To follow on from Nigels last quiz reminds me of the journey I once made on my first ever motorised vehicle, my Raleigh Runabout moped.
I bought this bike to be ready for midnight on my 16th Birthday from neighbour for the grand sum total of 10.00 pounds. It was well used then but a good reliable runner so would do nicely to get me mobile ahead of all my mates who had yet to reach their 16th birthday.
You had to start it by putting it onto the stand and pedaling as fast as you could. If you were lucky the thing would burst into life and you would disappear into a cloud of two stroke smoke. If you weren’t you tried again!! Invariably the problem would be the fact that the two stroke oil had not mixed properly with the fuel so it was always best to put some petrol in, then the shot of oil, then the remainder of the petrol to mix it up properly.
Anyway one day a friend and myself decided to drive our mopeds to visit my parents who had a caravan in Penrith. We were in sale, Manchester, at the time so we were looking at over 100 miles but we were young, adventurous and extremely naïve!
My friend had a Puch moped with gears, an altogether more sophisticated machine considerably newer and certainly a lot flashier. We set off on a warm summers day, me with my army great coat, army rucksack, unbelievably large firefighters black leather wellies, huge leather gauntlets, red pudding basin helmet which was my 16th birthday present, toothbrush and underpants etc. I would have probably got another 5 mph out of the thing with some lighter clothing!! When it rained I gained about a stone!!
The first incident was when we got to the outskirts of Salford, somewhere in the region of 5-10 miles into the journey. The ping, ping, ping noise that I had heard for the last couple of miles seemed to be getting louder so I decided it required investigation and we stopped. I traced the noise to a large split in the front tyre which was allowing the inner tube to bulge out which was then touching the inside of the fork leg as it went past!!! Not having access to a new tyre or the means of doing anything about it the best solution was to let some air out of the tyre so that the ‘blister’ in the inner tube did not actually touch the fork leg. Sorted!! While we were doing this I also noted that the back wheel was a bit wobbly so I got out my two old pushbike spanners and tightened up the cones on the rear spindle. It didn’t seem to have a great deal of effect but, what the hell, it had to be better.
From there on we enjoyed the rest of the journey up to Penrith. Taking considerably longer than anticipated, especially with the stop and another couple of stops to try to tighten up the rear spindle cones to stop the back wheel wobbling quite so much. My bike found the journey more of a struggle than my friends did possibly due to a combination of a lack of gears and me weighing twice as much as I normally did and it required a bit of peddle power assistance on a few occasions. In fact I remember being particularly cheesed off going through Lancaster and being overtaken by the same pushbike on a number of occasions as we went up a hill.
Shap Fell proved to be the greatest challenge however as my bike slowed to almost a stop and my friend dropped into first gear and shot off up the hill ahead of me. My calls of “ ‘ang on a minute!” being met with a curt “Bugger Off!” wafting down on the wind as he disappeared up the road towards the summit. By the time I caught up with him he was on his second cigarette and my legs had just about given up. The sweat generated by pedaling a moped up Shap Fell in an army great coat, leather wellies, gauntlets etc. can only be imagined.
My parents actually drove out to meet us in the evening and parked up somewhere on the A6 just south of Penrith. My Mum always describes the beautiful peaceful quiet summers evening with not a sound apart from an odd bird call when she thought she heard a bee in the grass. This sound very slowly got louder and louder until she could make out two dots moving along the A6 towards them and she realized the noise was two very tired moped engines at full pitch, achieving all of 30 mph downhill with the wind behind us!!
When we eventually arrived at my parents caravan all thoughts of the vehicles was shelved as we took advantage of the facilities for the week and got on with the serious job of having a holiday. The only time we put into the bikes was to buy a new front tyre, and tube, for mine and fit it. Apart from that they remained parked up alongside the caravan. The thought of the drive back did not really occur to us mainly as we were kids and the thought of preparation and planning was a completely alien concept to either of us. Anyway the day of departure arrived and we get kitted up and ready to go when I thought I had better have a look at the wobbly back wheel again. That was when we discovered that the spindle had broken and the back wheel was held in place by a prayer. The cones had long been tightened to their maximum position so as far as I was concerned that was as far as that went!! My dad being the proud parent he was of a dumb teenage idiot phones around and managed to find a Raleigh dealer in Carlisle who had a spindle. This therefore cost him a journey up to Carlisle and a half a day getting covered in oil and muck as we replaced the rear wheel spindle.
