-
• #20077
Want of the day
-
• #20078
Dirt bikes excluded, Iāve only ever highsided 3 bikes and two of them are unlikely to say the least. The other peach was my dadās MZ ETZ 251, which I highsided into oblivion at one of the fast roundabouts near box hill. The exhaust dug in and lifted the back tyre off the groundā¦.he was not amused.
-
• #20079
Doubly galling on the MZ, and illustrative of what a numbnuts I was - I'd had a MASSIVE slide at exactly the same spot earlier the same day, then went back later for another go....I spent a humiliating ten minutes or so running in and out of traffic in my leathers trying to collect all the bits that had yard-saled off so I could cobble it back together to ride home. No front brake and about 2" of clutch. Fortunately the rear brake was working well, the old man being more of a stickler for PM than me at the time....
-
• #20080
Diesel slicks seem to be a thing of the past. Probably because of some EU regulation about lorry filler caps, which can be repealed thanks to our Brexit freedom. I did manage to crash on a streak of something on Bond Street, but it smelled like dirty engine oil. There were long trails of it. I suppose a knackered Transit or something was dropping its guts. Two other people crashed on it just after me. A nice lady from the Louis Vuitton shop brought me a cup of tea. My gear lever snapped but the stub was enough to carry on.
-
• #20081
Yeah, falling on diesel used to be a pretty regular occurence.
Talking of tea, I once dropped something off to Emma Thompson at Maison Bertaux on Greek St and she offered me a cuppa. Unfortunately I was a squid and had other jobs on and didn't take her up on it. It was a bit like an audience with the queen. Also delivered to Christopher Lee at his house in worlds end. He answered the door, immaculately clad in a red velvet smoking jacket. Legend.
For an impressionable teen, it was an exciting window in to so many different and exotic worlds.
-
• #20082
Awesome! But you really should have had that cuppa. What an honour. I had a big crush on her back in the day.
I never got the star treatment. Cilla's husband gave me the stink eye. Ringo Starr was offhand, so I didn't dare say hello to Barbara. Bobby Ball was downright rude. Sam Fox was very flustered, half naked in a room full of men. Poor thing. There was even a very, very senior policeman in his best uniform, just sitting to one side with a drink, watching it all.
The only person who was ever kind to me was a concierge at one of the hotels at the bottom end of Park Lane. He looked me up and down, opened the till, and gave me 50p., saying "you're cleaner than most". Which was true. I washed my face every day. A lot of people didn't. Maybe in the days of leaded petrol the filth was a lot worse than it is now? The layer of it on your face was really gummy. It needed quite a lot of scrubbing.
There was never any courier chic for us, no fakengers. We were the lowest of the low. Things are even worse now. I had another stint 20 years after my Addy Lee time. You're never allowed in reception to sit on the sofa, go for a piss and chat to the receptionist, because absolutely everyone has a goods entrance. It's usually in another street, but they don't give that as the address, and they're too cheap to put a sign by the front door, so the first time you go you try reception, then about turn, put your helmet back on and get back on the fucking bike. There are no facilities at the goods entrance for you to use. Not even a chair. Wait in the street.
There's one place in Canary Wharf where you have to fetch the package from whatever floor it's on, presumably because they've sacked the post room staff. Before you're allowed in the goods lift you have to be issued with a temporary pass, for which they have to take your photo. The whole procedure wastes at least half an hour, for which you can't claim waiting time. And the pay these days is pathetic. Only foreigners do the job. They can scrape by because they'll rent a 1 bed flat and put 6 people in it. Mattresses in every room.
All the fuss about workers' rights in the gig economy makes me smile. Decades ago the gig economy was pretty much just despatch riders and fruit pickers. I can't think who else was in it. We had all the worst features of the gig economy. Piece rates, hazardous work, no sick pay, no assistance when injured, no income on quiet summer days when there's no work, having your wages clawed back for rental of the radio or the bike or the uniform.
