YOUR most influential bikers....

[The Spin Doctor]

I'd just got a place at London University and didn't want to be relying on public transport to get between the several campuses - getting from the main block on the Aldwych to the Plant Sciences dept in Herne Hill would have been particularly awkward. A car was out of the question, so even though I thought they were dangerous, it was off to Paul Smart's to buy a CB175... except they'd just sold the very last one and I couldn't afford a 250 so it was a CB125S. Probably just as well, as with no training I fell off it often enough in the first few months.

That also changed my perception of bikes. I remember doing a ride to Stonehenge to see the sun set (!?) on the shortest day and freezing my bits off on the way back to London. I also made some good life-long friends from biking. And of course, once I left uni my "couple of weeks" despatching to pay off a small overdraft lasted 16 years.

The greatest influence on me was Joey Dunlop. Everything he did on a bike looked totally effortless, pinpoint accurate - and a complete contrast to Phil McCallen who was great to watch but all over the road. I ended up trying to ride like Joey when I was despatching.

[Bustaspoke]

motorcycle magazines were a bad influence on me, encouraging me to buy faster bikes and go places.

Same here,I doubt I would have ever made the pilgrimage to Circuit Paul Ricard for the 'Bol' or Le Mans 24 hours without having read all the tall tales & carnage in Bike magazine

[Skub]

The greatest influence on me was Joey Dunlop. Everything he did on a bike looked totally effortless, pinpoint accurate - and a complete contrast to Phil McCallen who was great to watch but all over the road. I ended up trying to ride like Joey when I was despatching.

I still miss seeing that yellow lid around. I considered owning a replica,but somehow it seems like sacrilege. There's only one person a good enough human being to wear that.

My father in law was buried on the same day as Joey,I was sad to not make his funeral. His death deeply affected a lot of people.

[Dickyboy]

I grew up with bikes around, my dad had about 4 Broughs for most of my childhood (one of which I rode for the first time last year at Kop Hill) and older brothers had Bantams they rode around the big garden we had along with some other kids on stripped down scooters, sadly we moved before I got the benefit of the big garden, but the bug was clearly in me & then my brother got into proddie racing & had a Morini, I hero worshipped so it was inevitable that I got my first bike about 3 months after my 18th birthday & starting work.

[Wossname]

My school mate Charlie Scott. He came down to Benone (ask Skub - known then as Magilligan), August 1966, where we had a little wooden beach bungalow (still have) on his blue and red Ariel Leader. He let me ride it along the guide camp road, so named because it led to the Girl Guide camp. (More stories....) I'd never ridden anything except my dad's NSU Quickly before, but got back in 1 piece, hooked. I still LOVE 2-stroke twins, sound and smell! Bought one as my first bike for £33, but broke a barrel and couldn't afford to replace it as a new one was 6 guineas. Yes.

The seed was planted, and has blossomed into a tree. No pruning allowed.

[ajlog]

Bikes have always been present in my world, as a child my Dad had a few small bikes for back and fore to work, but he'd also take us out for rides or, when my mother was working pick us up from school on the bike. My brother would get the 1st lift and I'd start walking, Dad would drop him off and pick me up enroute.

There was a lad who lived opposite my grandparents who had a few big Suzukis back in the '70s and whenever he was out working on them I'd be over there 'helping'. Being the '70s and a Suzuki it was like he had a direct connection to Barry Sheen.
Our next door neighbour had a Yamaha 750 something or other, and again if he was out working on it I was there sticking my little nose in. He was an ex racer so had some good tales and scars.
In later years, whenever I got a new bike I'd always drop down to show him and let him take it for a quick ride.

So getting a field bike then a 50 at 16 was completely natural for my brother and I.

When we eventually graduated up to bigger bikes I was regularly called out for being an ignorant git and not waving at someone or other, then working out that it could not have been me on my bike as I was in work or out somewhere, only to figure out that it was my Dad who had taken my bike out for a spin wearing my helmet.

Then again back then in the '70s bikes were so much more part of the whole national psyche, I'd say that close to half the grown up men I knew had or used to have motorcycles, so growing up around bikes was not unusual.

