I
t’s the mid-eighties. Stone wash jeans and girls
with big hair are in. Duran Duran can be heard
belting out of almost every speaker. I think I am
so cool, but the truth is that I am no more than a
teenage snot-nosed little punk.
The only thing my school mates and I can talk
about is motorbikes … the bigger and faster the better. The
louder the roar of the engine, the more exciting.
At the tender age of 12, in 1985, I got to finally trade my
BMX in for my first motorbike. I’d wished for a big scram-
bler with knobbly tyres and a thumping exhaust. It wasn’t
to be!
Like most kids I hung out with, we were limited to a 50cc
buzz around. Mine was a Suzuki TS50. So ugly it was per-
fectly beautiful. Bright yellow, blue fake leather seat and a
big round headlight embellished with a chrome surround.
My dad bought the bike for me and had the shop deliver
it. The problem was that neither he nor I had any idea how
to ride a motorbike. The man who delivered it took all of
ten minutes to show me how to kick it into gear and gently
ease out the clutch so that it would move.
I spent about two tiresome weeks buzzing up and down
our long driveway. My confidence built, but the thought
of heading out onto the street made me crap myself. Then
one day, I got brave.
I did not have a license and in fact was still a few years
too young to get one, but I didn’t care. I popped on my
matching yellow helmet, with its large blue plastic peak,
and I idled out of the drive and turned right.
Up the slight incline I motored, getting more confi-
dent by the metre. From first to second gear all
the time checking the speedo. Charging
up the road with a massive
grin on my face,
I felt so proud. Suddenly, a dog charged out. It was a brin-
dle coloured Staffordshire terrier and it was determined to
take me out. Or so it seemed.
The vicious beast came running at full speed down a
neighbour’s driveway and launched itself with its full
might, jaws snapping, drool trailing behind in its slip-
stream. Its target, my beautiful yellow bike’s front wheel.
I had just gotten into fourth gear and was a mere 500 me-
ters from my house.
Shocked, I went down hard. The world seemed to move
in slow motion. The brown hound went one way, I went
another and the bike slid to a grinding stop some metres
ahead of where I lay.
The first thing I remember was feeling very worried
about the dog. Had I accidentally killed the beast? Then,
out of the corner of my eye I saw him strutting down the
drive. Tail wagging and head bobbing from side to side,
probably feeling very proud of himself after slaying the
yellow steed and its rider. The tears started to flow.
I pushed my beloved yellow and blue TS50cc Suzu-
ki home and parked it behind the garage where nobody
could see the scratches. I wiped my tears and changed out
of my ripped stonewash jeans.
It took me about four months to finally pluck up enough
courage to kick start my bike again and almost another
four to ride it out the gate.
A sunny Saturday morning. While humming Duran Du-
ran, wearing my scratched yellow and blue helmet and my
ripped stonewash jeans, I steered the bike out of the drive-
way and turned into the road.
I turned left … CV
Do you have a funny story of when you started riding? A
humorous anecdote of a time you were lost in the middle
of nowhere? An incident you look back on and say, "wow,
how could I have done that?"
We'd love to hear about it and have a laugh ... oops, sor-
ry, share your pain ...
Drop us a line at editor@traverse-magazine.com
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