When you first had a car / bike in your late teens
Discussion
I remember spending my friday and saturday nights delivering pizzas, the whole "gang" had CB radios ( this was almost 20 yrs ago) and many a ill advised drag race or 1 am major rebuild of craigs talbot samba top end used to ocur as well as jumping the local hump back bridge ( now gone due to the newbury by pass )
I even remember rolling my baby blue fiat panda onto its side 5 up trying to do a J turn on greenham common airbase and pushing it back onto its wheels and driving off before we were caught.
As for the dominos pizza moped years lets just say the local plod ate a lot of free pizza
I even remember rolling my baby blue fiat panda onto its side 5 up trying to do a J turn on greenham common airbase and pushing it back onto its wheels and driving off before we were caught.
As for the dominos pizza moped years lets just say the local plod ate a lot of free pizza
In 1987, I briefly had a Honda Graduate (as appeared on the opening credits of The Monkees) which I blew up after 6 weeks , then I had a Honda Melody II Deluxe- I used to deliver Candis booklets to registered subscribers on it; my main income was a £405 p.a. student grant, while at sixth form college.
Left home to go to Uni - had a proper student grant then, in the pre-student loan days... had brain fade and chopped in the Melody - which was left at home when I went away - for a Simson S51 which never ran properly (nor left Bury) and let me down on a few important occasions .
I then acquired a Suzuki CS50 Roadie for a couple of hundred quid while at Uni, which almost immediately trashed its gearbox due to a design fault... Suzuki paid for most of the parts and I was - metaphorically - cooking with gas. Put the thing on the train from Brighton to Manchester (and return) on one vacation, then rode the thing home the next vacation...
Brighton to Bury - 305 miles, 12 hours. I did it over 2 days though - £5 in petrol plus £2 for the youth hostel and food seemed better value than £46.10 for the train to Manchester, somehow??!??!!111!??
It was worth it on a few grounds - the train took the same time as "my" trip; I saw more of the UK from the A5, A6 and A-roads with 2 and 3 numbers than I would have seen on the train; and oh! the eccentrics at the youth hostel... There was one chap who had cycled down from Glasgow to Leicestershire in 2 days and got to the "local" cash machine in Leicester and back in about half an hour - then there was a father and son who had cycled down from Rochdale in 2 days (the son was middle-aged, his dad was retired ). We need eccentrics like this crowd !
Another reason to ride the thing home? Comments along the lines of "that clown rode his moped home!" - reputations are built on these kinds of stunts ! Happy days .
My moped days were replaced by a Mini plus driving lessons - my inheritance from my grandad - that all-but bankrupted me as a third year student. HOW can a 6 1/2 year old Mini cost so much to run??? Thankfully I knocked that habit on the head 15 years ago .
Happy moped days ...
Left home to go to Uni - had a proper student grant then, in the pre-student loan days... had brain fade and chopped in the Melody - which was left at home when I went away - for a Simson S51 which never ran properly (nor left Bury) and let me down on a few important occasions .
I then acquired a Suzuki CS50 Roadie for a couple of hundred quid while at Uni, which almost immediately trashed its gearbox due to a design fault... Suzuki paid for most of the parts and I was - metaphorically - cooking with gas. Put the thing on the train from Brighton to Manchester (and return) on one vacation, then rode the thing home the next vacation...
Brighton to Bury - 305 miles, 12 hours. I did it over 2 days though - £5 in petrol plus £2 for the youth hostel and food seemed better value than £46.10 for the train to Manchester, somehow??!??!!111!??
It was worth it on a few grounds - the train took the same time as "my" trip; I saw more of the UK from the A5, A6 and A-roads with 2 and 3 numbers than I would have seen on the train; and oh! the eccentrics at the youth hostel... There was one chap who had cycled down from Glasgow to Leicestershire in 2 days and got to the "local" cash machine in Leicester and back in about half an hour - then there was a father and son who had cycled down from Rochdale in 2 days (the son was middle-aged, his dad was retired ). We need eccentrics like this crowd !
Another reason to ride the thing home? Comments along the lines of "that clown rode his moped home!" - reputations are built on these kinds of stunts ! Happy days .
My moped days were replaced by a Mini plus driving lessons - my inheritance from my grandad - that all-but bankrupted me as a third year student. HOW can a 6 1/2 year old Mini cost so much to run??? Thankfully I knocked that habit on the head 15 years ago .
Happy moped days ...
Edited by aw51 121565 on Monday 20th February 03:07
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