the tramp and the lorry

CHAPTER 8

The Tramp and the Lorry

Early 1980s

It was late in the year, the leaves had turned brown, but they had not yet fallen from the trees, some die hard leaves were hanging on, refusing to give up their purchases on the higher branches.

A slight breeze was all that was needed and they would all float silently to the ground.

The weather was changing rapidly, the cold air was sending a message to everyone that summer was history and that autumn was quickly turning into winter.

The birds that wintered in Africa had already seen the coming signs of the cold wet weather and had headed south to warmer climes.

The air temperature had dropped dramatically, everything was turning brown very quickly and all the sunshine bikers had put their bike away for the winter.

The weather had turned quicker then anyone wanted, especially bikers, winter was 3 to 4 months or more, of dark, wet and cold days everything a biker didn't want.

The signs of the on-coming winter were everywhere.

No-one went outside without a coat or a jacket ” that’s a Welsh joke “, if you know anything about welsh culture you will get the joke.

All the summer clothes were kept and never throw away, they would be washed, folded up neatly and put away at the back of the wardrobe in hope there would be a summer next year, it would take a few more years before the fashion media brained washed everyone into buying new clothes for the summer, people still had old values back then and had favorite clothes which would be worn for the right occasion, and would not be throw away, anything that still had any use and that included seasonal clothes were reused the following year, there was always hope of a summer, but there was never a guarantee of a summer in the U.K.

Daylight was getting shorter, the long winter nights were coming, and they were coming far too quickly.

To the bikers who still rode in the winter month’s, it would mean wet roads and carrying waterproof gear around with you everywhere you went and not to forget the numb fingers and being extra vigilant for the changing road conditions, it was dangerous enough on the roads in the summer with many brain-dead car divers that drove to fast in the sunshine, winter always brought new problems with car drivers.

The car driver would be all wrapped up nice and warm in their in four wheeled box’s with their heaters on full blast and listening to D.J. Steve Wright on BBC Radio 2 for any new traffic reports, the problem with the warm isolation, and not being exposed to the actual weather that was happening outside their metal box on wheels gave them a false sense of security and made them less alert to the ever-changing weather conditions, at this time of the year bikers needed to watch out for drivers who still drove around as if it was summertime and would be total unaware of the black ice or the wet roads and the breaking distance they would need to stop in this kind of weather.

Bikers did not need reminding of how their riding style needed to change, it was literary a life and death situation, it was necessary to ride with a more keen sense of the road conditions and what kind of weather you would be facing when you put your helmet on, and started the bike up, sitting on a frozen seat and rubbing away the frost on your clocks with you fingers was an ever present reminder.

The weather was against us.

Every new day as we approached the end of the year was giving us colder and wetter weather.

Summer had come to its end, very rapidly and the wet cold winter was just around the corner.

The weather at the time of this story was damp and grey, like it normally is at late November time, not the best biking weather.

( Photo 1 ) . The A449 in 2018, this photo was taken in April and the sky still looks damp and grey, the Rest stop we pulled into is on the left side where the trucks are parked up in the photo.

My friend wobble and me were travelling down the ( A40 / A449 ), we were coming back from the Midlands in Worcester area of England for a reason best kept to ourselves for the moment.

I can't write about why we were up in that part of the country this late in the year because the world has gone paranoid and every little illegal indiscretion is now a major crime against the god fearing people of this snowflake nation, you will have to wait until I go to the great bike rally in the sky to read about the reasons why we were up at that part of the country, they can’t touch me with their snowflake attitudes once I ride off on my last ride.

That is if I get around to writing it about, it before I snuff it.

The ( A40/A449 ) is a very strange long road.

The road starts off being the ( A449 ) and then a few miles down on the same road it turns into the ( A40 ) and then a few more miles further still staying on the very same road it returns back to the ( A449 ), it is punctuated by a couple of roundabouts maybe that is the reason, it is not really relevant or important to the story, it just seems a curious thing to me.