The next day we eventually set off back towards Manchester with all going well until my friends machine started to get slower and slower until it cuffuffed (on the top of the moors, in the middle of nowhere) to a halt and refused to start again. All the gear came off, no mean feat, and we start to look at this bike with a completely blank gaze as we try to determine what could be wrong with it. After some time two, what we considered to be very large motorcycles drove past, turned round and came back towards us. We were actually terrified and ready to run across the moors before we found out the newcomers had actually stopped to help. After a few questions and poking around one of them asks “Have you checked your baffles?” He could have been talking a foreign language to us so he set about removing a completely solid set of baffles from the exhaust pipe and promptly did the best job he could of cleaning them up and opening up at least some of the holes in them. These guys were actually on their way to a party and they stayed with us until they were way late helping us get going again. When we were off and passed on our thanks they drove with us for a few miles before leaving, extremely late and covered in carbon and oil.
Those guys are the main reason why I would always stop and help someone by the roadside. I often wonder what became of them and where they may be now. The strange thing is that they were actually driving 175cc motorcycles. They seemed huge to us at the time but now, of course I have an 800cc bike and I think of a 175 cc as a very small machine.
Anyway well into the night we arrived back in Sale, very tired and hungry. My bike’s headlight had given up the ghost so my friend had to ride in front and I tucked in behind him but we got back without any further mishaps.
To a 16 year old it was all quite an adventure. In this day and age it wouldn’t happen because times have changed so much and the things that were part of the adventure no longer exist. I look back on it now and think about those years and what I learned from it all. It was all a steep learning curve but I knew then what baffles were for and what to look for with a broken wheel spindle!!
I bought this bike to be ready for midnight on my 16th Birthday from neighbour for the grand sum total of 10.00 pounds. It was well used then but a good reliable runner so would do nicely to get me mobile ahead of all my mates who had yet to reach their 16th birthday.
You had to start it by putting it onto the stand and pedaling as fast as you could. If you were lucky the thing would burst into life and you would disappear into a cloud of two stroke smoke. If you weren’t you tried again!! Invariably the problem would be the fact that the two stroke oil had not mixed properly with the fuel so it was always best to put some petrol in, then the shot of oil, then the remainder of the petrol to mix it up properly.
Anyway one day a friend and myself decided to drive our mopeds to visit my parents who had a caravan in Penrith. We were in sale, Manchester, at the time so we were looking at over 100 miles but we were young, adventurous and extremely naïve!
My friend had a Puch moped with gears, an altogether more sophisticated machine considerably newer and certainly a lot flashier. We set off on a warm summers day, me with my army great coat, army rucksack, unbelievably large firefighters black leather wellies, huge leather gauntlets, red pudding basin helmet which was my 16th birthday present, toothbrush and underpants etc. I would have probably got another 5 mph out of the thing with some lighter clothing!! When it rained I gained about a stone!!
The first incident was when we got to the outskirts of Salford, somewhere in the region of 5-10 miles into the journey. The ping, ping, ping noise that I had heard for the last couple of miles seemed to be getting louder so I decided it required investigation and we stopped. I traced the noise to a large split in the front tyre which was allowing the inner tube to bulge out which was then touching the inside of the fork leg as it went past!!! Not having access to a new tyre or the means of doing anything about it the best solution was to let some air out of the tyre so that the ‘blister’ in the inner tube did not actually touch the fork leg. Sorted!! While we were doing this I also noted that the back wheel was a bit wobbly so I got out my two old pushbike spanners and tightened up the cones on the rear spindle. It didn’t seem to have a great deal of effect but, what the hell, it had to be better.
