What’s up Doc?......Tits, for a start!

Well, of course it’s April 1^st, and something was bound to go wrong. In terms of planning for the Great Trip, things have not got much further advanced. I have been working at the Barracks until Friday night and have now finished the locum appointment for a month off during which Father and I are going to Bosnia. I attended my first ride-out with the Aire Valley Harley Owners Group last weekend, a good but slightly chilly trip from the dealership in Leeds back to the Dales where I had come from! Anyway, it was a good ride, well organised and marshalled and there were approximately 60 of us thundering up Wharfedale, into Nidderdale and out of Pately Bridge, on to the giant golf balls at Menwith Hill Radio station and then to the Hooper Lane Hotel for lunch. It was a very enjoyable run, although seeing the scenery when riding in such large convoy is always hard as it requires a lot of riding concentration. It was a very friendly group, most welcoming and when I got home and told Wife, who normally is none too keen to ride pillion, that there was a further ride-out this Sunday to Blackpool, she was quite enthusiastic to come too. This took a little special preparation on her part as she had to sort out the sheep and feed the spare lambs before we left, as well as digging out her leathers from the back of the cupboard and suitably adjusting her jeans and chaps (does my bum look big in this?) etc. Then we couldn’t find her helmet, so after a quick panic, I found one that fitted in the garage, but with a certain amount of mildew on the lining which I hastily brushed off, though I hardly like to mention that there may be a few spores left in the hair and it could turn green spotted over the next few days. Yesterday, I spent a considerable number of hours happily ensconced, keeping my head down, out of the way in the garage cleaning the bike. Although I rode out on her last week, she has seen action most of the winter, so had not had a decent spring clean. Of course, the battery was a bit flat, because it has been for a while and does not hold its charge very well, and I should have changed it, but a few hours on the battery charger got her going and she looked as good as I can get her by 7.00 o’clock. I decided that I would fill up with petrol on the way in the morning. Finally, I proudly placed the new logo, which my talented designer nephew has done for me to promote the blog when I am in the U.S., on the back of the top box. Ready for the show, ready for Blackpool, ready for a pillion.

Back to this morning. The Chapter meets at the dealership in Leeds, so, since they were due to ride an hour before they even arrived near us, I e-mailed to warn the Road Captain that I would pick them up in Burnley. I wouldn’t have minded really going over to Leeds first, it’s not at all a bad trip and the weather was absolutely glorious, but that would have meant the farmer(Wife) getting up at 5.30 rather than 7.30, and there may not have been enough time to get the bum to look O.K. in those jeans and chaps. The ride was due to pass through Burnley around 10.00, so we left at 9.25, allowing 10 minutes to get petrol and 15 minutes to get to Burnley, perfect timing. Popped in to garage, pulled up at pump, loaded petrol, removed Wife’s helmet, (no growth on hair yet) to remove stud earrings which should have been changed to rings but were left with butterfly back clips which pressed into skull inside helmet, got back on bike and fired her up(bike, not Wife.) ……..or not!

