Got My Motorcycle Mojo!

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I was recently delighted to receive a bit of money (do you remember money?) from the estate of Mrs Ed Senior (God rest her wonderful soul) and obviously wanted to do the correct, grown-up thing with it. I must confess it was quite a hard choice as to what to spend it on… the last few years have been exceptionally tough, so there are outstanding debts to pay, and there's the children's education to think of, and the house is in dire need of maintenance…

So I bought a motorbike.

Aaaahhhh… a beautiful motorbike.

Not brand new of course, but also not the rickety type of last-dying-breath bag of bolts that I have historically been known to buy.

You see, when it comes to motorbikes, and even cars for that matter, in fact any mode of transport, I am not well known for thinking things through… In fact my entire life I have owned bicycles, cars and motorbikes that have ALL left one question on everyone's lips.

“Why?”

At nine years old I swapped my totally roadworthy, bog-standard bicycle, which my parents had no doubt painstakingly picked out at “Sam's Sensible Cycles”, for my mate's 'chopper'… which really looked cool, but had no brakes, loose handle-bars, and the left pedal made a metallic clunk sound as it hit the frame on every rotation.
“Why?” my parents wept, when they eventually discovered my dubious decision to downgrade.
“Because it's British racing green!” was all I could muster, “Oh… and he gave me 12 marbles too!”

Eight years later my girlfriend asked “Why, oh why did you spend all your money,” (at the time I worked as a skivvy at the turf-club in Harare) “on this ancient 50cc motorbike? It has no exhaust pipe, no papers, no electrics, no chain, flat wheels and there's a field mouse living in the petrol tank!”This time I was ready with an answer:- “Well, the nice guy who sold it to me said it could be easily fixed up, he just didn't have the time.”

Of course this was the basis of my problem. I have always been a salesman's dream customer. I believe ANYTHING. Ask the Harare lady who convinced me to buy her ex husband's rusty 1957 Morris (this was in 1988 mind you) with an equally dubious Datsun 1200 engine haphazardly bolted to its rapidly deteriorating chassis.
“So your saying is that it's supposed to blow blue smoke, and make that high pitched whining sound?” I asked excitedly, as I signed the 'Voets Toets' agreement of sale and handed her several wads of hard-borrowed cash, “And that the delayed reaction of the steering wheel and collapsed back seat is typical of this model?”

And so it continued (the trend, not the car) even years later, when we first arrived in South Africa, and I proudly purchased an 'immaculate condition, only one owner, well priced gem' for our family car.
“Why?” asked my long-suffering emergency-tow-contact-cum- father-in-law, with an eyebrow raised so high it alarmed air-traffic controllers in George.

I didn't realize until approximately one month (and seven thousand five hundred Rand car repair money, coincidentally borrowed from emergency-tow-contact-cum-father-in-law ) later that perhaps the initials on the car's emblem stood for Bad Move, Wally!

So you can understand when I decided to take the plunge and buy a reasonable motorcycle, my family insisted I take advice from my bro-in-law - a veritable motorbike expert.

Actually I quite liked the idea of giving someone else the responsibility - mainly because my name was already 'MUD' in the huge circle of people belonging to the second hand bike fraternity of South Africa.

Why? Well I have to admit, over the preceding six months, after getting the first inkling that some money might be forthcoming, I had already started a clandestine search for the 'BPB' - Bomber's Perfect Bike.
Practically every day I wasted hours and hours in front of my PC, goggling at Google, gumming about Gumtree, drooling over dirt bikes and generally revving my phone bill up to something chronic!

Eventually bike sellers started recognizing my voice, though I must say, none of them knew anything about 'working a potential buyer' and most refused to consider even the most reasonable of my requests:-
Seller of 650cc Honda Trans-Alp: “Sir, as I told you in your previous phone call, I am NOT going to wheel the bike into my lounge and start it next to the phone so you can hear the engine again, and it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to take time off work to drive from Polokwane to the Garden Route to show it to you.”
Seller of Yamaha XT 500 : “Hang on, weren't you the idiot who called last week and offered your two children and an unhousetrained Yorkshire Terrier as a deposit?”
Seller of Kawasaki KLR 650: “So am I right in saying that after five days of haggling on the phone about the price, not to mention putting my back out photographing the bike from sixty seven different angles, AND allowing your wife's cousin's friend's brother - the drunk engineer - to pop round and test drive the thing, YOU HAVEN'T ACTUALLY GOT ANY MONEY?”
 
But eventually the money did come through, and my knowledgeable bro-in-law managed to pick me up a real bargain bike, and in good condition too.
“But WHY?” I hear you asking, “Why at this stage in your life (hang on, I'm not even 50 yet!), do you want/need/have-to-have-because-it's-life-or-death a motorbike of all things?”
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Mrs Ed asked the same question numerous times. In fact, she put her foot down and flatly refused to let me even consider buying a bike… she even mentioned the 'MLC' phrase. “Next you'll be wearing an open shirt with a big medallion!” she harrumphed.
“I am NOT going through a Mid Life Crisis!” I retorted……

But then I had a brainwave, and by a few days later I had quite easily convinced her to see things my way.

It was quite simple really, and her own fault for airing her Mid Life Crisis theory.

After returning from a shopping trip, I stepped out of the bathroom and announced that she needn't worry about the motorcycle anymore,  as I had bought something else that I REALLY wanted at Mr Price Sports.

She took one look at me and, after a lengthy silence, said that I could buy any bike I chose….

....Just as long as I took the speedo back.
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