From there on we enjoyed the rest of the journey up to Penrith. Taking considerably longer than anticipated, especially with the stop and another couple of stops to try to tighten up the rear spindle cones to stop the back wheel wobbling quite so much. My bike found the journey more of a struggle than my friends did possibly due to a combination of a lack of gears and me weighing twice as much as I normally did and it required a bit of peddle power assistance on a few occasions. In fact I remember being particularly cheesed off going through Lancaster and being overtaken by the same pushbike on a number of occasions as we went up a hill.
Shap Fell proved to be the greatest challenge however as my bike slowed to almost a stop and my friend dropped into first gear and shot off up the hill ahead of me. My calls of “ ‘ang on a minute!” being met with a curt “Bugger Off!” wafting down on the wind as he disappeared up the road towards the summit. By the time I caught up with him he was on his second cigarette and my legs had just about given up. The sweat generated by pedaling a moped up Shap Fell in an army great coat, leather wellies, gauntlets etc. can only be imagined.
My parents actually drove out to meet us in the evening and parked up somewhere on the A6 just south of Penrith. My Mum always describes the beautiful peaceful quiet summers evening with not a sound apart from an odd bird call when she thought she heard a bee in the grass. This sound very slowly got louder and louder until she could make out two dots moving along the A6 towards them and she realized the noise was two very tired moped engines at full pitch, achieving all of 30 mph downhill with the wind behind us!!
When we eventually arrived at my parents caravan all thoughts of the vehicles was shelved as we took advantage of the facilities for the week and got on with the serious job of having a holiday. The only time we put into the bikes was to buy a new front tyre, and tube, for mine and fit it. Apart from that they remained parked up alongside the caravan. The thought of the drive back did not really occur to us mainly as we were kids and the thought of preparation and planning was a completely alien concept to either of us. Anyway the day of departure arrived and we get kitted up and ready to go when I thought I had better have a look at the wobbly back wheel again. That was when we discovered that the spindle had broken and the back wheel was held in place by a prayer. The cones had long been tightened to their maximum position so as far as I was concerned that was as far as that went!! My dad being the proud parent he was of a dumb teenage idiot phones around and managed to find a Raleigh dealer in Carlisle who had a spindle. This therefore cost him a journey up to Carlisle and a half a day getting covered in oil and muck as we replaced the rear wheel spindle.
The next day we eventually set off back towards Manchester with all going well until my friends machine started to get slower and slower until it cuffuffed (on the top of the moors, in the middle of nowhere) to a halt and refused to start again. All the gear came off, no mean feat, and we start to look at this bike with a completely blank gaze as we try to determine what could be wrong with it. After some time two, what we considered to be very large motorcycles drove past, turned round and came back towards us. We were actually terrified and ready to run across the moors before we found out the newcomers had actually stopped to help. After a few questions and poking around one of them asks “Have you checked your baffles?” He could have been talking a foreign language to us so he set about removing a completely solid set of baffles from the exhaust pipe and promptly did the best job he could of cleaning them up and opening up at least some of the holes in them. These guys were actually on their way to a party and they stayed with us until they were way late helping us get going again. When we were off and passed on our thanks they drove with us for a few miles before leaving, extremely late and covered in carbon and oil.
Those guys are the main reason why I would always stop and help someone by the roadside. I often wonder what became of them and where they may be now. The strange thing is that they were actually driving 175cc motorcycles. They seemed huge to us at the time but now, of course I have an 800cc bike and I think of a 175 cc as a very small machine.
Anyway well into the night we arrived back in Sale, very tired and hungry. My bike’s headlight had given up the ghost so my friend had to ride in front and I tucked in behind him but we got back without any further mishaps.
To a 16 year old it was all quite an adventure. In this day and age it wouldn’t happen because times have changed so much and the things that were part of the adventure no longer exist. I look back on it now and think about those years and what I learned from it all. It was all a steep learning curve but I knew then what baffles were for and what to look for with a broken wheel spindle!!
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