06-12-16, 03:20 PM
When I was 13, a very fortunate mate had his dad buy him a brand new tl125 Honda trials bike ( £329 a bloody fortune at the time) within a year his mum ( his mum and dad were divorced and lived apart) moved from there house just outside of warboys in Cambridgeshire, to a place called doddington, near March. We knew there was a track, formerly a railway line, that ran from the back of the fields behind his old house for the ten miles or so to the house his mum had just bought, so instead of putting the Honda in the removal truck we set of two up to get the bike there. It was horrendous in truth, two teenagers on a single seat bike riding along a track that was all granite scalpings with a peak in the middle..we were all over the place lol. Anyway, after lots of falls, scraped knees, nettle stings etc we got to within a mile of the house and we came to the river, which still had the railway bridge across it, but the rails and sleepers, same as the track, were long gone. All that was left was four timber lanes, about ten inches wide, from one side to another. We stopped, walked them to make sure they were all ok..it was a long dropp to the river and about forty foot across, so even walking it was a bit"oooooyahhh" . There was no way we was going back, not after what we had suffered, so one of us had to ride it. We made lots of practice feet up rides..it was fairly easy with solid ground either side of our marked up practice track, just looked a different matter altogether up in the air. We sat down and discussed the best ways etc, both putting off the inevitable until after 15 minute I decided to go for it. I fired up the bike, did two more practice runs, then headed across the outer left hand side one, the thinking being if I fell I'd direct myself that way so I wouldn't knock myself out on one of the other tracks going across. And what do you know, it was easy, feet up, second gear, few revs ...simples. Halfway across, the bike coughed, then died..I instantly realised what had happened. When we had had our little sit down Clarkie had turned the petrol off ( younger readers, ask your dad :-)). I hadn't turned it back on. There had been enough in the carb for my practice runs and the first twenty feet, but now there was bugger all. Al I could do was pull the clutch in sharpish and Coast, useing every swear word I knew and balancing I had learned from trials biking to will myself across. I stopped within the last few feet, it would go no further, and tumbled over to the left. Mercifully I had cleared the water and landed on the bank, so more scrapes and stings but that was it. That was 45 years ago in 1973, and I still remember the moment it coughed and died as clear as if it was yesterday :-)