By EnglishmanAs for the Easyriders story.... well, for some dumb
reason in late 1980, I placed an ad in "choppershopper" for ladies in
the U.S. to write to me. In those days, The magazine represented a window into
the American Motorcycle scene that I found more than a little appealing! I went
to the bank and got some "monopoly money" to send along with the ad,
and then scanned the next couple of issues looking for it to appear. Evidently,
the wheels of commerce turned slowly over at EZ in those days, so I gave up. I
was a jap-riding sort of guy then, had one of the new 900 twin-cam Hondas, one
of the fastest available at the time and I remember it was part of the sequence
of events that had a profound effect on the rest of my life. I had a near-crash
experience, I was heading around the curve on the motorway, about 2 miles away
was a roundabout, where the motorway ended. However that particular day, there
had been a crash on the roundabout, and I no sooner straightened out from the
curve when I saw a BIG backup of vehicles in front of me! I was doing a good 135
mph at the time, I grabbed the front brake and the rear of the bike lifted off
the ground and began to come around. I remember the feeling that this was going
to be very messy, and going sideways at better than 100 mph I decided that if I
got through this, then I was going to change the way I looked at motorcycling.
Well, I still have no idea how I avoided hitting anything, I got the thing
stopped about four cars past the end of the backup on the hard shoulder, and
within the week, traded the Honda in for something a little more sedate, a BMW
900. It was March and the May issue of Easyriders came out! I
didn't see it at first, but one morning I got up, and there were at least 15
letters from the colonies waiting for me, I read them, and replied to them all,
but the next day there were 25 more! Needless to say, I became more selective
about whom I wrote back to, I replied only to the ones that included photographs
or sounded very interesting, and ignored all the ones in prison for armed
robbery etc. Included in these was a rather irate letter from a girl named Lee,
who lived in London, asking me what was the matter with British girls? She was
very nice with it and sent a photo, so I replied. Eventually I had it down to
about five ladies I was corresponding with, including Lee. She was very much
into Triumphs, and would extol their virtues ad nauseam. One weekend I went to
visit, now London is only 72 miles from Portsmouth, but you know how distance is
relative, back there 72 miles was a day away (or so it seemed) so I set off on
the "Great Journey." Anyhow, we met, and rode around the city some,
and I was quite taken with her (didn't hurt that her daddy was richer than God,
and they were the only ones in their fashionable Victoria residence that wasn't
titled!). Anyway, while I was there, I got constant ribbing about the Beemer,
why didn't I like British bikes etc.etc. So I began to look at them with a new
eye, and there was one in particular I used to pass every day on my way to work,
it looked big for a Triumph, and it was some kind of purple and white, looked
very good, also it never seemed to move! One day I stopped and asked, it was a
750 Trident that the guy wanted to get rid of. Here was my chance! I advertised
the BMW and it was snapped up immediately by some yuppy type, and I borrowed
another 100 pounds from grandad to make the deal. I loved that bike, it was far
different from the jap bikes I was used to and way above the staid BMW! The
first motorcycle with "character." Wish I still had it, and I made
arrangements to go and see Lee again, excited that I had a way-cool bike to
impress her with this time! Well, of course things didn't go quite so well that
visit, and soon she sent me a letter saying she had acquired a regular boyfriend
locally. However the other letters from the U.S. continued, and one of them,
whose name was Colleen, began calling me on the phone too. It seems that she was
about to come into an insurance settlement and was planning on coming over to
visit. Sure enough, that July, I picked her up in a hired car from Heathrow, and
took her to a hotel in Southsea (the seaside portion of Portsmouth) and things
went very well, I was impressed with the openness she exhibited (the same
openness that would eventually lead to divorce), and I was very sad when it came
time for her to leave. I thought about it for a few weeks, and then decided to
go to the U.S. and visit. I had no money, of course, was hard to keep making the
payments on the original loan, so I traded in my beloved Trident on a Triumph
Bonneville of the same year (1975) and 400 pounds cash. This was enough to fly
standby to Chicago, and so I went. After a not entirely successful visit
(culture shock and homesickness) we both returned to the U.K. This time,
however, they would only let her into the country for 30 days! The only way
around this was to get married. We were already engaged so it just accelerated
things some. Anyhow, we were Married and spent about eight months struggling to
make a living and trying to find a reasonable place to live. It was all very
depressing (as life tends to be over there) and we were getting letters from her
family saying they were all moving to Texas, where there was a great economic
boom going on. You know, if you dangle the thought of a lot of money and
way-sunny skies in front of the average lad in Britain during a way-rainy
autumn, and I think a lot of them would jump at it. Anyway, we sold everything
else we had (sorry to see that Triumph go too) and came back over to the U.S.