A lot of our deliveries were to the desks of Fleet Street journalists who now write about the supposedly newfangled gig economy. We weren't invisible, we were one of the most conspicuous features of working London. But nobody ever enquired about our conditions or death rate. The term 'gig economy' wasn't even invented until Silicon Valley started using the internet to carve up the taxi trade and takeaway food.
-
• #20083
The filth was real, I'd come off with a racoon mask by the end of the day. At the time (mid/late 90s) the money was pretty good - five hundred quid a week, tax free went quite a long way, even with the expenses. You're absolutely right though, time passed and the money stayed exactly the same, by the mid 00s, it was impossible to see how anyone made a living.
There was always friction over 'fraternization'....One of our biggest accounts was Freuds Communication in Newman St, which had the most outrageously stunning receptionists in a biz full of them. We (collectively) were admonished for malingering around too long chatting them up. In a small victory for the unwashed, a mate of mine dated one of them for a bit.
The banks in the city were always pretty brusque but the only genuinely hostile place I ever took anything to was the Houses of Parliament! This was way pre-9/11, they were just complete dicks.
Anyways, enough reminiscing!
-
• #20084
I did winter pizza delivery in Ladbroke Grove sometime in the 90's. Probably slid a C90 every night. First time it happened I thought they would give me the rest of the night off. They gave me a roll of gaffer tape.
-
• #20085
They gave me a roll of gaffer tape.
For the pizza?
-
• #20086
Pizza always made it to the destination! First rule of any delivery or courier service. I never used to open the boxes to see what being on their side might have done to the arrangement. C90's slide with amazing grace.
-
• #20087
I did pizza delivery for Tops when I was 16! Hilarious gags, lovely peeps, poverty wages. Risk of getting jacked for cash or pizza was the shits.
-
• #20088
Right, your MZ story tells me a few things. Firstly that the squared no grip/no wear tyres had been changed for something that gripped. That you really did a number on the etz as I threw mine down the road on a regular basis as I was poor and kept those quality tyres.
I can still hear that engine running while the bike was on its side....laughing at me.
Still say I have no idea how that bike engines survived, some times too much oil, some times no oil...
-
• #20089
Did it a few times at uni. Yeah being robbed was not fun.
-
• #20090
Yeah, it had some sort of classic race Avon on the front and a weird front tyre on the back. They were very odd sizes if I recall. Amazing how little got smashed considering. I bent the exhaust mount to pull it up higher after that.
They were fucking odd bikes, a mate had one and his would run backwards from time to time. Predictably hilarious. We all rode such an astonishing assortment of shite.
My lovely big sis eventually saved me from the indignity of the MZ and leant me her old 350YPVS.
-
• #20091
Yeah, the engine running backwards was amusing. You always had a feeling when you started off that you were going to go backwards.
I liked MZs, then I like eastern block stuff.
-
• #20092
Rode out to the Peak District yesterday after work, so much fun but boy is this bike slow! Felt like I wanted at the very least double the power.
1 Attachment
-
• #20093
Good effort! How many miles was that?
-
• #20094
Good question, Iām in south east Manchester. so not as impressive at it might first sound.
Google tells me 20 miles. -
• #20095
That sounds like a great little run, imagine you felt every mile. I rode 70 miles on the CRF last weekend and my bum has just about got any feeling back.
-
• #20098
There are indeed. Someone was supposed to pay me this week/weekend for some and so far has not. But I do have some left if you message me. Can post on Monday.
In other news, first ever for me, I beached the DR in a swamp of a hill climb. Great little ride out though.
4 Attachments
-
• #20099
Making me jealous I wasn't out on the bike today, especially with the weather apparently on the turn. Good effort! Were you able to ride out? I'm guessing no.
-
• #20100
Nope! I had the SA mate help lift and drag it back down hill the few yards Iād made it up. It was so sloppy and wet that our boots were sticking almost 10ā into the mud every step. He was glad that I had gone first to test it... The KTM 990 didnāt stand a chance.
Shame too. The climb looked quite interesting.
I have an invite to go out tomorrow as well but thinking to put an hour or so practice on the Sherco instead.
High sided a C90
š