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| Our dream... |
It was the summer holidays of '71, fifteen years old, or there about and we had built a chopper style pushbike like the motorbikes in "Easy Rider". We had extended the forks with three feet of gas pipe suitably hammered into place. A rear wheel off an old moped was grafted into the back of the frame and housed the only brake on the bike. Did we care...no not at all! The seat was cleverly made to bounce up and down on springs hidden in the frame tube and a high backrest had been fashioned from wood and steel bars to give that real Californian chopper look. The handle bars were "ape hangers" the front wheel, off a racing bike, had a really a thin tyre. Our beast of a machine was cool, standing there in the sunshine, resplendent in its new coat (brush painted) of "post office red" paint!... man this thing was just tooooo good!!! The girls were bound to flock to us and our every need...
My mate Duncan rode it to school for a few day in the September, parked for all to see in the girls bike shed, now the main office, when word went round..."The men from the Road Safety Committee are checking all the bikes!"
Duncan was summarily summoned...it was not good. Our wonderful creation was deemed un-roadworthy and to be dismantled for us to take back home! No girls flocked, getting it home was a nightmare and the beast ended up being stripped for bits! But, it was good whilst it lasted!
Moriarty...Regis School September 1967 - 1972