and lived down in Texas for a few years. Much has happened since then of course,
but apart from missing my family, and trying for another two years to live in
England (87-89), I have no regrets about moving here. This is easily the best
country in the world, truly the land of the free, certainly not without it's
problems and the people who live here have NO idea how good they have it. Today,
Easyriders is snapped up by the yups as quickly as my old beemer was, luckily we
have The Horse to continue the tradition.
I
didn't see it at first, but one morning I got up, and there were at least 15
letters from the colonies waiting for me, I read them, and replied to them all,
but the next day there were 25 more! Needless to say, I became more selective
about whom I wrote back to, I replied only to the ones that included photographs
or sounded very interesting, and ignored all the ones in prison for armed
robbery etc. Included in these was a rather irate letter from a girl named Lee,
who lived in London, asking me what was the matter with British girls? She was
very nice with it and sent a photo, so I replied. Eventually I had it down to
about five ladies I was corresponding with, including Lee. She was very much
into Triumphs, and would extol their virtues ad nauseam. One weekend I went to
visit, now London is only 72 miles from Portsmouth, but you know how distance is
relative, back there 72 miles was a day away (or so it seemed) so I set off on
the "Great Journey." Anyhow, we met, and rode around the city some,
and I was quite taken with her (didn't hurt that her daddy was richer than God,
and they were the only ones in their fashionable Victoria residence that wasn't
titled!). Anyway, while I was there, I got constant ribbing about the Beemer,
why didn't I like British bikes etc.etc. So I began to look at them with a new
eye, and there was one in particular I used to pass every day on my way to work,
it looked big for a Triumph, and it was some kind of purple and white, looked
very good, also it never seemed to move! One day I stopped and asked, it was a
750 Trident that the guy wanted to get rid of. Here was my chance! I advertised
the BMW and it was snapped up immediately by some yuppy type, and I borrowed
another 100 pounds from grandad to make the deal. I loved that bike, it was far
different from the jap bikes I was used to and way above the staid BMW! The
first motorcycle with "character." Wish I still had it, and I made
arrangements to go and see Lee again, excited that I had a way-cool bike to
impress her with this time! Well, of course things didn't go quite so well that
visit, and soon she sent me a letter saying she had acquired a regular boyfriend
locally. However the other letters from the U.S. continued, and one of them,
whose name was Colleen, began calling me on the phone too. It seems that she was
about to come into an insurance settlement and was planning on coming over to
visit. Sure enough, that July, I picked her up in a hired car from Heathrow, and
took her to a hotel in Southsea (the seaside portion of Portsmouth) and things
went very well, I was impressed with the openness she exhibited (the same
openness that would eventually lead to divorce), and I was very sad when it came
time for her to leave. I thought about it for a few weeks, and then decided to
go to the U.S. and visit. I had no money, of course, was hard to keep making the
payments on the original loan, so I traded in my beloved Trident on a Triumph
Bonneville of the same year (1975) and 400 pounds cash. This was enough to fly
standby to Chicago, and so I went. After a not entirely successful visit
(culture shock and homesickness) we both returned to the U.K. This time,
however, they would only let her into the country for 30 days! The only way
around this was to get married. We were already engaged so it just accelerated
things some. Anyhow, we were Married and spent about eight months struggling to
make a living and trying to find a reasonable place to live. It was all very
depressing (as life tends to be over there) and we were getting letters from her
family saying they were all moving to Texas, where there was a great economic
boom going on. You know, if you dangle the thought of a lot of money and
way-sunny skies in front of the average lad in Britain during a way-rainy
autumn, and I think a lot of them would jump at it. Anyway, we sold everything
else we had (sorry to see that Triumph go too) and came back over to the U.S.
and lived down in Texas for a few years. Much has happened since then of course,
but apart from missing my family, and trying for another two years to live in
England (87-89), I have no regrets about moving here. This is easily the best
country in the world, truly the land of the free, certainly not without it's
problems and the people who live here have NO idea how good they have it. Today,
Easyriders is snapped up by the yups as quickly as my old beemer was, luckily we
have The Horse to continue the tradition.
