CHAPTER 47
LAZY RIDERS
Early 1980`s
( Photo 1 ) The Lazy Rider rally flag, that was taken to all their rally's.
A friend of mine called Phil George was a member of the ( LAZY RIDERS m.c.c. ).
He told me the following story’s that all happened to himself and his club members during the 1980`s, and I thought that the story’s were worth sharing with a wider audience, so here are some of the story’s he has already told me about his time with the lazy riders.
TUNNELS ( 1 )
The lazy riders were making their way back to Wales after spending the weekend at a rally in England.
On the way back from the bike rally they rode along with the Welsh Coast m.c.c. who’s members were from all around south Wales and from my experience with them when they used to frequent the Knights Arms in Porthcawl many of them came from the Port-Talbot and Swansea area, also riding with them were the Taff Riders m.c.c. who were mainly from the Cardiff area.
There were more then 40 bikes all, riding back as one group, as you can imagine this is a lot of motorcycles and a lot of motorcycles make a lot of noise.
They were all riding on the bypass that avoided the center of the old town of Monmouth and were held up by the traffic lights on the A40 bypass road that avoids the centre town and runs parallel with the river, the lights were a mile or so from the Gibraltar Hill Tunnels, more commonly known by most motorists has the Monmouth Tunnels.
the road from the traffic lights to the entrance of the tunnels is ideal stretch of road for high speed racing.
A number of the bikes waiting at the front of this large group of bikers were Suzuki GS 1000 with a mixture of other large cc Jap bikes.
Phil George was riding a Suzuki GS 1000 with a 1200 cc big bore kit fitted to the engine and a very loud Alpha exhaust system, two of his club mates called Bruno and Yeti were also riding GS 1000, they were all eager and ready to pull off at speed, nobody needed to say anything, they all knew what was going to happen as soon as the lights turned to green.
( Photo 2 ) . The Gibraltar hill tunnels also know has the Monmouth tunnels, they were built in the 1960`s and are around 600 ft long.
The photo shows the approach towards Monmouth town heading towards England from Wales.
The guys at the front of the group were all waiting for the lights to change to green, as soon as the traffic lights changed from red to amber and then to green there was a loud roar of revved up engines and all bikes at the front pack of bikers, raced off towards the tunnels at full throttle, some of the riders were hitting well over 100 mph well before they entered the tunnels.
The sound in the tunnels must have been deafening with the sound of the engines bouncing off the tiled walls.
The tunnels soon filled up with the following bikes and the sound increased a hundred fold.
Unbeknownst to the riders in the tunnels, there was a copper parked up near to the exit on their side of the road just outside.
The copper suddenly witnessed a stream of bikes pouring out of the tunnel passing him by at high speed, followed by the sound of 40 bikes, they continued to hurtle passed, none of them slowing down.
When the last tail end bike left the tunnel, the copper began his pursuit of the first bikes that he had spotted leaving the tunnel at what as been told to me with a terminal speed of nearly 140 m.p.h.
The copper followed the group to Raglan services, where everyone had stopped for a break before riding the last leg of the journey home.
When the copper finally arrived at the services, he could not pick out the bikers he wanted to speak too.
we all look the same to them, once you seen one scruffy mud covered biker you have seen them all, he did try to find the ones he was after, walking around checking everyone out and looking at the bikes, trying to identify them by what bike they were riding, but when you have more then half a dozen bikes of the same model, i.e. Suzuki GS 1000`s to choose from, getting the right one is almost impossible.
he looked.
but without any great success, oddly enough no-one seams to know who they were, selective memory is a gift in some circumstances.
The copper was not happy with not getting any results in finding what he regarded as dangerous maniacs and became very agitated and started to get very angry with everyone he spoke too.
There were far to many bikers at the services for him to identify or charge anyone with an offence, he stayed at the services and watched all the bikers leave in a very orderly manner, leaving in pairs and staying under the speed limit, well until they were out of sight of the services.