[mangocrazy]

The earliest memory of bikes I have was of my Dad driving a motorbike and sidecar with Mum, me and my younger sister in the sidecar. I'm pretty sure he had a Norton ES2, followed by a Panther 'sloper', although it could have been the other way about. With sidecar attached, of course. I have a photo of me in short pants sat on the bike with a shit-eating grin on my face somewhere.

Then came a disastrous holiday in Hastings when it rained biblically all the way back to Bexleyheath in South London, Dad got man flu and was laid up for a week and the motorbike and sidecar disappeared to be replaced by...

a Bond minicar. Oh the ignominy, oh the shame. I didn't care that it had the same number of wheels as the bike + sidecar, or that it had a Villiers two-stroke motorcycle engine. It was irredeemably naff to a 7 or 8 year old. However it did give me one of the clearest memories of my pre-teen years; we were stuck in an interminable traffic jam, I was feeling car sick and fractious and then a motorcycle (it could have been a Vincent or I could be making that up) filtered past as coolly as you like and then disappeared from view, free from the constraints of 4 (or 3) wheels. At that moment I knew I was going to ride motorcycles as soon as I was old enough.

So I guess I owe it to my Dad for giving me an early taste of motorcycles, and also for allowing me to have one as soon as I was old enough. he also inadvertently started me on a life of fiddling with and fettling motorcycles when he said those immortal words - 'you can have it if you fix it. Don't expect me to fix it for you.'

Thanks Dad...

In terms of well known figures in the biking world it was Mike Hailwood, Bill Ivy and Jarno Saarinen. They were my teen and early 20s idols. Joey Dunlop joined that pantheon a few years later.

[formula400]

I got a Scooter as soon as I was old enough and rode around and had a few, the did my car license then got a car at 19, in that same year passed my bike test but kept the scooter/car combo, but in 2000/2001 my uncle got brand yellow purple fire blade, it was the nuts, he took me as pillion, for about an hour or 2 I was petrified, my arms were sore from being tensed so much fro holding on, literally I got off it, when home, found a Honda NC35 I wanted, got my granddad to lend me the 4k it cost and bought it. That was the start of expensive road of fun.

[Couchy]

My Dad, he always had a bike even if it was something to commute on. He never used his car for work always a bike or moped. We were lucky as our grandad had a lot of land so as soon as we could we had field bikes.

[Count Steer]

The earliest memory of bikes I have was of my Dad driving a motorbike and sidecar with Mum, me and my younger sister in the sidecar. I'm pretty sure he had a Norton ES2, followed by a Panther 'sloper', although it could have been the other way about. With sidecar attached, of course.

May I make it clear that I'm not Mango's dad.

(I took the sidecar off my Panther )

[The Spin Doctor]

The earliest memory of bikes I have was of my Dad driving a motorbike and sidecar with Mum, me and my younger sister in the sidecar. I'm pretty sure he had a Norton ES2, followed by a Panther 'sloper', although it could have been the other way about. With sidecar attached, of course.

May I make it clear that I'm not Mango's dad.

(I took the sidecar off my Panther )

I was in a petrol station one day when a Panther owner rode up to a pump and promptly toppled over sideways. I rushed over to lift the bike off him and help him up - he was a good few years older than me - and he was convulsed with laughter...

When he got his breath back, he explained... and I'm sure you know what's coming... "I took the sidecar off half-an-hour ago and forgot to put my feet down".

Wasn't you, was it?

[Rockburner]

The earliest memory of bikes I have was of my Dad driving a motorbike and sidecar with Mum, me and my younger sister in the sidecar. I'm pretty sure he had a Norton ES2, followed by a Panther 'sloper', although it could have been the other way about. With sidecar attached, of course.

May I make it clear that I'm not Mango's dad.

(I took the sidecar off my Panther )

I was in a petrol station one day when a Panther owner rode up to a pump and promptly toppled over sideways. I rushed over to lift the bike off him and help him up - he was a good few years older than me - and he was convulsed with laughter...

When he got his breath back, he explained... and I'm sure you know what's coming... "I took the sidecar off half-an-hour ago and forgot to put my feet down".

Wasn't you, was it?

Mate of mine did that once - the only problems were a) he was in central london, b) he was pissed as a fart, and c) he was in front of a police car.....