Once you pass the Raglan roundabout there are no turn off’s until you get to the Coldra intersection where we would head west and pull onto the M4 motorway for our last leg of our journey and from there we would just keep heading west.

We both were riding Honda CB 550’s, I was riding a F1 model and wobble had a K3 model, very popular bikes of the time, except when it rained and then you were on a 4 cylinder bike that only fired on 3 cylinders.

Well in the case of my 550 it was the only gripe I had with the bike otherwise it was one of the best bikes I have ever owned, when the H/T leads and the coils were wet or damp in the wet weather which happened quite often my bike would start playing up and misbehaving by misfiring like a bitch.

I have been told it was a common problem with them, it would happen to a lot of the same model CB 550, it all depended on what model you were riding.

It was always wise to carry a can of WD40 with you, I always had one can tucked away under my seat or in my tank bag, just in case of any issues, I always need it and that can of WD40 got me home on lot of occasions.

( Photo 2 ) . WD 40, wonderful stuff, God made this for bikers.

We rode down this long dark road heading back to Wales, there are no side junctions, nothing merging from side roads, so once you are on this road and passed the Raglan roundabout you do not get off it until it comes to an end.

We would not see another side road until we would arrive at the next junction at the Coldra roundabout.

It was around 2 A.M. on a Sunday night/morning whichever it is, there was no other traffic in any direction and the road was lit up only by our headlights.

We were the only source of light on this road.

The stretch of road had no street lighting whatsoever and there were no houses, no pavements, so no need for any road lighting, it would be a bit of a bugger if you broke down and were stuck at the side of the road.

The road on both sides just had trees lining the complete distance that we would need to travel and beyond the trees just fields and more trees, maybe there would be an occasional light in the distance in this blackness, which was possible a light shining from a remote farm house.

We had only seen three vehicles in first 30 minutes that we had been on the road, and they were heading towards us coming in the opposite direction.

It was a dark lonely road, it didn’t help matters in the blackness with the wet mist that was a common feature that came with this time of the year, it gave the road a very eerie feeling, we had to keep our head lights on dip, every time we tried to use the main beam the mist pushed the light back to us and made the road harder to see.

Riding along for what seemed ages, we started to catch up with a set of red tail lights in the distance, the thin mist that had followed us down from England was getting thicker as we entered back into Wales, Gods Country.

When we came closer to the red lights we could see it was a large articulated lorry, we only knew this because it had lights in the two top corners of the trailer and another set of red lights in the two bottom corners.

The ever-increasing mist reflected our lights back around us making it difficult to judge any distance with accuracy, we were catching up with the lorry very slowly.

We were riding at around the 80 mph mark and still had trouble closing the gap between us and the Arctic lorry.

This lorry was travelling at a higher speed than we anticipated for the weather conditions, of course we increased our speed to around 90 mph so we could overtake it, which was not the brightest idea we have had especially in this kind of weather.

( Photo 3 ) . A truck similar to this one.

It really wasn’t the best road conditions to ride this fast, it was not raining, but the road was very wet from the mist and visibility was very limited.

We just wanted to get home!, We were Wet and cold, speed seemed to be the answer to this problem, the faster we rode, the faster we would get home, it had been a long journey and a longer day.

As we closed the distance down on the lorry, we could see that it had a foreign white number plate with German or Dutch markings on the side of the trailer and travelling in excess of 80 mph, he must have thought he was on the German autobahn.

Ah well, at least he was in the correct lane.

We started to pass the lorry, we caught up with the lorry very quickly and at this point only a short distance from the lorry we were hitting around 110 mph on our clocks and then at that moment, I noticed that one of the tie ropes on the side of the trailer had come loose and the tarpaulin that ran down the side of the trailer was flapping around.

The tie rope was dancing around in a crazy fashion, flicking around right across the overtaking lane, the rope being whipped up by the speed of the lorry, the spray from the lorry tires made the conditions even worse, the lorry seemed to have its own personal mist surrounding it.

