First Tracks

 

April 1st  1959 and a bright Spring Saturday morning; location: Bluebell Hill half way between Chatham and Maidstone in the county of Kent.  Enter a spotty seventeen year old and a second-hand 250cc Indian Brave motorcycle.  Said spotty youth, myself, with brand new learner’s license gloves, helmet and strong pair of shoes was prepared to take a maiden journey on what was then fairly clear roads.  

 So, with my mate Bruce on his bicycle as a witness to my first excursion I set off.  I knew what to do and once the side valve engine was running, a kick starter pedal on the left, I went through the procedure.  Clutch in, throttle up, kick down into first, ease the clutch out and open the throttle – kangaroo forward and stall.  Try again.  Fiddle with the gear lever trying to find neutral, find it, kick start the engine, clutch in, throttle up, clunk into first, ease the clutch out, open the throttle, move forward jerkily but continuously, make a precarious left turn onto the A229, try to change up to second gear, manage to flip it directly into third, not enough throttle – stall.  Start procedure again this time with mate on bicycle taking the mickey.  

 Despite the mockery manage to successfully advance a couple of hundred yards on the next attempt having negotiated the gears to third through second but stalling when trying to change not realising third was too high for the modest pace I was travelling at.  Mate catches up on his bike joined now by a teacher from our old school off on his bike for a fishing trip.  This time, after discussion and more mockery, I set off successfully managing the change from first to second much better and rolling along at a cracking twenty miles per hour.

The plan was to do a round trip to get the hang of the Indian and riding on the roads.  Good idea.  So, I planned to ride to Maidstone and turn off before I got into town and ride through the lanes back home and practice junctions, and turns – after all I was a bicycle rider and knew the rules of the road – but it was a bit different with the motorcycle, there were more things to do on the motorcycle, like keeping the engine running, changing down, the clutch and brakes to think about, and panic.

   To say that I was exhilarated as I topped the hill and plonked the bike into top gear was not entirely true – I was terrified.  The machine had power under the saddle and I was moving at an enormous forty miles an hour down the hill and at that point I realised I knew nothing about controlling the machine.  I simply aimed it in the direction it wanted to go and hung on.

 It was the hanging on that saved me.

 I reached town and saw traffic ahead moving slowly and realising that stalling the engine seemed to be the most accomplished of my achievements I decided to turn left up a side street to head out of town. I did a perfunctory left turn signal and swung the bike into the turn still travelling at about twenty-five miles per hour where ten was better.  I felt the bike heel over, move out wide to almost clip the opposite kerb and spin back into the left side where I managed to encourage it back upright again, still moving at twenty-five miles per hour.  The ‘L’ plates flapping signalled to other road users there was a new kid on the block.  

 I will never forget the look of terror on the faces of the old boy and his wife in the Austin A35 as they slammed on their inadequate brakes to avoid me centre punching their radiator grille.  There was nothing I could do about it as by now the bike had taken over and the curve I described whilst struggling to get the bike upright again was more or less out of my control.  I think I grinned at them; a sort of mortis rictus as if anticipating my immanent demise.  I survived not by my own efforts but by the natural tendency of a powered bicycle to act like a slingshot and fly off at a tangent.  

 Still shaking from the close encounter I bumbled the give-way and the traffic lights still moving, but a little slower having got the hang of changing down, grateful that there was so little traffic.  Then I was out in the country lanes and I was able to relax a little.  But I had a problem.  Negotiating right turns against the flow of the traffic.  I had no idea how to do it.  Solution: take all left turns.  Or go straight on and try and work out what to do as the ride progressed.  This seemed to work and apart from one more incident on a hill when the front wheel hit a house-brick dumped in the road going up Brakes Hill, all went well.  I managed to make left turns, avoiding traffic lights and compulsory stops, and turned eventually into my street and home where I stalled the bike trying to find neutral and sat shaking, sweating and utterly exhausted from the effort of trying to control the machine.

 As I walked into the kitchen Mum called out.

‘How was it Jimmy?’

‘Oh, pretty good,’ I said, rushing through to the bathroom to empty my clamouring bladder.