[Count Steer]

The earliest memory of bikes I have was of my Dad driving a motorbike and sidecar with Mum, me and my younger sister in the sidecar. I'm pretty sure he had a Norton ES2, followed by a Panther 'sloper', although it could have been the other way about. With sidecar attached, of course.

May I make it clear that I'm not Mango's dad.

(I took the sidecar off my Panther )

I was in a petrol station one day when a Panther owner rode up to a pump and promptly toppled over sideways. I rushed over to lift the bike off him and help him up - he was a good few years older than me - and he was convulsed with laughter...

When he got his breath back, he explained... and I'm sure you know what's coming... "I took the sidecar off half-an-hour ago and forgot to put my feet down".

Wasn't you, was it?

No, not me. I ditched the sidecar as soon as I got it and put a round profile tyre on the back.

I was 17 and a mate had spotted it (a 120 model, 650cc, '63 registration) sitting doing nothing on a driveway so we rocked up at the front door and made a cheeky offer for it. Got it for a fiver but I suspect he might have paid us to take it away! Pushed it home, took the sidecar off and it started (once I'd worked out the whole sequence of it all) and ran just

For some reason a lot of them seem to have ended up in Australia. Still see some for sale here at non-silly prices though.
Used it daily for a couple of years and sold it for £25.

[Bigyin]

Its probably my dads fault. He rode a Lambretta as a teenager but as i was about 10 or 11 he lusted after an old Triumph Bonneville and then a few years later Guzzi California as he always loved the US styling but didnt want a Harley. Due to being skint and 2 young kids he could never afford to buy either but always brought in bike magazines which i got to read through which started the interest/obsession but finances meant i needed to wait till i could buy my own

Started work at 17 and 2 mates Andy and Alan i worked in a photo lab with both had bikes. Andy had a GPZ750 air cooled and Andy an RD350LC. Both had been converted to twin headlight full fairings/clip ons/rear sets endurance racer lookalikes. They ran me round pillion to the bike shops during lunch breaks and weekends in the first month of work till i had saved enough to get a Suzuki GS125ES

[Demannu]

A kid named Chris Rowe. He had an AP50 which he rather foolishly let me have a go on.
A quick ' this does this, that does that' driving lesson, followed swiftly by my first wheelie!
He then moved on to a GT250, then a GT500.

[Yorick]

A kid named Chris Rowe. He had an AP50 which he rather foolishly let me have a go on.
A quick ' this does this, that does that' driving lesson, followed swiftly by my first wheelie!
He then moved on to a GT250, then a GT500.

I dreamt last night I was riding a GT250 round my old haunts in Bradford.

[mangocrazy]

The greatest influence on me was Joey Dunlop. Everything he did on a bike looked totally effortless, pinpoint accurate - and a complete contrast to Phil McCallen who was great to watch but all over the road. I ended up trying to ride like Joey when I was despatching.

They broke the mould when they made Yer Maun. But Phil McCallen was a disaster waiting to happen, if not for himself then for those in the vicinity. I've spoken to more than one journeyman TT rider whose biggest fear was that McCallen would pass them at a fast bend, as they knew he would show zero consideration or respect and seemingly liked to put the shits up those he was lapping.

[The Spin Doctor]

I dreamt last night I was riding a GT250 round my old haunts in Bradford.

How can you be haunting Bradford?

You're not dead yet...

...allegedly!

[The Spin Doctor]

They broke the mould when they made Yer Maun. But Phil McCallen was a disaster waiting to happen, if not for himself then for those in the vicinity. I've spoken to more than one journeyman TT rider whose biggest fear was that McCallen would pass them at a fast bend, as they knew he would show zero consideration or respect and seemingly liked to put the shits up those he was lapping.

That was very much my impression of McCallen, watching roadside and on the box.

It was noticeable that Joey often paused for a second or two, to set up a safe pass. Didn't noticeably slow him down, at least not at the TT!

[mangocrazy]

I watched all of Joey's TT races between 1978 and 1994 and he was always considerate of other riders and also super smooth. And always devastatingly quick. I loved the way that he never worried about practice leaderboard times, as he was being timed Ballacraine to Ballacraine, not at the start/finish. I don't think he was ever quite as quick after his bad 1989 WSBK crash at Brands as he was before, but he was fast enough to win a hatful more TT races.