GIBBY`S TENT ( 2 )
( Photo 3 ) . A rally information sheet of the Unsatisfied Virgin rally, this would have been supplied in the rally package.
The idea for the name of the rally comes from the pub’s name that the rally was originally held at.
( Half Way inn ).
( Unsatisfied Virgin ).
Think about it, you’ll work it out.
During the 1980`s, it was possible to buy a new type of tent in an outdoor / camping shop, just like the big store in Cardiff called ( BLACKS), which was opposite Cardiff castle, this tent was a totally new style and a totally different type of tent that was normally available to customers, this tent was different in a number of ways to the standard canvas type of apex tent’s.
It was a tent that could be inflated by using a standard bike of car foot pump, there were no steel or aluminium poles, none were needed, the tent could hold itself upright.
What follows is a story of one of these such tents and the information for the story was supplied once again by Phil George.
Phil and his circle of friends were younger then my group of friends, not that age matters, but you tend to stick around with guys you started to ride with when your were younger.
when they all went together to rally’s they were normally all members of their club, ( the lazy Riders ) of course this is not a set rule anyone could have ridden with them, all riders were welcome even if they were not members of their club.
A lot of my older friends went to the same rally’s as them, I believe P.J., Beaker and some others rode with them a few times, I remember being at one of the Mendip rally’s and they were there at the same time.
The Lazy Riders also had a nickname ( Hairy Spiders ), that is actually what my group of friends referred to them as.
They obtained this nickname because it simply rhymed with lazy riders and this rhyming slang also explains why their club patch has a large black spider.
We knew them quite well as they were mostly local to the Bridgend area and we all frequented the same bike shops and drank in the same pubs.
I remember some of them being old enough to be at the Knights arms in Porthcawl, our paths crossed on numerous occasions.
One of the hanger on`s that followed the lazy riders around to rally's was called ( Gibby ), he bought one of these new fangled inflatable tents.
As I mentioned earlier the tent was inflated by using a foot pump and was advertised as being light and more convenient then the heavy and cumbersome conventional canvas tent.
The tent was constructed in a way that it used a kind of plastic frame work of air tight tubed support struts that when filled with air would become solid and would support itself, ultimately making it a free standing tent with no use of poles or guide ropes, it just needed to be pinned down at it`s base into the ground to stop it blowing away with gust of wind.
( IMAGINE A VERY, VERY LARGE HOT CROSS BUN )
The lazy riders had gone to a bike rally just over the Welsh boarder at a place called ( Simon's Yat ).
The rally was run by a bike club called ( THE ANON m.c.c. )
The name of the rally was ( THE UNSATISFIED VIRGIN RALLY ).
Later on in the evening on the Saturday night of the rally, while Gibby was away from his new magic air filled tent, he was drinking at the beer tent with many others from the camp site.
His lazy rider club mates / friends decided to play a trick on him.
They gathered all the Tyre–Weld that they could find.
Most bikers carried something similar to tyre-weld round with them just in case they unfortunately had a puncture on their bike when they were riding.
Tyre-weld was a quick fix to get you home or to a garage, so you could sort the puncture out.
I had a similar product called ( frog juice ), I must have bought this cheaper version of tyre-weld just because it had the word frog on the label.
Tyre-weld is a one use compressed aerosol can, that when used on a flat punctured tyre would seal the hole in the rubber and pump the tyre up at the sometime, depending how damaged the tyre was.
When they knew Gibby was busy in the beer tent and they not be disturbed they all gathered around the magic tent and emptied all of the contents of the cans into the tent’s plastic support struts, filling them up with a sticky expanding form.
Gibby was totally unaware of any of this devilment that was happening with his tent, until he attempted to deflate the tent on the Sunday morning.
Everyone at the rally was packing up and getting ready to head back home.
Gibby pulled out the air valves to each support and nothing happened the tent refused to deflate and it stayed upright as solid as a rock.
