In 1971 after spending months hitchhiking I was fed up with being reliant on others to get me where I wanted to go. I decided I’d like a solid, big BMW motorbike with panniers for my stuff. Then I found work in Scotland, met Papa and eventually decided Trail bikes were more fun. In 1972 I settled on a nice, new, yellow Yamaha Trail bike, a 125cc – quite a difference from the BMWs which I fancied, they were about 650cc! Papa and I went to a dealer in Aberdeen and there I discovered that they didn’t make the 125s in yellow so I had to settle for blue. The bike was ordered and a few weeks later we went on the train to pick it up, I came back up the coast to Inverness then back down the main road to Aviemore.
When it was time for the first service I went by myself and took the “short cut” a road through Tomintoul over the hills. The bike clothes I had were just jeans, an anorak made of thin, synthetic, shower proof material with polyester filling and my gloves were vinyl. There was snow about on the hills and it was cold. Very, very cold. Before I made it to Aberdeen I was feeling quite “out of it” with cold but luckily I still had sense enough to stop and get off the bike. I lay down on the grass and put my gloved hands beside the exhaust pipe, I stayed there long enough for my head to clear then got back on the bike and made my way to Aberdeen.
I didn’t come back home over the hills but took the long way round and had no trouble with a freezing brain!
You didn’t know that about Nana did you?
Musings of a Retiring Person 