My first thought was “ fuck, this isn’t good “!.

But, it was a little late now for us to do anything about it, we were committed in over taking the lorry at speed, this road only had two lanes and the lorry took up all of the slow lane.

There was nowhere for us to go.

The road was still wet, but not so wet that we feared aquaplaning in the mist created by the spray sucked up off the road from the lorry tires.

But the road was damp with the mist and traveling in-excess of 100 mph could cause us problems.

This lorry was creating it’s very own weather conditions.

Visibility was limited, and we had this piece of long tie rope being flung in all directions, and we were travelling far too fast to make any sudden moves on the bikes, hitting the brakes at the speed we were traveling in this weather was a big no no.

This part of the ( A449 ) had a slight downhill gradient with a gradual slow bend that followed the curve of the hills that it meandered around, hence our 550`s being able to get up to a good speed too which must have also helped the lorry get up to the speed it was doing, just as our bikes were.!

Apart from the weather conditions, the untied rope was getting all my attention, it was jumping around like a demented snake on ecstasy.

The rope was loose and totally out of control, randomly jumping around with a life all of it’s very own, hitting the road and bouncing back up again, the rope had a taped up sealed end which was slightly thicker and heavier than the rest of the length of rope and because of this extra weight on the end of the rope, every time it hit the floor it would arc up much more slowly, then whip to one side randomly.

The lorry driver would not have noticed the rope being loose and dancing around in his mirror, the darkness and the mist created by his tires would obscure his view in his side mirror.

It was hard enough to see what was going on in front of you let alone looking in your mirrors, he would have known we were there because of our head lights, they would have been hard to miss, but the rope was practically invisible to him, the angle and the spry would have hid this dangerous hemp snake from his view.

I pulled right across the road near to the central barrier trying to put some sort of distance between me and the rope, having very few options open to me and not a lot of time to think about it, it was the only thing I could do.

I thought “ fuck it, what can I do about it ”, and I just hoped for the best.

Wobble was right behind me, he was following my line in the overtaking lane.

I didn’t need to tell him what was going to happen, he would have read the situation at the same time as I did.

This story doesn’t give it justice, but the situation was quite tense, there was a 50/50 chance we would not make it past the lorry and most likely the driver would not have even noticed.

We passed the long Articulated lorry in seconds.

Luck was on our side this time, nothing dramatic happened, all my visions of being mangled up at the side of the road had disappeared as we passed unharmed.

It’s surprising how much ground you can cover at 110 mph, but if the rope had caught us at any point I would not be here writing this now.

Well, we passed the lorry without a tragic ending, but it did give me something to think about, luck was on our side once again, which I was thankful for, I was very surprised that we both come out of it in one piece.

The lorry driver flashed us, using his high beam lights which lite us up and cast our shadows against the grey mist, to tell us that we were clear of his lorry.

We both passed in front of the Artic lorry and kept pulling away, the diver was totally unaware of the drama we had just put ourselves though.

I and wobble waved back by putting our left hands in the air as a sign of acknowledgment, but from a personnel point of view, it was more of relief on my part that we actually passed the lorry without an incident.

We kept up this same speed for a few more miles and then eased off slowing down a little and then dropping the pace down to around 90 mph.

There was still absolutely no traffic on the road apart for us and the lorry, which was now way back behind us and out of sight of our mirrors.

We had put a good distance between us and the lorry, I had no intentions of passing that again.

The night air had cooled down quite a lot, I could feel the cold through my leather jacket, my hands were going numb and getting really stiff, the mist was soaking us to the skin and the cold crept into out bones, nothing we could do would stop our visors from fogging up and my Honda was misfiring like a bitch.

Wobble pulled up alongside me as we rode along and pointing to my engine, he could see my H/T leads arcing on the engine, he told me later that it looked like a miniature firework display with bright blue flashes of light.

