When the journey began

When the journey began

My venture into motorcycling started when I was a 15 yr old. As a teenager I was desperate to get on the road and all I could think of was getting my first 50 cc motorbike. For me it was the Honda MB 5 – it was the centre of my universe. My friend Simon got a little Suzuki 50 (FS1E) and as his birthday is in September I had nearly 3 months until St Andrew’s day (my birthday) waiting and longing to be on the road. The bike was bought in October and my father rode it home from Llandudno where we brought it to our house in Betws y coed. It was stripped cleaned polished and prepared probably more than bikers have done during the Covid lockdown. This was in 1983. It cost £120. 

From the October to my birthday in November I was lucky enough to be able to ride the motorbike up and down our relatively long drive and through the woods that backed onto our house. I created a little path, and the route, by November time, was a well ridden path, and one that I had got down from about eight minutes to two minutes to navigate.

The morning came of my birthday. Without any nerves but with great anticipation I sat on the bike headed off down the drive and onto the road. The house I lived in was at the top of a hill that wound its way down to the bridge across the river in the middle of the village of Betws-y-Coed.  It was, and still is, named Coedcynhelier.  Whenever I am in Betws even to this day I think of that first morning; with good reason.  Anyway, I left my drive started down the hill and felt the freedom of the bike for the first time, it was an experience that has stayed with me all my life. About 20 seconds later, I felt panic as I was trying to turn the left-hand corner and I found I couldn’t. I hadn’t had to turn a corner at more than about 4 miles an hour for two months. The bike was going straight and my response was to brake and look at the ditch I didn’t want to be in. The bike continued to go straight and I bounced and braked through the gravel, a well-placed layby, and came to stand in bracken and brambles just before the drop into Forestry Commission and certain doom. I honestly thought the steering had broken and to start with could not understand what had happened. Gradually over the hours and days that followed I started to understand the art of steering and leaning a bike. Remember, back in the day you bought a bike and rode it.

Over the months that followed, indeed the whole of the next year, I rode that bike everywhere around my patch of North Wales.  It gave me the freedom to see friends, without having to ask for a lift, or hitch hike, which was the norm at that time.  I became an expert at running the tank to vapours and free wheeling onto the garage forecourt.  I knew exactly how far my tank would take me, but still carried a rubber tube to borrow and share fuel with friends during a day out.  the end of 1983 and all of 1984 I had a sense of freedom and adventure that only a biker will understand.

The photo is identical to my bike, but this is a google image from https://hondamclassicmopeds.blogspot.com/2018/11/honda-mb5.html

I have requested permission to publish and will remove if required, but give full credit to them.  Alas I have no photos of me or mine.