He was now totally confused by this and had no idea what was going on with his tent, after he pulled the plugs it should now be a crumpled heap on the floor, ready to be rolled up and packed away.
He was there for a very long time after most of the other bikers has left the rally site.
Gibby refused to give up on his tent and leave it behind, he eventually dragged the tent onto the back of his bike and started to strap it down with bungees the best he could to secure it on the bike.
The tent was bent up into odd angles and with the supports struts still filled with tyre-weld refusing to give an inch, they stuck out in every direction, the bike looked as if it had a giant octopus as a pillion passenger.
( Photo 4 ) . The lazy riders club patch, showing the large black
spider.
FOAM ( 3 )
At another rally run by the ANON m.c.c., still called the Unsatisfied Virgin Rally, which was held near the Halfway inn on the LLannon road, LLanegwad in Camarthenshire.
The Lazy riders or the hairy spiders whatever you want to call them, decided to play another trick on one of their club members.
The local pub near to the rally site ( the Halfway Inn ) was so busy on the Friday night that the landlord ran out of beer and on the Saturday morning, the landlord visited other local pubs in the area and bought all the spare bottles and barrels of beer the other pubs could spare.
Saturday night came and once again the pub ran completely out of beer once more.
Thirsty people, bikers.
On the Saturday night, Phil George and some of his hairy spiders planned a prank in advance and previous to the weekend they bought a load of shaving foam aerosols cans.
On the Friday night the organisers of the rally, the Anon m.c.c. were having a friendly water fight with the pub’s bar staff in the actual pub itself.
( Strangely this was not an uncommon event at rally’s, beer, food and water, whatever came to hand, all part of the fun ).
The Saturday morning the lazy riders took a ride into Camarthen town and bought up all the shaving foam they could find with the intention of joining into the water fight that they knew was going happen on the Saturday night, they wanted to add a little bit extra to the evening by mixing in the shaving foam to make the night more memorable and if no water fight broke out they intended starting their very own foam fight.
Saturday night came and at the end of the night, like clock work a water fight started.
The whole pub was in chaos with everyone throwing water at each other, the bar staff were taking the water fight to a new level by filling up large jugs with water and showering the bikers with a deluge of tap water.
( Remember there was no bottled water available back then like there is available today ).
While this was all happening, the lazy riders started spraying the cans of shaving foam that they had bought in Carmarthen town earlier in the day, they were ready for this kind of occasion and let the foam fly.
There was water and foam flying all over the room, it all added to the chaos of the night in the pub.
Beaker one of the guys could not be found and had avoided getting covered in foam by sneaking out before the water and foam fight started, so the boys hatched a plan and kept some of the shaving foam back as they had a victim in mind for their next prank.
So later on in the early hours they found beakers tent and not to let him get away with being the only one not to get wet or covered in foam, they planned a surprise.
And today’s victim is, you guessed it already, ( Beaker ).
( Photo 5 ) . Beaker caught on camera in mid-stride at a rally in the 80`s.
While beaker was in the pub drinking with all the other bikers his club mates were busy filling up the inside of his tent with shaving foam.
Much Later in the wee small hours of what was now Sunday, Beaker came back from the pub, he was so pissed he climbed into his tent in the dark and didn’t even notice that the tent had been tampered with and filled up with white sticky foam.
He fell asleep immediately and slept in the sickly minty sweet smelling foam all night.
In the morning, he was surprised to find himself surrounded by the white stuff, it was all over him and his gear.
He had no idea what the sticky stuff was until someone explained to him, what his club mates had done the evening before.
There is a lesson to learned here, ( never fall asleep at party’s or rally’s ) not if you don’t want to wake up naked and tied to lamp-post or getting your head shaved or possibly having some ointment rubbed into your eyes.
FARMERS ( 4 )
At the beginning of the virgin rally on Friday night, the pub was split into two factions, one half of the pub had damp and wet bikers.
( it rained hard on the way up to the rally ).