( Photo 4 ) . Wobble, this is the kind of gear we all wore back then, we all looked like this, dirty blue jeans, weather-worn black leather jacket and denim cutoff that had never been washed and with long hair.

So, we throttled off to around the 70-80 mph mark, that was fast enough in these weather conditions, we slowed down to this speed mainly because the mist was getting much thicker and our visibility was reduced even further to the point where it was difficult to see no more than a few in front.

My bike was labouring heavily under the engine misfire, so we needed to stop and put some WD40 on the problem.

a little further up ahead of us, we knew we were approaching a rest area, we had spotted the road signs previously on the road and I indicated to wobble to pull in to the rest area so we could warm up a bit, as the cold was biting into our bones, and we needed a short break, we had ridden a long way without stopping and I seriously needed to sort the misfire on the bike out, so coming up on the rest stop was very opportune for us and exactly what we needed.

The rest area was at the end of a tree cover lane that had a slight upward gradient, the rest stop was hidden from the A449 by a screen of tall trees, the lane leveled off when it reached the rest area itself.

On the left-hand side of the lane there was a ramp that lead up to a picnic area, there were two entrances to this ramp one at opposite ends to each other with a street type lamppost at each end of the entrance, with what seemed around 1 candlelight of power each, all they did was cast shadows, a yellow kind of light which basically told you there was a street lamp there.

We parked the bikes up along the side of the lane under the street lamp, the lamp gave just enough light to see the bikes, Apart from us the place was completely empty, we were the only ones at the rest area, not really surprising at this time on a Sunday, well Monday morning really, well we thought we were alone and we had the place to ourselves, well so we thought.

I took my wet leather gloves off which was an effort in its self, apart from my fingers being stiff with the cold, my hands were wet right through, they had gotten so wet the dye had come out and stained my hands black, a normal occurrence for bikers in winter back then, so I put the gloves on my seat, I took my magic spray from my tank bag and gave the HT/leads and the ignition coils a good spray of WD40 hoping it would dry the electrics out and hoping it would dry out a little by the time we were ready to leave and I could continue without the annoying misfire problem.

Once I had used the WD40, I then put my gloves on top of the engine, tucking them under the tank on top of my overhead rocker cover to dry them out a little, in reality it just made them damp and warm and in the long term stiffened the leather, but it did make the gloves easier to put back on after they had dried a little.

On the ramp that leads up to the wooden benches there were a series of lights that followed the line of the path, they were shaped like round tubes about two foot high and made from a brushed aluminium type material they looked like little bollards with the circumference of around 5 inches, at the top of these tubes there was a light that gave out a low yellow glow, they did give off some heat from the bulbs inside the casings, so we both wrapped our hands around these lamps just to trying and put some life back into our fingers to get them moving again.

Wobble said “ fucking hell, I’m fucking freezing ” and warped his hands tighter around the path light.

I could see Wobbles breath coming out of his helmet in the gloom of the yellow light, Wobble was much colder than I was, his K 3 Honda had a Polaris fairing fitted and at the time I’d assumed that protected him from most of the weather, his hands were colder than mine.

The fairing had been directing the cold damp night air directly onto his hands, he had to pull his gloves off with his teeth as his fingers would not work because they had become so cold.

The air temperature was much cooler now than when we had started out, we warmed our hands up enough to unbuckle our helmet straps to take the helmets off, we carried the helmets around with us for two main reasons one was to keep them dry, and the other reason was that they can be used as a weapon, not that we thought we would need to use them as such, at this place looked safe enough, this rest stop was very isolated and in the middle of nowhere.

I have had three occasions to use my helmet as a weapon in the past, all mainly to do with Cardiff soccer hooligans known has ( the Soul Crew ), I have a story to tell of one such occasion that happened in Nant-y-Moel in the Ogmore valley, that involves these idiots and my bike helmet.

( but it is a completely irrelevant to this story, so maybe I will write about it one day ).

The lamps did help a little, they gave off a slight heat just warm enough so we could use our fingers again.

