Mike has been riding since 1977, he just doesn’t look
old enough, his first bike was a cherished from new Yamaha
TY50. The longest tour Mike has been on was on a Kawasaki
Z900 where he toured all over Europe and ended up in Yugoslavia,
he had only popped over for some duty free at Calais.
On this 2 week tour he covered the best part of 3,000 miles
and the only thing that went wrong on this notably Japanese
bike was a broken clutch cable which he managed to replace
from a bloke he met on the ferry, all sounds a bit dodgy
to me. The first motorcyclist that Mike met on passing the
border checkpoint on his way into Yugoslavia was a Triumph
750 rider from Syston, the world is a pretty small place
after all.
On this mammoth trip across the vast expanse of Continental
Europe the only time that Mike felt unsure of the safety
of European motorists was on the roads through Paris, not
only were they driving on the wrong side of the road, the
drivers had an un-settling habit of stopping in the middle
of traffic islands mid flow to go off and use road side
telephone kiosks. Off roading has also been a part of Mike’s
biking life, and has spent a good deal of time hooning around
on a Suzuki SP370. Which he described as being the most
fun on 2 wheels ever, he went airborne over a hump back
bridge during a green lane session with some mates managing
to stay upright despite landing on a gravel surface.
They were surprised to see a whole pile of people who were
doing something in a field ( country lad is our Mike) rushing
over to see if they were ok, they had apparently seen 3
helmets appear over the hedge line only to disappear again
when they touched down.
The most serious off that he has suffered has been on his
current machine, side swiped by a van on Welford road, he
ended up on his arse in a side street, which spookily was
Norton St. He suffered a broken arm the bike was a write
off and has been almost entirely rebuilt, the bike now consists
of so many new parts that it is like the road sweepers broom
6 new heads 3 new handles.
