The bank holiday seaside runs were always a source of pleasure for us, before the run “proper” to meet at the Nightingale and be amongst a few hundred like minded leather clad, motor bikin’ rock n rollers was my idea of heaven. The Wild Angels would be on stage to complete the picture and to get us into the mood of what lay ahead. Just to hang back in the car park and gaze in awe as the enormous array of machines took to the road, thundering, heavy, and loud.
I must admit that I found the pace a little on the slow side due to the amount of us clogging up the roads and then as we neared the seaside, only to be broken down into smaller groups by the Police. I seldom stayed once the destination had been reached, usually to turn the bike around, point it for home and blast away, I was at my happiest riding my bike. I didn’t want to sleep under some rotten old pier on the seafront only to awake to find that I was on the breakfast menu of the mod fraternity.
Strange as it may seem but there always seemed to be other like minded ton-up boys either on the road, at coffee stalls or all night cafes as I sped home through the darkness from the seaside runs.
Things were changing rapidly through 1968, our haunts were becoming low on numbers, some places didn’t seem to welcome us anymore. From the heydays when there were hundreds of bikes at the Cellar on a Sunday afternoon, we were now down to a measley handful. In fact prior to the Cellar closing its doors for good, we were blessed by the local council doing their bit by laying double yellow lines right outside! Black paint was applied to the yellow, but to no avail, twas the end of an era. The Busy Bee was in the throes of going up market, the Ace was to become a tyre fitting depot. We still had The Manor, Jacks at Maidenhead, The Salt Box etc. but it was looking bleak for the ton up boy, the coffee bar cowboy. I don’t want to analyse it thats all been done before, suffice to say that it was the end of a golden era.
That’s all folks,

Chester.

It seems that on hindsight that there was an unwritten law amongst our fraternity regarding the positioning of clip-ons, i’m sure you remember folks. When sitting astride one of these bikes, to imagine the top yolk was a clock face the clip-ons would represent the hands of the clock and they would read twenty five minutes past seven and rest at the bottom of travel on the lower yolk. With this in mind it was difficult to control these bikes at lower speeds due to accute wheel wobble,,,but then again it was a rare occasion to be in such a position as a low speed, God forbid!
Our “gang” all resided in the Uxbridge area so all the major cafes were within reach of an evening. We loved the Iver to Slough dual carriageway with it’s sweeping bend by Blackpark (where they used to film those Hammer horror films) on our way to the Cellar at Windsor.
We would find our selves still chatting over the evenings fun long after the Cellar had closed for the night and with Mr. Sandman calling us home for bedtime. One particular night after we had said our goodbyes, it worked out that there was just two of us left, myself with my hot Beeza and a chap i’d never seen before who just happened to have a Rapide…..We started our bikes to leave for home, over the bridge through Eton to the big roundabout that led up to Slough high street. I’d never “had a go” at a Vincent so here surely was my claim to fame – to get to the Slough high street traffic lights before him. To beat it i’d have to have the drop on him, catch him unawares…We had about half a mile to go before the main roundabout before I let rip, i’m into the roundabout, rev counter needle in the red, into third, screwing it on out of the roundabout knowing that i’m gonna beat it, after all,,, I am the kiddie! Thud, thud, thud, i’m barely out of the roundabout when he’s alongside me, cheekily waving me goodbye, drawing away from me so quickly that I might have well have been on my little sisters three wheeler. Oh, the shame of it, I never told my mates about that night for obvious reasons.
That little episode made such an impression that come the following saturday I found myself in Conways at Goldhawk Road. I told the salesman of my joust with the Rapide, he sat me down, made me a cuppa and actually talked me out of buying one in the nicest possible way (not that the repayments would have been easy). He realised that he was in the company of a teenage idiot, making the point that I wouldn’t live to the ripe old age of nineteen should I purchase one. I felt glum as I left the showroom, got on my old Beeza, started it and thought, “right!, who fancies a burn-up?”