The battery was stone dead. Now just a technical aside for those of you who do not know much about bikes, or Harleys. ( This is for benefit of those on this side of the Atlantic, rather than those in the U.S.A.(North America) The Harley has a "big V-twin" engine, and I mean BIG! 1500cc of throbbing growl which comes from just two massive cylinders which is why they make such an evocative noise. The downside of that is that it takes a whopping heavy duty battery to kick it into life. There is no kick start, which, in any case, if there was, would almost certainly break your leg or dislocate your hip, and it is only possible to bump start if you are on a 1 in 5 hill or if you have the England rugby scrum pushing you. My immediate thought was a jump start, but I had taken my jump leads out of the pannier when I cleaned her yesterday, so desperate, as the time clicked by, and with Pillion trying to look forlorn at side of the bike, I went back inside and bought yet another pair (my sixth!) for nine quid. I grappled with the ridiculously small screw under the top box to release the seats and access the battery, cutting my index finger in the process and bleeding over newly cleaned and polished Harley. Then, of course, the crocodile clips were so big they would hardly clip on the terminals and would need Wife to hold then in place while I pressed the ignition, rather like doing cardiac defibrillation on a motorcycle. ( I pictured the scene in a small brain bubble, as I shout “charge 350….STAND CLEAR” and fire, converting the asystole into a throbbing regular pulse.) I then proceeded to ask everybody on the forecourt if they could please allow me to jump start off their battery. Sod the bloody lot of them! “In a hurry, am already late for football.” “I have to be in Burnley in 5 minutes!” (So do bloody I!), “No, sorry, I’m on my way to golf” (SO?) “I don’t know how to open the bonnet”, “No, I’m running late already”. Finally, at just on 10.00, a kind lady with a VW Golf and a young daughter offered to help, but, like I said, it needs a whopping battery and what will start a 1500cc four cylinder Golf, wouldn’t even begin to turn the big V-twin. With thanks for her letting me try, and a final feeling of despair, I watched her leave the forecourt. Just as I was thinking that we would have to get the bus in all the clobber (only runs two trips in the morning anyway, although a helmet is advisable, and the leather chaps protect your jeans from the chewing gum left on the seats from the school run the day before) a silver diesel Vectra pulled up alongside Forlorn Pillion and I realised she had pulled! This driver, had passed the forecourt on his way somewhere local and had come back because he “had seen a motorcycle in distress”. Thank you God! More thank you’s to this man, Ian, who it turns out was off to do some work on a motor tricycle he is building. Phenomenal!..not only has he stopped but Ian knows all about motor bikes, AND has his own professional jump leads, AND the diesel Vectra has a walloping lump of a battery, and very soon the patient is out of intensive care and ready to leave. (The only thing he didn’t have with him was a plaster for my finger, which was by then congealing inside my glove, the leather of which was turning into a skin graft). It turned out that Ian, our guardian biker angel is a member of the “Silsden Sewer Rats” (no shit?) and so I hereby nominate him to the Chapter Director for their Golden Turd Award for Kind Hearted Generosity for 2007. Unlike me, who can just talk the talk, this guy can walk the walk as well. Thanks so much Ian. Perhaps I can return the favour sometime when you are needing help with a bit of tinkering yourself, maybe a free vasectomy at home or chopping out your verrucas or something more up my street? In the meantime, when I get back from the States, perhaps I will look up the Sewer Rats and bore them to death with a picture show over a bevy or two?

So, dejected after what seemed like, and reads like, 20 minutes, but actually took place in 10, the time was 10.10 and 15 minutes away in Burnley, unless they were running late, the Ride-out would have been on the way out of town at least 25 minutes ahead of me. We decided that, since we had got ready for it, and at last the bike was running again, we might as well set off and do the ride, which is what we did. I knew the route, or at least 90% of it, and I knew that they were parking up at a hotel for lunch at…?…Well it was at a hotel at either the extreme north end of the prom or the extreme south. Never mind, we were en route again and had a lovely ride through the back lanes of Lancashire in beautiful sunshine with sheep and lambs in the fields, daffodils in the hedgerows, flowering cherries forsythia and gorse in open bud and a faint hint of bursting leaf buds on the trees and in the hedges. The Harley bubbled with enthusiasm, the Pillion likewise, my mobile rang in vain in my jacket, and we arrived rather miraculously in Blackpool, after I had spotted a few names I remembered from the itinerary and kept the sun behind and slightly to the left of me!

