them, this carried on right up until we arrived at Chelsea bridge tea stall, where the bloke was eventually ushered quietly away and had the facts about how many mates Nick had there and that it was probably a good time for him to go home. Nick never realised until we told him.
Posh birds were best, mostly after a bit of rough, no commitment and some excitement for the evening. Hanging around the Drugstore in Chelsea was a good place at chucking out time, as was the Markham Arms, a gay pub that strangely always had a fair contingent of girls in there. You used to get the posh bints in the Drugstore looking for anyone to buy them a drink (they never had any money) or score some drugs (funny how they always had money for that), the amount of herbal tobacco I sold to them was amazing and no one ever complained.
A fast adrenaline filled ride was always a good precursor to a…… well, a fast adrenaline filled ride. You want a wild and rampant woman? Then literally scare the pants off of her, riding fast always seemed to get them going, the vibration of some bikes helped as well. I had a BSA 441 SS for a few years and when I bought a CB750 four the woman I was with at the time was most put out, she preferred the throbbing of a big single, to the high revving vibes of the Honda. Yet another loved the high frequency vibes of a 380 Suzuki I despatched on, sometimes we had to pry her off the seat with a crowbar.
Thirty years ago we lived for the moment, we were randy little gits who tried to shag every bird we met, sometimes we won, sometimes we didn't, we enjoyed the chase and although sometimes it wasn't worth the effort, but that didn't stop us. We rode our bikes and our women (and sometimes other bloke's women) like there was no tomorrow, because, for us, all that mattered was the here and now. Hedonistic? Yes, but fun all the same. FTW!
Read more…
Jake