The rest area was basically a large patio area with 2 foot square concrete patio slaps with wooden picnic benches and a couple of metal bucket wire rubbish bins and the whole set up was completely surrounded by tall trees.

The whole area was clean and tidy there was some paper rubbish in the metal bins, this rest stop was quite remote, but from the look of it, it was well attended and maintained by the local council on a regular basis.

Directly across from the bench area there was a toilet block, there were 2 bulkhead lights fixed to the outside of the walls of the building lighting up each entrance, this was the only source of light on the outside of the building, the lights only lite up a small area creating more grey shadows.

The whole place was cast in shadows, the candle power on these lights was not much better than the road/street lamps at the entrance of the rest area, but we could see there was a brighter light inside the toilet block.

Wobble checked the doors, they were both unlocked.

( Photo 5 ) . The toilet block looked very much like this one.

Everything was surprisingly quiet considering we were only yards away from a main road, the only sound we heard was the rumble of the articulated lorry we had just passed earlier up the road, it roared past and soon disappeared, and then suddenly it was all silence once more.

We intended to warm up before we hit the road again and guessing the lorry would have been miles away by the time we set off again and hopefully the articulated lorry would get to the Coldra roundabout before we did, we didn't really want to risk overtaking that thing again.

We decided to go into the toilet block, has we were here, we may as well use the facility’s, we knew that both sides were open and unlocked, we could have used any side, but we went automatically into the men’s side of the toilet block.

The lights were also on in the entrance way and as far as we could see there was no-one else here, but as we approached the entrance door to the men’s side of the building we could hear a noise coming from inside.

We both looked at each other and I said to Wobble “ this could be interesting ”.

So we went in very cautiously, not knowing what we were going to find inside.

The toilet was shaped just like any other of its kind, floor to ceiling with small white ceramic tiles, with an odd coloured one, blue, red or green randomly place around the walls to give it colour and an attempt at some kind of style, it did help to break up the monotonous white pattern.

This was typical of the style of all these kinds of places at the time, with the urinals at one wall and the washing sinks directly opposite to them and the main toilet stalls at the far end of the oblong shaped room.

There were mirrors, well what went for mirrors back then in these kinds of places, there were three two foot by two foot polished aluminium/steel sheets screwed to the walls above the sinks, the mirrors gave a sort of distorted reflection, they kind of worked to a point and were totally unbreakable.

There was one narrow slit type window near to the ceiling placed above the urinals to allow natural light in during the day time and acted as a small vent.

The tiles made the place feel colder inside than it was outside, this place was made for a function not comfort and I hazard to guess that they washed it down with an hose pipe !.

Nearby the sinks, there were two hand dryers fixed to the wall, which were always a welcome and usual tool for bikers to warm both hands and gloves.

This toilet block had an added feature that I had not seen before in any other toilet block that I had been in before, laying under one of the hand dryers with his back to the wall was a tramp, he was hitting the big green ON button on the dryer with a tree branch, which still had leaves hanging off it

This was the noise we had heard outside.

We both walked in not expecting anyone to be in there as there was no cars or lorries parked up outside and this place was in the middle of nowhere.

My first thought about the noise was that a fox had got in there and it was rummaging through the bins looking for something to eat that some lorry driver had discarded earlier in the day.

As we entered we immediately turned around towards the source of the noise, and we just stood there staring at this guy, I glanced over to the toilet stalls at the end of the room to check if there was anyone else in the room, all the doors were ajar and I could plainly see they were not occupied by anyone.

The guy sitting on the floor was without question a tramp, I could tell by the way he was dressed, by the clothes he was wearing, he was dressed in a heavy old blue air force trench coat with Sergeant stripes on the arm, I noticed the stripes on his right arm were half hanging off.

He was also wearing high laced black combat boots which were covered in mud and looked if they had not been polished in a long while.

I think he must have been shopping or possibly robbed an army surplus store as he was all kitted out for winter in secondhand military gear.