And the other half of the pub had the regulars of the pub and local farmers, being in the countryside, the locals are always wary of new comers specially wet one’s wearing leather and denim jackets.
One of the lazy riders called Lurch, who as now sadly passed away, had brought a plastic Tesco shopping carrier bag half full with weed.
There was plenty to go around, so everyone on the biker side of the pub started to pass spiffs around and they were all taking a few puffs.
The local farmers watched all this happening and very soon a couple of older farmers came over to the bikers.
The lazy riders were expecting a hostile reaction to the weed being smoked so openly in country pub, after all they were visitors.
but they were very surprised when the farmers asked could they borrow a couple of spiffs and in no time the smoke from the weed filled the room and was so thick it could be cut with a knife.
The farmers just like the bikers were very chilled and they were so relaxed with the mixed company, they all came back on the Saturday night, and again experienced a different social life style.
SHEEP MARKER ( 5 )
Another prank that the Lazy Riders sprung onto one of their unsuspecting club members involved a selection of coloured sheep marker dye`s.
They sprayed at lest three different coloured dyes onto one of their girl members called Alison ( Woody`s miss’s at the time ) her hair was completely covered with the dye from top to bottom, she started off as being blonde, but ended up being purple, red and blue.
The problem with sheep marker dye is that it is permanent and is manufactured and designed to be waterproof and no amount of washing will remove the dye, the dye is guaranteed not to wash out after six months of being exposed to a hard winter.
the dye has to deal with welsh rain storms, so there is no removing it until the wool is re-dyed or a strong chemical is used to remove the dye from the fleece after the sheep has been Shawn.
Unfortunately for Alison, she had an interview for a job on the following Monday after the rally, when she got back in Wales.
She was not happy.
( Photo 6 ) . Alison in the middle of having her hair sprayed with the dye, she was not aware this was happening until they started spraying the dye.
she was blonde to begin with, but not after they started spraying the can`s of dye, you can see the different coloured dye on her hair when the photo was taken, from left to right Bruno, Phil George, Alison and lurch.
When she arrived home back in Wales from the rally on the Sunday afternoon, she decided to bleach her hair to remove the dye.
Alison bleached and washed her hair three to four times, trying to get a more exceptionable colour.
it did fade the colour`s somewhat, but all washing and bleaching only really succeeded in doing, was to make her hair turn different shades of pink.
She gave up in the end and on the Monday morning she visited a local hair dresser where she lived in Kenfig Hill and had her hair cropped to a level one.
so she looked like a skinhead from the 70`s, having multi-shaded pink cropped hair back in the early 80`s was not a fashion choice and it looked unusual and it drew attention to her that she did not want.
She attended the interview later on in the day and she failed to get the job, she thinks it was all down to the colour of her hair.
the interviewer was more interested in her hair then her C.V., he kept staring at the top of her head more the conducting a interview.
From that day, she has kept her hair short, not cropped, but styled short.
Nobody knew at the time, but washing her hair in cider would have removed the coloured dye completely.
Cider as many uses, you can get drunk with it, when an excessive amount as been drunk it turns into an anesthetic, and last but not lest it removes sheep marker.
I spoke to Alison in march 2020 and she is still tamping ( annoyed / angry ) at being sprayed with sheep marker all those years ago.
( Photo 7 ) . Some of the lazy riders at a rally, lazing around.
POOL SHARK ( 6 )
At the first Virgin rally at the Halfway Inn, when the lazy rider arrived there on the Friday evening, they found that there was a pool table in the bar and there was a kid of around 12 or 13 years of age, playing pool on his own, so the guys put their 20p`s on the pool table to have a couple of games before the pub got to crowded with 200 plus bikers that were due to arrive.
The young boy was the landlords son and they soon found out the little fucker was a real pool shark, he must have lived on that pool table during his spare time because he hammered everyone who tried to beat him, in the end the landlord shouted over to him to stop picking on the bikers and let them win.
( Photo 8 ) . Phil George, one of the founders of the Lazy Riders.