CHAPTER 25
TWO WHEEL SERVICES
Early 80`s
Declaimer thingy again.
I was not involved and I have no knowledge of anyone that was involved, no names, no dates and defiantly no details.
The following story is based on rumors and possible distorted facts or just maybe assumptions based on rumors and may not bare any resemblance to anyone living or dead or the actual events, but certain events in the story did happen.
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NOTE
Because it was so long ago, I’m not 100% sure if the bike was a TS or GT 185.
They look very similar, so I have opted for the TS mainly because it looks better than the GT.
TWO WHEEL SERVICES was a bike shop at the top of Nolton street in Bridgend town, right next to the traffic lights and directly opposite Wobble and Mikes flat.
Back in the day the shop had a bike stolen from right under noses of the salesmen from the front of the shop and the said salesmen were not aware of the theft for a few days.
And this is how it happened.
Every morning when the bike shop opened, eight or more bikes of all models years and makes would be wheeled out of the indoor display area and put on display outside for the casual passerby to have a good look at them, the shop was located in a good place to show off the bikes, the traffic lights were right by the shop, so a large amount of traffic past by every day, it was good advertising for the shop and what they had to offer.
The bikes would be lined up with the front end facing the road and at each end of the row of bikes you would find a metal ring cemented into the ground.
It was the job of one of the employees of the shop, mainly the salesmen if I remember correctly to run a long thick chain from one end of the row to the other and fixing both ends to the metal rings with a padlock at each end.
The chain was fed through all the front wheels of the bikes on display, so it was impossible to move any of the bikes from the raised platform area in front of the shop without affecting the other bikes, so they would be quite safe from any opportunist wishing to remove one without paying for it, the chain security is a good idea, so not a lot of attention was paid to the bikes outside, from the staff inside the shop unless they had a potential customer interested in buying one of the bikes on show.
( Photo 1 ) . This is what the two wheel services bike shop looked like back in the day, with the bikes lined up outside, Dean sitting on his bike at the front of the photo.
Well one day, whoever was responsible for setting the bikes up for display either forgot to lock the chain down on one end or were to lazy to finish the job.
So a certain individual, I believe from the vale of Glamorgan was aware that the bikes were unlocked.
This was a long time ago so the name of this individual escapes me now.
This certain person took the opportunity that he had laid before him with extreme interest and took full advantage of the situation, so while the head salesman known as Merv the Swerve was busy inside, most likely ripping some poor biker off, of his life savings and then adding his own Merv tax to finish the deal, as you can imagine Merv didn’t have a very good reputation with the local bikers who he had tucked up in the past.
Well Merv must not have been paying attention to what was going on outside the shop, he was totally unaware of what was about to unfold.
The thief simply walked up to the bike that was on the end of the row and then very casually wheeled it back a little, just enough so that he could clear the unlocked chain and then pushed it down onto the pavement which was only a couple of feet away and then walked the bike up past the traffic lights, and disappeared out of sight of the shop within a space of less the 60 seconds.
The theft of the bike was not discovered by the staff at Two Wheels for a few days, in fact I think it was mid week before someone discovered one of their bikes was missing, it was almost five days later and this was only by accident, no-one had missed the bike not being in the shop.
A customer had asked to see the new Suzuki TS 185 that the shop had advertised that they had in stock, one of the salesmen went to pull the bike out from the group of bikes to show it the potential customer and by that time the TS 185 was safely tucked away in a lockup somewhere in the vale, and that was the first time anyone had noticed the bike was missing.
( Photo 2 ) . Suzuki TS 185.
Just for the record, I do not condone the stealing of motorcycles.
In fact, anyone that does that kind of thing are scum in my opinion, none of my friends would do anything like this and if they did they would not be friends of mine anymore.
It was not something that we as a group would do, and we would not expect others to anything similar, back in the day a bike was sometimes the only transport the person had for work and for getting around outside of work, after spending their hard-earned money on their pride and joy and some prick comes along and nicks it just to joy ride around for a few weeks must be gutting.
Nowa days it is big business stealing bikes, bikes are so expensive to buy nowa days and the spare parts are ridiculously over priced, so it looks like the manufacturers and the motorcycle shop outlets have unknowingly created an illegal market that only seems to affect their customers.
The world has changed so much, but back in the day it was a very rare event to hear about a stolen bike and anything happening in that vain would have been dealt with without any police intervention.
I can remember one guy, ( I’m not posting his name ) parking his knackered black Honda CB 650 on the Ewenny roundabout in plane view of the passing traffic completely unlocked hoping someone would nick it, so he could claim the insurance on the stolen bike, he left the bike there for a full week with the steering column pointing straight ahead indicating that the steering lock was not engaged, so the bike could be literary wheeled away without any fuss, and in the end he gave up and put the bike back in his garage, nobody was interested stealing it, so he sold it off cheap instead.
I remember seeing the stolen TS that had been nicked being ridden around the Saint Brides / Wick area for a few months, well it may have been the same bike, this one had no number plate and one TS looks like any other TS, it may have been the same bike and there again it may not have been, it had the same colour red petrol tank.
Down from the plough there were a couple of dry stone built sheds/stables and sometimes the TS 185 that I had seen ridden around the area was kept there, there was no door on the stable and the bike was plane to see by anyone passing by.
The bike would disappear for a few weeks and most likely been kept else where, and then it would be turn up again back in the stone stable.