The trench coat was a good choice for this time of the year, it would keep him warm, I bet he was lot warmer then we were.

He had long dirty unkempt greasy grey hair that had not seen a brush or shampoo in a very long time, his hair hung limply down over his collar, he also sported a scruffy unkempt grey beard which looked even dirtier then his hair, and the beard had the remains of his last meal embedded in the grey gingery hair.

If he was wearing a leather bike jacket he would have looked a lot like us, I think I would have been looking for a Harley outside if he had been wearing a leather jacket.

( Harley riders were a LOT scruffier back in the day, nowa days they are shiny and smell of expensive man perfume ).

He was a bit dirtier and a lot older than us, but he would have looked the part if he was wearing biker gear, but then again, we all looked a bit like him after a rally weekend.

( Photo 6 ). Not this tramp, but one very much like him, I think this one looks cleaner.

He was sitting tight up against the wall with his back squarely against the tiles, there was an empty brown cider bottle on the floor that had rolled a few feet away from him and had ended up at the drainage part of the urinal, the cider bottle had no cap, so I presume it was empty.

He had another bottle just like it near to his side which was upright and full and he had another empty half size bottle of cheap polish vodka near to his outstretched legs.

He was also holding a very similar small bottle of vodka in one hand with no cap on and the wooden tree branch in the other the hand.

The adjustable heater nozzle of the hand dryer was pointing straight down over his head and body.

The heat from the dryer was keeping the tramp warm every few seconds.

The tramp was also wearing a wide brim hat that had seen better days.

In the hat he had a feather of some sort, it looked if it was taken from a crow, it was kind of poked through the fabric, the feather was not happy with the heat that was constantly directed at it.

That too had seen better days.

I thought at the time that he would feel warmer if he took his hat off and let the heat from the dryer cover the top half of his body instead of being deflected off the hat he was wearing

( Photo 7 ) . An adjustable hand dryer just like this one.

The tramp looked at us and said in a very low rough voice “ NO TROUBLE BOYS, I GOT NOTHING, JUST AN OLD MAN KEEPING WARM ON A COLD NIGHT ”, and whilst he spoke to us he kept hitting the ON button on the dryer, so it never stopped blowing heat over him.

Every time the dryer stopped, he started it back up again with a quick smack from his wooden stick, while he was doing this swinging with the stick, he was also taking a small swig from his vodka bottle at regular intervals every time he hit the button, he sipped a small amount of vodka just enough to wet his lips, he was making the alcohol last.

His trench coat was secondhand and showed its age, but was relatively clean considering his lifestyle, unlike his trousers which had not seen a washing machine in a very long time, his face and hands were a dirty brown with dirt well ingrained into the skin, he looked if he had not washed for the last couple of months.

The tramp was showing his age, he had deep wrinkles in his face and hands and if that was not enough his eyes were dull and lifeless, this tramp had seen too much of the wrong side of life and from the look of him he expected the worst and had no interest in life except for where his next bottle of vodka or rough cider was coming from.

He looked in our direction again.

I made eye contact with him.

He had no expression on his face, he lifted his stick up in a defensive manner, holding it above his head as if he was ready to strike out.

I said “no worries old man, we are not here to rob you”.

He replied “good, I was in the marines you know, I don't need no shit from you kids !”.

Wobble replied “ fuck, that must have been a very long time ago”.

He looked at wobble and said “ don’t you worry boy, I can take care of myself and you will be the first I'll fuck up “.

Wobble just smiled at him and then laugh out loud.

I did not smile, I was taking this situation very seriously, this guy lives on the streets and if he has lived this long, he knows all the tricks, some of these tramps carry knives around with them and would not think twice in using it on one of us, so I kept my eye on him

I said “no problem, we just stopped to warm up, its fucking freezing out there”.

The tramp answered “ yeah it’s fucking cold tonight boy's init” and then he said “I got nothing, I don’t want no trouble”.