We arrived on the promenade, almost opposite the North Pier, and swung left to cruise down to the far South end. All the time, I had expected to suddenly be absorbed in a throbbing mass of Harleys enveloping us from behind, or to suddenly spot the tail end Charlie Marshall’s orange vest in front, and so here, now, rider’s and Pillion’s eyes were peeled as we cruised down the Prom past the myriad slot machine halls, cheap holiday shops and boarding houses. At the far end are a lot of hotels with large parking areas in front, and indeed, it would have to be quite large to park up almost 100 bikes which would have probably been on the ride. Not a whistle of them, not a Harley in sight, even as we drew into Lytham St.Annes. It definitely wasn’t down here. 100 Harleys thundering down the High Street here would probably have caused Lancashire Health Authority a major headache as their A and E beds filled up with the “older than me oldies” of this elite Blackpool dormitory, dropping with coronaries as the “Rockers” hit town in force. The only yellow vest would have been lines of paramedics. No, definitely not here, so we turned round in the forecourt of The Eventide Care Home, gunned the throttle to still feel alive and help a few residents on their way, and roared back up to Blackpool again. It was now about 12.45, and apart from anything else, we both needed a wee. The extreme south end of the Prom by the sand dunes, is actually about the best of Blackpool as far as I am concerned. Here, on the left, past Maplins’ Holiday park on the right, is a coach park, virtually empty today and smothered in blown sand, but it pointed to a toilet, so we slithered in and parked up. Couldn’t turn off the engine of course, as we may not have had the good fortune to encounter a second Sewer Rat had it failed to start again, so we went in turns, me first, because, although I have a longer valve, Wife has a stronger bladder. I was astonished to find a row of cubicles with stainless steel doors in what I had previously thought was an old red brick, flat concrete roofed, deckchair store. Adjacent to these doors, embedded in the walls of this building, crafted lovingly in elegant mock brick shithouse style, were coin meters, for 20 pence pieces….I mean 20 pee a wee! Those of you whom I can now count amongst my five fans, will recall my comparisons with real money( old money) when I recounted the cost of my cowboy gun, but a wee in a public loo used to be free for men, and sadly both men and women who wished to use a cubicle, (the latter who, despite burning their bras and becoming “emancipated” in the 60’s never managed to get the hang of hitting a projecting porcelain butter dish from the wall) had to pay 1 penny, which, of course, is how we gained the metaphor expression of “spending a penny”. Now 1d, or 1 penny, was 1/240 of a pound, by today’s prices, the equivalent of just less than ¼ P! This loo therefore represents an inflation rate of 8000%, or in income terms, this would mean that the average income in this country, had it kept pace with the inflation cost of a pee, would be about £80,000 p.a. Had I been on my own, I would probably have wet the sand dunes, but with wife present too, I spent the 20pence and then, gentleman that I am, held the door open and shouted to her to come over and inherit the throne!. That way we reduced our personal inflation rate and made an old man very happy in the loss of the equivalent of four shillings! While I waited by the still running bike, I checked to see who had phoned me in vain earlier. It was Daughter, so I phoned her back. She’s had a good week, made her targets, and had good day yesterday at the Rugby in Twickenham with some mates from work. Wife returned and took over conversation. She finished call and hung up and then checked her phone. First thing she noticed was the date, 1^st April. No surely, I thought suddenly, it must be the 31^st, ‘cos Tuesday, 2^nd, is Wife’s birthday. Aagh!!! No, it’s tomorrow, Monday. That was the day I was going to creep out and get card and present. Too late. Missed it, got date wrong, admit it there and then or pass it off nonchalantly. Pass it off nonchalantly! Discretion is the better part of valour. Still a chance to get card at petrol station and think hard about sudden off the cuff pressie. The time was now 1.00 o’clock. We were both feeling hungry and decided to make one more effort and go to the far north end of the prom and hunt for the battalion of Harleys and lunch.

I regret that we passed the whole front again, right up to The Norbreck Castle Hotel and beyond, and still saw no other Harley anywhere. We arrived at the right turn which takes one East, away from the beach and towards the M55 and M6. Pillion suggested that we should not go back to town centre as we could not leave the engine running while we ate there, so we should set off and find a road house en route back to Home. As we were leaving the outskirts of Blackpool, in Kirkham, we saw on our left a nice looking hostelry, called The Blue Anchor. What particularly caught my eye was the food sign and the fact that there were some tables and umbrellas outside, so we could park up, engine running and eat at the table on the verandah. This seemd like a great idea, and we went in, finding an extraordinarily friendly welcome from the owner staff, to whom we explained the plight and our need to eat out at the table to stay close to the bike. They were very helpful , despite the fact that nobody felt it was warm enough to sit out, and very soon, several had been out to admire the bike, and we had our meals delivered and were talking with the owner, Lorraine, and two members of staff on the balcony overlooking the main road. We had just started to eat our fish and chips(really good by the way) when there seemed to be a rumble of thunder in the West rolling around in the clear skies somewhere. Suddenly, the whole of the bloody Light Brigade “rode into the valley of death” the thundering Harley hooves flying past and waving at us and hooting their horns. The Chapter was on it’s way home to Leeds after lunch, so even though we never spoke to any of them, they finally caught us up! It was quite a spectacular ride past, which was enjoyed by the staff and patrons at the pub. They however, had their own little rumble of thunder, it’s V-twin heart still beating gently, right under their verandah, and we stayed and chatted for almost an hour about all sorts of things. An incredibly friendly family, lovely food and a really nice place to have stopped. So, the April 1^st Ride-out went tits up. We didn’t ride in gloriously noisy convoy and companionship together, but we did have time to see and enjoy the countryside; we didn’t meet the members and discuss the ride and the bikes over lunch in a hotel overlooking either the north or south end of the prom, but we found a lovely pub and friendly welcome in Kirkham, and we didn’t get off to a good start and had to keep the engine running for over 5 hours, but we got all the way, rode 84 miles and got back to the farm without needing the RAC. Incidentally, when we arrived we were both dying for a cuppa,we parked up in the yard before putting the Iron Lady to bed, and switched off the engine….. Don’t ask!

Best wishes, Doc