Whoever had stolen this bike was none of my circle of friends, like I say, we don’t steal bikes.
It was none of our business so we stayed out of it, their bike, their responsibility, their problem.
As the plough was our regular pub we would see the Suzuki zipping around the lanes leaving a blue two-stroke cloud behind it everywhere it went, quite often there would be different riders who never wore any helmets and then one day it disappeared for good, and we never saw it again.
Two wheel Services never had the bike back and the bike thief was never caught.
The police asked around, but nobody knew any information that would have been helpful in obtaining the culprit of this audacious crime.
If the head salesman Merv the swerve was a better person and didn’t rip people off so blatantly, maybe just maybe, someone could have pointed the authorities in the right direction to get the bike back.
Back when it happened, everyone had an idea who had taken it.
But, not a word was said.
Over the years there were a few incidents that have highlighted the quality of the front of house staff at two wheel services .
Here are a couple of examples.
Simon Cowdrey who was one of the salesmen at the time was on a shop bike, it was a Yamaha YZF 750, the bike was a demonstrator for customers to test ride and to try the bike before they buy, Simon rode out with another guy who will be left unnamed mainly because he still works in the motor industry.
The unnamed person was on a Suzuki GSXR 750 which belonged to a customer and had been left with the shop to sell on his behalf, they both had permission to take them out for a ride for some reason or other.
While they were out and about, Simon took a bend to fast and lost the Yamaha on a tight bend and totally lost control of the bike and the Yamaha slid away from him showering the world with sparks.
The aftermath of the accident was that Simon, very nearly had his right arm torn off and needed significant surgery to sort things out, so that he could have use of his arm again.
The handle bar of the bike did most of the damaged, so I have been told.
The accident was bad enough for Simon to be been carted away in an ambulance to the local hospital and the Yamaha 750 was recovered from the scene by the police.
The accident happened somewhere up around the Brecon beacons mountain range around 40-50 miles from the bike shop.
if you have ridden the roads around the Brecon mountains you will know how fast and bendy these roads are, it is very hard not to ride fast up around this part of Wales, but coming off on a bend up there, it is very possible that you may slide off the edge of the mountain and there is no riding home from that one.
I know this, because I had a very close call on the Rhigos mountain bend, I dropped the bike and fell off on the horseshoe bend at the reservoir on the Rhigos mountain on my Yamaha RD 250 in 1974 or 5 and nearly went over the edge, the small mound of earth that was on the side of the bend stopped me and the bike going completely over the edge, so I know what I’m talking about.
( Photo 3 ) . The horseshoe bend at the bottom of the Rhigos mountain, I fell off where you can see the white`ish looking trees around the middle of the bend.
After Simon fell off and had his accident the unnamed person came flying back to Bridgend heading back to Two Wheels Services to let everyone know what had happened to Simon, and as he was leaving the M4 at the Sarn junction and heading into Bridgend he over revved the Suzuki and the engine threw a con-rod and disintegrated, all the turny bits inside the engine decided to go in opposite direction then they were designed to go in and in doing so created another expensive problem for the shop.
TWS landed up having to buy the bike from the owner and gave him his asking price that he wanted for the bike, and then Phil George landed up with the job of rebuilding the engine in order to resell the bike.
One expensive ride-out.
I bet their insurance company was not happy with them.
Another incident which was less painful, but more embarrassing that happen at two wheel services.
( just for your information )
If you intend buying a new bike and a large expensive one, it stands to reason you want to try before you buy, after all you may not like it once you have ridden the bike for a few miles.
This happened to me, I bought a Suzuki 600 from JD`s bike shop on the Waterton Trading Estate in Bridgend in the mid 2000 something or other, and hated it as soon as I rode it away, I never got on with it, I should have road tested it first, but never mind shit happens, you live and learn, you will find this story under the SLUGS title in the rest of the blog.
If you intend road testing a bike from a bike shop you are expected to produce some form of ID like your driving licence and a couple of household utility bills with your address and name on the them and maybe your passport if you have one, remember, that this was back in the day when we all had paper driving licenses with no photo, not like today, where we use a plastic credit card size licence with all your details on.
Well one day a guy turned up TWS wanting to test ride one of the new large cc bikes, bringing with him all the required documents that he needed to prove who he was, so the salesman check his ID using the documents at hand.
The salesmen’s should have been more cautious.
The guy was not known to them and had never been a previous customer, and staff at the shop had never seen this man before, but all they saw were pound notes £££ filling the shop till.
The salesman said to the potential customer “ off you go, take it for a spin, take it up the A48 on the Cowbridge road towards Cardiff, you can open it up there and see what it can do “.
The guy rode away.
They waited around for a couple of hours waiting for him to come back and ended up calling the police when they finally realised that the bike and the rider were not coming back.
The bike and rider were never seen again.
All the documents including the driving licence were stolen, nobody had sympathy for Merv, everyone seemed pleased that someone had tucked him up for once, makes a change, has he was an expert at ripping people off.
And just maybe the TS story is based on assumptions and rumours that are 30-40 years old, and there are no facts that can be verified any more because most of us can’t remember why we walked into a room for something let alone remember something accurately from a lifetime ago, and of course this last statement maybe made for legal reasons J.
( Photo 4 ) . This is what two wheel services looks like in 2019, the low wall on the left of the photo, is were the bikes were displayed.