I replied “ well that makes three of us then, you'll get no trouble from us”.

The tramp kept hitting the ON button……

The tramp looked at both of us, he moved his head up and down from his sitting position, he had not moved an inch since we came into the room, he said “ you boys got any drink on you” .

I replied “ no sorry, we are just going home, we won't stay long we will warm up and leave in a little while”.

Then he said “ what about some money then, you got money ”.

Wobble said “ I ain't giving you shit, I think you have drunk enough anyway, if you want money work for it like we do, then you can buy your own “.

The tramp gave Wobble a hard stare for a few seconds and then looked away without saying a word and hit the button again, if he was going to FUCK someone up first, I think it would be Wobble, he was first on the list, the tramp had lost interest in us, he knew we were no threat now and we had nothing to give him, so he just concentrated in keeping warm.

Wobble always had a small flask in his jacket that was filled with whiskey, he had no intention of sharing it with this guy.

It seemed a very bizarre thing to happen at the time, the last thing I expected to see in a remote rest stop in the middle of nowhere was a tramp keeping warm under a hand dryer in a roadside toilet in the early hours of Sunday morning, but I suppose you have to do what you have to do to survive a cold night.

I said “Ok, we’ll leave you to it, it’s all yours, stay warm dude, nos da ( good night )”.

The tramp lifted his bottle up in a kind of half-hearted salute ” same to you guys” and he then hit the button again and took another swig from his bottle of vodka…..

We left him alone and left him in his own personnel warm fuzzy world, as long as he left us alone there would be no trouble.

We went outside and walked around into the ladies part of the toilet block, and used the hand dryers there just like the tramp did without sitting under them, it was something that we intended doing as soon as we knew there was a dryer in the building, we had done the same thing many times before, riding in the winter makes you think about how to stay warm.

I think the tramp knew that we wanted to use the dryer as well and that’s why he did not move from his spot under the heater, unlike the tramp we stayed standing and opened our jackets up so the heat would blow inside the jackets, it did not take long before some life was coming back into our hands and fingers.

We warmed up in no time doing this.

After the metal zips on the leather jackets started to get to hot to touch we felt warm enough to get back to the bikes. We left the building and walked back into the cold misty night, we could still hear the old tramp hitting the dryer button as we walked away.

When we got back to the bikes, I took my can of WD40 out of my tank bag again, retrieved my gloves from the engine and gave the bike half the can of the water repellent.

I put so much spray on the engine I though the bike would burst into flames when I started it up, it had happened to me before, so I would stand by the side of the bike, once i was sitting on the bike and wobble was spraying the HT leads for me, I started the bike up, the idea being he would concentrate the spray on the parts that were arching on the engine, this time the spray exploded in a ball of flame and it scared the shit out of me, so I won't be doing that again, ( see the story miscommunication ) I needed to use a lot of WD40 on this particular bike, it was a nightmare for miss-firing and WD40 was the only thing that ever worked, I tried every thing to sort it out, but I just ended up relying on my trusty can of WD40 .

So taking caution before firing the bike up, it was a better idea to stand by it than sitting on it and being engulfed in flames again, so I stood by the side of the bike, just in case. Like they say once bitten.

The Honda burst into life with no spluttering or popping and fired on all cylinders, wonderful stuff WD40.

I had no problems with the bike on the last part of the journey home, the traffic had increased once we got on to the M4 as it was the main artery for south Wales, it was to be expected that we would be meet up with more traffic mainly lorry’s at this time of the morning, only another 50 odd miles before we got back safely and to a nice warm bed.

The last thing I wanted was to break down on the side of the road in the early hour of a Sunday morning in this kind of weather, but at least we got home in one piece and to live to ride another day.

( Photo 8 ) . This is what the rest stop looks like in Oct 2017, try and imagine a long toilet block far to the left of the photo behind the trees and bushes, there is nothing there now, the whole area has been flattened and the building removed, the two street lamps are still there at both ends of the entrance ramps.